My interview with Peyman Khosravi and Babak Yousefi can be summed up by one word – inspiring. I was inspired not only by the film that I had the opportunity to screen before it was completed, but also by the personal struggles that director Peyman Khosravi has encountered to ensure that the story of the individuals in his moving documentary I Know That I Am would reach viewers around the globe.

Peyman had worked for fourteen years in Persian media in Iran when this film project ended his career and forced him to leave the country. One could say that the telling of a story of a group of transsexuals has effectively ended Peyman’s life as he knew it. He not only had to leave a prominent career, but he also had to leave his family and friends without even being able to say goodbye. When I asked him if he had any regrets, he said that he had none. Although he left his family and life behind Peyman noted that he feels happy and proud that he can give voice to a group in society that has no place, that he is able to tell the truth about the oppressed. It had become his responsibility to tell their story and to ensure that the work was the loudest voice as oppression doesn’t allow for sound.

He lost over 70% of the film that he had shot in the six months working with the individuals featured when his house was raided just before he had been forced to leave Iran. But Peyman later remarked that I could say in this article that only 30% of the pain comes across. He is also remorseful that of the footage that was lost some was of an individual who had suffered the most and who ultimately killed themselves – a story he had hoped to have been able to tell. But the story that he does tell is one that is candid, serious and passionate. It made me question my understanding of the Iranian culture, as well as made me want to learn more.

In the interview assisting as interpreter was Babak Yousefi who is working with Peyman in editing and also giving financial support for the film. Babak had just recently met Peyman and after watching eleven straight hours of footage he said that it was no question he would become involved with the project. Babak, who has been in Canada for most of his life, said that in watching the footage it had changed his opinion of his background and he no longer has respect for the government or the people who would watch this oppression and not do anything about it.

I can not put into words the struggle, the pain or the strength of character of the individuals in the film. It is a documentary with no narration and simple cinematography so that you as the viewer can take from it what you will. Peyman feels he has no right to say what you should take away from the film, but that he hopes the viewers will feel for one second what it feels like to be a stranger in your own family and country. He said what makes him sad is that no matter how well the film gets across no one can fully understand the pain Iranian transsexuals experience waking up with no hope, with reaching out a hand for help only to have everything taken from them.

Neither Peyman nor Babak wanted to seem pessimistic but they said that the burden is now on their shoulders to not only get the film screened in as many festivals as possible, but also to ensure that help is sent back to the transsexual community in Iran; that they each have the realization that they may be risking their lives, but that this project is a bigger cause than life.

In the last moments of my interview Peyman remarked that it makes him emotional and anxious that he couldn’t speak English better so that he could scream about the atrocities that he became privy to. But his screams and those of the individuals have been put onto film. When you see the lives they are forced into, merely by being who they are, I can only hope that you may feel the need to scream.

I Know That I Am will be screened for the first time at this year’s Queer Film Festival with directors in attendance on August 20 at 7:00pm at Tinseltown.