"Dance is the only way for me to sail through life." "Even now, I cannot imagine living without my dance." "Before learning how to write I was reciting poems." "Poetry gives meaning to my life." "L wouldn't change a verse for anything in the world." "Entering a minefield forms part of my artistic job." "It is a deep entrance into the trauma." "I think it is an issue of an extreme feeling of guilt... because I survived the war." "Although I'm in love with cinema, for me it is mainly a medium." "I love my job and can't imagine my life without it." "I'm convinced that risks have to be taken to change things." "L believe that we, as women, through the anti-military and feminist struggle... will save the world and make men change." "Being a feminist requires opposition to militarism... because it is the last resort of the patriarchy." "When we oppose repressive relationships between women and men, we also opposes militarism, racism, capitalism..." "The role of cinema and all arts in a country like ours... is totally different from the role in developed countries." "We must use all the media... to inform, to educate... and expose all the issues they prefer to keep silent." "I believe all works of art originate in a traumatic experience... and end up in another one." "I'm only trying to find the way out." "L love reading my own poetry and other people's." "For me poetry is like worshipping God" "I would give my life for a poem." "I cry for it..." "I surrender in front of it." "And that is how I see dance..." "It's a huge giant always standing in front of me." "And I can't really say:" "I want to acquire you." "L can only say:" "L can love you." "Walking and pinpointing minefields around Sarajevo, looking for a place where we could continue our lives... we found an old Muslim cemetery... from the XVI century, marked as a minefield, which some children had turned into a football pitch." "This released my deepest trauma... as I realized that life is energy which flows like water." "When you enter a minefield and risk your life for others... there are a lot of moments which remain in your mind." "You enter a space where you are completely conscious... and where one minute seems like a year." "In my opinion a minefield is an example of something... created by man... without being aware that... in the end it would turn against him." "As when explosives, the Atomic Bomb, and other things were created... which turned against him." "It is incredible how far we can go with our creations." "Everyone coming into Sarajevo used to see us as victims, and they still do." "I told myself:" "I'm not a victim, I don't want to be a victim," "I want to do something for myself." "After the war I started to think about what I could do for my country." "L started clearing minefields." "And by doing this I felt I had the right to speak." "Then I gathered some of the earth that I had cleared... and took it with me wherever I went." "She is selling the earth from the minefields... to collect funds in order to continue de-mining." "WARSAW" "ROME" "VALENCIA" "To Warsaw, Valencia, Rome, Slavonski Brod, to all the exhibitions I was invited to... and where my work was needed." "When someone wants to be an artist because they cannot let... what's going on around them stay the same... achieving fame in the world of... art becomes unimportant." "While selling the earth I wanted to ask people... if when they bought a work of art... they were sure of what they were buying." "If they were able to pay millions for a Picasso... and afterwards delete his signature and put their own in." "How can they think of buying a minefield or a work of art?" "How do they think they can buy this feeling?" "L wanted to create a bigger space for mankind... turning something negative into something positive," "so that we can live without daily limitations imposed by this space... and we can express ourselves freely." "What have you written Alma?" "One song." "It is in a medieval language." "They're talking about one girl... she was a soldier..." "Pushed by the love she had for her brother... she left her small village and followed him to war." "The battlefield filled her with horror... but when the war ended... she stayed to cultivate the land." "Since I was a child I had this image of being at a shop window." "And I still like this idea, maybe this is why I like cinema so much." "L had recurring dreams of a glass table." "And like in the shop window, I could see everybody." "This dream continued every night." "L could see all the people I loved from above... and observe what was happening in their lives." "Now I understand the significance of this dream whereas before I didn't." "This is the point of view I follow in my cinema:" "Look, observe and discover." "No, he wasn't that good looking." "Have you given me the right telephone number?" "How do you say "administration" in English?" "The line was cut off!" ""Beautiful" and rich, very rich." "Now I'm gonna say "hello" to everyone." "Film this!" "This is like a scene from "Under the Skin of the city" Isn't it, rakhshan?" " Do you remember?" " Yes, yes..." "Shooting!" "Fix your scarf, cover your hair!" "Actually, there isn't a written law." "Sometimes instructions are given with concrete prohibitions." "But there are things we already know, such as the prohibition of physical contact in public... or a woman without a headscarf." " Is Ali at home?" " He left and I didn't notice." " Come to bed." " I'll sleep in my own bed." "L always try to find a way to say what I want... and instead of skirting the limits I fly over them." "A girl has just got into the car." "She wants to film but we don't know what." "Hush, girls, the police." "Be quiet, there's a Mr. Basiji." "Shut up!" "Follow that one!" "Basiji has got on a motorbike." "Girls, I swear by the holy book that he's going to create a problem." "No, we'll say that a foreigner's riding with us and she wants to shoot a film." ""Good boy"" "When they detain us you'll understand." "The majority of the laws we have... have no relation to the thoughts nor the needs of the Iranian youth." "That's why they have become a reactive generation." "Living in a society of men, between tradition and modernity is difficult for everyone, but for the young it's a lot harder." "We thought that the revolution would allow... many of the claims we... shared with people of different ideologies to come true." "You can't deny that a lot of things changed... and this was natural after such a huge transformation." "But I think that the changes which occurred after the revolution... didn't meet the expectations we had." "Justice, liberty." "Iran for all the Iranians." ""Shut up"" "Be Quiet, the policeman Basiji is following us." "Yes, Yes it's true, he got on a motorbike." "Marjan, Marjan, he's coming." "We were only laughing among ourselves." "Go a little slower." "The female characters in my films are based on people around me, but none of them exist in the real world." "There is a connection between the women I met during the process of research... and what you see in my films is the image of their distinct situations." "That's why a lot of people... from different social extractions... feel identified in my films." " Where is my picture?" " It's here" " how ugly I am!" " No, you're pretty" "Wow, how ugly he is!" "Every time I think about the past, it is not only my family that comes into mind... but also all the characters in my films." "The conflicts that I've had with them are always with me." "Unfortunately, my hands are too small... to take the world into my arms." "We have a problem in Turkey:" "The military repress Muslims because of their religion." "I'm as much against de-veiling a woman by force... as veiling her by force." "That's why I'm supporting the demonstrations of the women in veil." "And I'm for legalizing the use of the veil at the university." "What worries me is the military control on people's beliefs." "In Turkey, politics are polarized... and we're made to believe there is no other choice." "The military say: "if we leave, Islamists will replace us"," "And the Islamists say the opposite." "L have been interested in politics since my childhood," "In my high school years I was part of the leftist movement." "But I realised that there was no great difference... between the dominant ideology and the alternative groups." "After graduating, I found the human rights Defence organization." "L observed them for two years and in 1989 I started to work with them." "In this institution, hierarchical questions between women and men... are at a minimum, though I can't say that they don't exist." "As defenders of human rights... we find this TV programme to be very harmful." "It presents violence against women as something trivial." "They show these aggressions as something normal." "I've been a lawyer for 20 years." "I've always defended political and torture cases." "But when in 1995 I was jailed in a cell with my clients," "I found out that they faced a form of torture... that nobody had ever told me about before." "All of them had faced sexual harassment and some had been raped." "Then, I started to think what we could do about it." "We got together and organized our office." "Our aim is to encourage women to seek their own solutions." "It is very hard for them to talk about it." "Always the same answer to the question of why they don't denounce this:" "Because I don't want to upset my father"" "But then again I've never met a woman... worried about upsetting her mother." "Both the penal and civil code of the Turkish constitution... are very patriarchal." "The articles on violence against women are grouped together in the chapter... crimes against Public Morality and Family"." "The law has changed, but in practice it remains the same." "Women are still considered to be a part of a man's honour." "Why do you sacrifice animals at Bayram?" "Because Muslims sacrifice animals on this day." "Tell us the story..." " Explain it?" " Yes." " You want to hear the story?" " Yes, tell it to us." "In the time of our Prophet..." "The Prophet was about to sacrifice his son, but God sent a lamb instead." "His knife wouldn't cut, so God sent a lamb for him to sacrifice." "The Prophet consecrated his son, but God sent him a lamb." "Stop, calm down." "Do you accept me as your butcher?" "Do you?" "Do you?" ""God is great. "" ""God is great." "And he is full of mercy. "" "L think not only Islam but all other religions are patriarchal... and try to control women." "This is all down to the roles that have been assigned to us;" "They're well served; everything they want is done by women." "Of course, they don't want a woman who says: "no, I won't serve you!"" "It's a socially sexist point of view." "They learned it from their fathers, and practice it without questioning it." "Since 1991, the Turkish revenge Group... has been threatening me... as well as a lot of other people who work in human rights." "Just after the threats started, 14 members were killed." "L was held at gunpoint in Diyarbakir in 1994... but it was only to frighten me." "Now, I know that I might be killed." "But I'm used to it." "My greatest fear is to lose the ones I love." "This affects me every day." "Besides this, I'm threatened and naturally feel scared." "L try not to get home late, I don't walk alone at night," "I check all the locks..." "Sometimes at night they ring my bell constantly to frighten me." "They call me by phone and say they're close to my home and coming." "It's like death is always by my side." "When somebody gets out of jail and hugs me, or when a torture victim... says they are no longer scared because I'm with them," "I feel something that not many people can feel." "These feelings give me strength" "That's why I've never regretted my choice of line of work." "From what I've read in the news about you, I think that you're very brave." "Are you really that brave?" "L don't know if I'm that brave... but it's a fact that we run more risks than a lot of other people." "L don't want to speak just for myself because... as a human rights defender, I'm not alone." "When you believe in what you do, you accept living in fear." "A lot of people talk about how important democracy is, and human rights... but she's someone who really applies it every day, every second... and that makes her special to me." ""We're her workmates and we want her to sing a song. "" ""We insist"." "They have written that." "L knew they would do this to me." "You went to the conservatory, so you know how to sing." "L wonder which song they want me to sing." "They didn't ask for any specific song... but we would prefer "My brave, my lion"." "L love this song, it's always sung in honour of the murdered journalist Ugur Mumcu." ""The tiny home town roads" ""he cannot use his hands because of pain" ""These tiny roads of my birthplace" ""he cannot use his hands due to pain" ""he was convicted and not a soul heard about it." ""My brave, my lion rests in peace." ""He was convicted and not a soul heard about it." ""My brave, my lion rests in peace"" "In the name of God, I am Moshgan and I live in herat next to a river." "L have eight sisters." "Three of them are married... and are teachers." "Another makes documentaries, and another one makes movies." "My sister Omeira paints beautiful paintings, and I have another sister who loves music." ""What a strange land my country is!" ""Can you believe that when you sow a seed you collect bullets?" ""How late we dream about another birth." ""Do you remember those days when we could conquer hearts with a smile?" ""Do you remember those days when my white..." ""ribbons adorned my mother's prayers?" ""Oh, oh... me and my land." ""We have both lost our reflexes." "L have always lived in Afghanistan." "Since childhood I've been surrounded by war." "L don't have any good memories, not even of school," "because school was forbidden and we had to go in secret." "Everything was forbidden during the Taliban period." "Women were not allowed to walk on the streets without a man." "As we don't have a brother, one of us had to dress as a boy," "so she could go to the bazaar and do the shopping." "I wore boys' clothes because that way..." "I could go out to get what we needed... and help my father outside the house." "Once, at the bazaar, prayer time arrived." "We had to go to the mosque," "The guards used to hit and force people to pray." "In the mosque I saw that everyone was staring at me with accusing eyes." "When I came out, I told my father... and I realized that it was due to the way I held my hands:" "L was praying like a woman." "That was the most horrible experience in my life." ""Instead of hiding behind the veil looking for riddles..." ""look for the path that takes you to the hidden treasures. "" ""Instead of hiding behind the veil looking for riddles..." ""look for the path that takes you to the hidden treasures. "" "Women and girls who live in Afghanistan... have very few opportunities to make use of their talent." "Most of them get married." "L don't have anything against marriage." "The problem is that many women... cannot continue studying afterwards." "The husband's family or even the husband himself won't let them." "The women surrender without a fight." "What I'm saying is that women must see if, after marriage, they will have the opportunity to study and improve." ""The legends are ash," ""the valleys narrow until they become ravines," ""we have sung to the mirror, in these claustrophobic times" ""oh, the faces have turned into stones!"" "We must work to be more useful... and we have to do our best to build our country and become self sufficient." "Those who are educated have to work even harder." "It is important to live this way." "If our work becomes a routine over time, we have to do everything possible to get over this feeling... and continue being useful to our community." "If we live with this goal... we will make the best of every moment..." ""If I stop walking, call me stone." ""If I don't find water and escape, call me stone..." ""from the white throat of a palace, the marble shouted:" ""Although I'm marble, call me stone. "" "All I remember is that when I started to stand I started to dance... and nobody in my family had ever danced." "Now I realize." "L didn't know at that time... that that compulsion I had was so strong that I couldn't help it." "L had to dance." "L first saw her" " I was doing a television show - a talk show." "And I was always looking out for new talent." "And somebody took me to a small dance school... and there I saw a young lady... with a little bit of puppy fat..." "I think she was all of 16 and a half then." "And she unabashedly began to dance... and I was very, very impressed with the abandonment with which she danced." "The greatest thing she possessed, as far as I was concerned was her presence." "L very rarely see dancers with such a strong stage presence." "For her to come and take a stance on the stage... and just stand still... and it immediately sends a kind of a... thrill right the way across the footlights to the audience." "She had a weekly program on TV... which was called Payal... in which she explained the history, she explained the beats, certain things." "And that was a very popular program." "People used to watch it." "But with classical dancing music, there were these question marks." "Is it ours?" "Is it not ours?" "What do we do with it?" "And so, after Pakistan was made, there was this question:" "What is our culture?" "And not knowing what is the identity... how to separate what is Muslim and what is not Muslim." "In fact, Kathak is a Muslim form... in the sense that it was developed by the Great Mughal Empire... who were Muslims and they came from central Asia." "So it was quite difficult and somehow it carried a kind of a stigma..." "The stigma was possibly because of the lower social class of the performers." "It kind of came to be connected to... in its lowest form, to prostitution." "In that innocence, and exploring my own freedom, I was dancing... without realizing that I'm a Muslim woman from Pakistan." "And that people are watching me with different eyes." "L was not at all aware... exercising my own self, my own purity... my own truth." "She wanted to go way beyond." "There were not that kind of opportunities for her." "All of this was going on at a time which was politically highly fraught." "Because suddenly the government toppled... and a rather rigid and fundamentalist kind of a new ruler came about... in the name of General Zia Ul Haq, he was the one who ruled for ten years... and ruled in order to promote the real and true Islam." "And in that real and true Islam there was no time... for such lewd and lascivious activities like dance." "All dance was banned." "Even folk dances were banned to be performed publicly." "And of course this created a lot of repression in people, and fear... but more than that it stamped out the tradition of learning classical dance." "And we had great exponents, the foremost of them was Nahid Siddikhi... and she could not perform." "The first thing they did when they came in power... the military, they banned my serial on dance." "And the Minister of culture at that time said:" ""This is not our culture." "She is spreading Indian culture... she is ruining our younger generation. "" "And so I had to leave the country." "I have been away for many years, outside Pakistan... then I had to go to England." "Homage to the poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz" "In effect she had to lose her nationality to continue being a dancer." "Which I think is extremely tragic." "L had to sign a document which said... that I would not dance anywhere in the world... unless the government of Pakistan wants me to." "Really, at that time I thought that it would be better to kill me." "It would be better to sentence me to death... but not say this because I will never stop dancing." ""So, if you hear me lord, then Thy will be done" ""I would keep Your commandments, every one of them." ""And if my shortcomings do not please You," ""Shall I go seek another lord?"" "So after being away for two years..." "I started to come to Pakistan every year." "And now I've been here for the last three years." "Because I decided to serve my own country." "To teach here, have an institute, perform here..." "And that is how I teach my students;" "that instead of copying me in a patterned fashion," "I want each one of them to bring out their own self." "To explore and become independent." "And share the beauty of all these beautiful and divine art forms." "She feels that Kathak is too rigid, too bound to some very old traditions." "And it needs to be broadened, it needs to be liberated." "L had to struggle to keep my art form alive, because... there were so many hurdles, even in the family, and in my personal life." "Because the art form demands so much time and so much focus." "If you are fulfilling all the roles, it becomes very, very distressing." "And I think that with time, now it will be better." "I'm very optimistic about the women of Pakistan." "They have often taken charge when times have been very difficult." "What can she do in a country like Pakistan?" "L wonder..." "So we are really actually still defining the role of a woman." "And I think that arts are for man or woman, everybody." "There should be no segregation in that." "God has sent us to this world to explore our expression, to add to the beauty of this world." "Not to take away."