If I become a symbol of dialogue and tolerance, the world is going wrong, because I am neither super nice nor very, very tolerant”, joked the Iranian cartoonist and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi (Raixt, 1969) yesterday in a wheel of telematic press after being named winner of the Princess of Asturias Prize for Communication and Humanities. In fact, already from his debut with Persepolis, today already a classic that went beyond comics, Satrapi became an important voice of feminism and activism for women’s freedom, as he has shown until his last book, Woman, life, freedom (Finestres, Reservoir Books in Spanish), a collective work based on the death of Mahsa Amini and the protests it raised throughout the country.
Erected today, therefore, as a symbol of the fight against the injustices of Islamic fundamentalism, the laureate did not bite her tongue to remember that, since she published her first book, 24 years ago, “the situation in Iran has worsened, the dictatorship is even more violent, with 85% of the population wanting a secular democracy and 65% living below the poverty line. Satrapi even assured that “he would slap Josep Borrell”, head of European diplomacy: “I am very angry with him” for not recognizing that “Iran is a terrorist state”. He was responding to recent statements in which Borrell considered that including the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the EU’s list of terrorist organizations “would not have any practical effect”.
Satrapi dedicated the award to the rapper condemned to death Toomaj Salehi: “The voice of Iran, of all its peoples and social classes, who calls for unity with his music. To execute him is to execute all the youth”. He dedicated it because “saying generic words of good intentions is an empty thing, you only need to talk about what is known and this is my battle. My artistic life is not always linked to my political life, art is art and, if Persepolis worked, it was surely because it is an honest work of art”.
“I’m not made to receive awards, it’s something that bothers me, but I think that the projection of the award will have a real impact, and that’s why I accept it”, she pointed out, hoping that the pressure will contribute to improving the situation in his country, because “it is important that there are speakers”. For her, right now Iran is experiencing a “women’s revolution” and it is necessary to understand that “equality is also beneficial for men, it is not a fight against them, but against the patriarchal culture”, and that is why “it is very good that girls can have other models. As a child, my role model was Batman.”
According to the verdict of the jury, chaired by Víctor García de la Concha, the awardee is “an essential voice for the defense of human rights and freedom. Satrapi is a symbol of civic engagement led by women. Due to her audacity and artistic production, she is considered one of the most influential people in the dialogue between cultures and generations. The prize aims to highlight Marjane Satrapi’s talent for reinventing the relationship between art and communication”.
Born into a prosperous and progressive family, at the age of 14 her parents sent her to study in Vienna to avoid the oppressive environment after the Islamic revolution, and although she later returned to Iran to begin her career in Fine Arts, in 1994 he permanently emigrated to France, where he has lived since then. Already there he created and published Persepolis, the autobiography in the form of a graphic novel that shows the transition from a secular society to the dictatorship of the Ayatollahs and the progressive repression of women. In 2007, her adventure was turned into an animated film that she directed herself with Vincent Paronnaud and which won them the Cannes Jury Prize and two Césars, as well as being nominated for an Oscar.
He then continued with stories often linked to the everyday life of women in his country of origin, such as Embroidery in 2003, or Chicken with Plums in 2004. He has also directed non-animated films, such as the biopic Marie Curie, starring Rosamund Pike and based, of course, on a graphic novel by Lauren Redniss. Paradis Paris will premiere in October, with actors such as Monica Bellucci, Rossy de Palma and Eduardo Noriega.
