Tina Gharavi talks to Steve Pratt about the complex methods required to make a film about Iranians living in the UK.

A DECADE ago South Shields-based filmmaker Tina Gharavi made a C4 documentary, Mother/Country, about returning to Iran after 23 years and meeting her mother.

That led to an idea for another film. “I wanted to tell the story of first and second generation migrants’ kids who lived in the East and the West and were inbetweeners almost,” she explains.

Her background was in documentary, but she thought the “very internal and emotional” story she wanted to tell was better suited to fiction.

Eight years later the result – the feature film I Am Nasrine – debuts at Newcastle’s Tyneside cinema on Sunday.

She went about planning the film in an unusual way. “I thought I’d invite people to my house and cook them dinner. They would tell me their stories and I would tell them mine and devise a script out of those, I imagined, 1,001 stories,” she explains.

“When people started coming they were from an asylum background, something very different to my own experience. I came in 1979 to Britain when the Shah was deposed. I was very privileged, I came on an airplane and my dad was doing his PhD in Loughborough.

“It was hardly like some stories I heard and experiences I didn’t know anything about. I was shocked to see the amount of prejudice and hatred towards this group that seems to be fuelled by the media.

“I said I would teach them filmmaking – that was the only skill I have – and they could make their own films, and I would devise and develop my own script from their experiences.”

That script became Ali In Wonderland, later retitled I Am Nasrine.

The film sends its heroine on a voyage of discovery when she’s forced from her comfortable middle class Tehran home after a run-in with the police. She and her brother flee to the UK, settling in the North-East.

“It’s very much a young girl’s story, about finding her inner strength. I don’t think it’s a very ‘plotty’ film but a very emotionally driven story. You’re watching her and rooting for her. You care about her, you want her to succeed and do well.”

Gharavi, who teaches film at Newcastle University, admits it’s her story “in many ways”, although not specifically autobiographical. “I got lost because in the early drafts of the script I was trying to tell something I didn’t really feel,” she says.

“The script wasn’t working. I realised that the moment you put yourself into that character, put in your own real experiences and concerns that you feel strongly about, then it works because it’s personal.”

Financing the £250,000 film wasn’t easy, although help came from the Tyneside Cinema and New Writing North for script development. She was able to complete editing the film following investment by Northstar Ventures through Northern Film and Media. “I ended up finding a way of making the film, which was nothing short of a small miracle. There’s no formal film finance in the shooting of this film, although there is now in completion. This film should never have been made,” she says.

There was also the problem of filming in Iran, which was carried out using two actors and a small crew of technicians. “We almost nearly didn’t go because June 2009 was the beginning of the Green Revolution.

“First, I went to make sure it was safe and set it up. I met producers and film people who were at the top of their game. They were so supportive and really made this happen.

“I explained the situation to the actors and both said they wanted to do it there, believed it was important and wanted to show Iran in a way that’s real because there’s so much misinformation about it. Again, there is some documentary in there that shows the ordinary and the everyday.” One reason for making the film – and she knows this sounds corny – was to change perceptions about why people settle here from other countries.

“I had that experience and know the pain a lot of the people in the group have about people not understanding that someone comes here, often not out of choice.

“These are human beings, trying to build a life for themselves and their children. Every human life has a value and they all have stories which if you take the time to listen might potentially change your mind about the reality and whether you would make any different decision if you were in that situation.”

• I Am Nasrine shows at Newcastle Tyneside Cinema on Sunday at 5.30pm, followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Tina Gharavi