Film, Politics, and Public Discourse: TSLAS Political Science Major Brings Together Screening and Dialogue on Iran’s "Woman, Life, Freedom" Movement

The Political Science major at TSLAS organized an event featuring a screening of Jafar Panahi's film It Was Just an Accident, followed by a talk on Iran's "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement. The event brought together cinema and scholarship to examine questions of freedom, resistance, and state control.

 

It opened with a screening of Panahi's film, winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. The film employed a semi-documentary style that blurred fiction and reality, probing the fragility of individual freedoms and the complexity of social relationships within a society shaped by censorship and the unspoken.

 

Following the screening, Dr Leila Chamankhah delivered a talk on the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement in Iran. The talk explored the movement as a response to more than four decades of Islamist hegemony since the 1979 revolution, with compulsory hijab standing as a central flashpoint. According to organizers, the movement spread with such speed and intensity that it drew cities across Iran into a unified wave of resistance and opposition.

 

The discussion also delved into the deeper aims behind the September 2022 uprising, framing it as more than a rejection of forced head covering. Organizers noted that what Iranians sought went beyond dismantling a core symbol of the 1979 Islamist discourse, it was a reclaiming of ordinary life, one that had been manipulated and distorted over four decades of ideological rule.

 

In terms of format, the event combined film and dialogue, using cinema as a starting point for deeper political and social discussion. Attendees had been asked to register in advance to help organizers plan for tea.