Waking with Martyrs: An exegesis towards understanding & situating the filmmaker in a dramatically structured documentary

Abstract

This exegesis offers an understanding of the practical PhD which led to the creation of the feature documentary film Waking with Martyrs, a film which follows an Iranian-Australian filmmaker’s journey into war sites of Iran. On the one hand, this study situates the personal, social, political and historical context which led to the construction of the journey and the film. While it examines the personal reasons for which the filmmaker embarked on the journey, it situates Iranian war sites as new sites of pilgrimages and highlights its political and social significance in Iran. It highlights the importance of these war pilgrimages within a religious and political landscape, not only arguing for their political importance in Iran, but also for their significance in defining parts of Iranian identity. The study examines how the journey offers insight into one of Iran’s least understood pro-government groups who embark on such kinds of journeys. It further examines the way the film could be seen as an agent of shifting perspectives and changes, not only for the filmmaker, but also for the subjects in the film, and the viewing audiences. On the other hand, this study situates the film through theories of documentary, examining in detail the processes, which led to the particular creation of the film. It examines the film within the larger scope of diasporic Iranian filmic landscape about the war and argues how this film could be seen as contributing to a new understanding of the situation within Iran.