Art & Culture

Iranian Filmmaker Ali Asgari on Cinema, Censorship, and Connecting With Arab Audiences

BYMeriem Belhiba

November 28, 2025

Ali Asgari’s presence at the inaugural Doha Film Festival carried a quiet weight. Divine Comedy, his new dramedy about a filmmaker trying to screen a film in Iran, had its MENA premiere in Doha, and Asgari kept describing the film with an unusual simplicity. “I just put the camera in the street and filmed. What you see is the reality. We did not have extras. They are normal people. It was a very low budget film, shot over a short period of time.” Although the story is not autobiographical, he said parts of it come directly from everyday life. “Some events are inspired by real life,” he explained, “but it is not my story. It is a personal film told through a comedic lens.”

Doha is not new terrain for him, yet this visit felt different. “I have been here for my short films and then my feature films for many years,” he told MILLE, “but what I am seeing now is that the festival has grown. It feels more special this year, especially with this competition and bringing all these filmmakers together.” His respect for how the festival supports regional talent was clear. Divine Comedy did not apply for DFI funding because the program focuses on first and second features, but Asgari noted that “I have been supported two times for my previous films,” and emphasized that Doha continues to play “an important role in cinema and art in the region.”

The audience mattered deeply to him, and his description of the MENA premiere carried a mix of gratitude and relief. He expected a certain closeness due to shared cultural experiences, and the screening confirmed that. “They were really interacting with the situations,” he said. “They were laughing, they were clapping during the film, and afterward they connected very much with it.” He explained the connection simply. “Because of the similarities we have in culture and in the way we live, they understand it with their bones and skins.” He added that he feels the same way watching films from the Arab world. “I can connect in a different way that Western audiences cannot.”

Asgari’s conversation often returned to the idea of censorship, not only the kind imposed by institutions but also the kind that takes root inside the artist. “There are two levels of censorship in Iran. The direct governmental censorship, and the inner censorship. The inner one lives inside the artist.” He said this internal layer is often the most limiting because it is unconscious. “The censorship that I know, I try not to think about. But the one we do not realize exists is more difficult because it forms from childhood and follows us.”

He illustrated this with Disappearance, his first feature, which was filmed without a permit to avoid explicit censorship. Only after showing the film abroad did he realize that internal limits had shaped it. Viewers asked why the male character never embraced the girl beside him. Asgari recognized the answer instantly. “I had never even thought about it. Because all my life I saw that such a moment is impossible in the streets of Tehran.” The discovery stayed with him. “Some people think censorship creates art, but I think its negative effect in the long term is much larger than any possible benefit.”

Divine Comedy grew partly from that tension and partly from a personal desire. “None of my films have ever been screened inside Iran,” he said. That reality lingered. “I wanted at least one of them to be seen inside the country. From that thinking, the film started.” The film deals with restrictions, but he does not present it through tragedy or heroism. He pointed to a line spoken by one of the characters: “I did not kill anyone. It is just a film. Nothing will happen from showing a film.” For Asgari, the sentence reflects a lived truth rather than a political posture.

When asked about the international appeal of Iranian and Arab cinema, the filmmaker described it as the product of artists responding to their realities. “We have deeper issues to discuss. Cinema for us is not just entertainment. It talks about human situations, human life in this part of the world.” He understands why many Arab filmmakers say they want to tell stories beyond conflict, and he sympathizes with the desire for normalcy. Still, he believes the circumstances of a place inevitably shape its art. “The question is whether you consider cinema an art or entertainment. Even if you want to talk about political situations, the film must use cinema. It cannot be just reportage. You need the cinematic elements first.”

His own films often centre ordinary people pushed into extraordinary circumstances, a storytelling instinct he sees as universal. “An ordinary person surrounded by a bad situation. This creates drama.” Divine Comedy follows that instinct. It is lighter in tone than his earlier work, but it remains shaped by the pressures that define everyday life for Iranian filmmakers.

Asgari ended on a reflection about what cinema means to him. “Cinema means people gather in a place and watch something together and feel something together.” In Doha, he watched that happen again as the audience reacted in real time. Their laughter and applause seemed to affirm his approach, not because it softened the difficulties he works under, but because it reminded him why he makes films at all. His work may be shaped by constraints, but he refuses to let those constraints define the art itself.

Iranian Filmmaker Ali Asgari on Cinema, Censorship, and Connecting With Arab Audiences

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Iranian Filmmaker Ali Asgari on Cinema, Censorship, and Connecting With Arab Audiences

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