Director: Nilram Ranjbar
Running time: 2mins
Film festivals are expensive – and so they often struggle to break even, let alone make a profit. With submission fees often posing as the only dependable source of revenue that many festivals have access to, that can make granting waivers difficult.
Stories told by artists working on a shoe-string budget, or who are hit by censorship, or subjected to international sanctions, still need a platform, though. That’s why Indy Film Library’s Saturday Matinees series has returned for a sixth season.
Over this most recent run of matinees, IFL will be showcasing work from places where monetary and legal constraints have prevented the free and easy communication of their artistic or political visions.
The fourth film in our free-to-view programme is Nilram Ranjbar’s short animation, Cat & Fish. Produced in Iran, the simple, abstract story follows a cat and fish, as they work together to make the most of the sun’s warmth.
The imagery is pleasing on the eye – leveraging stop-motion techniques to resemble two-dimensional drawings is a unique way of presenting the story, and gives the relatively straight-forward looking cartoon characters an extra layer for us to enjoy. The (mostly) primary colours of the assorted felts will soon have viewers feeling like they are regressing into the warm embrace of pre-school children’s television – along with the gentle (if a little non-descript) musical score.
The most remarkable thing about the film is not the chosen medium (and certainly not the minimalist story) though. Nilram Ranjbar was nine at the time she completed the film, and since stop-motion is notoriously time-intensive, might have been even younger during the production of Cat & Fish.
In difficult times for women around the world, it is encouraging that the next generation is already looking to enter the film industry, and learning how to tell stories about the world around her. But it is also something that I can’t help but feel a little anxious about. The state of society as it has been shaped by those before her means inside or outside of Iran, Ranjbar and others like her will face an uphill struggle to have their voices heard in the industry. We owe it to those people to try and reshape the world so that they can make the most of their talents for years to come.
For now, there is undoubtedly plenty of talent on display in Ranjbar’s student project, put together at the Esfahan City school. Here’s hoping that this is the start of a great career, and an opportunity for Ranjbar to reach others with her talent and optimism.
As with all our previous Saturday Matinees, the film will be available to view for free in full from 09:00 UK time on Saturday the 1st of February, until the end of the weekend, via our Saturday Matinees theatre page. You can give it your own score out of five there! As the film is still trying to gain access to other festivals, the page is password protected. Use the code IFLMATINEE25 to access the film.