Documentary filmmaker and activist Mojgan Ilanlou says Iran is like “a patient in the throes of death,” warning that the country’s social and economic crises have spread beyond traditional fault lines.
Speaking to RFE/RL’s Radio Farda from Tehran, where she is currently based, Ilanlou pointed to the eerie quiet of Tehran’s Grand Bazaar and major shopping districts during the customary March rush ahead of Norouz, the Persian New Year, arguing that supermarkets and bakeries serve as “a thermometer for the fever and agitation of society.”
“Since 2021, the crises of poverty, anxiety, and social collapse have surged into the upscale neighborhoods of the city, drowning the entire country,” Ilanlou said, describing a nationwide deterioration that she says is most visible not in official statistics but on the streets where ordinary citizens live.
SEE ALSO: Outspoken Iranian Filmmaker Explains Why She's Boycotting Presidential ElectionIlanlou has been barred from working because of her activism, which includes documenting Iranian women’s struggles.
She spoke to Radio Farda just ahead of a meeting of US and Iranian officials in Geneva aimed at heading off a possible military confrontation over Tehran's nuclear program.
As her compatriots express growing dread online over potential military escalations and a shrinking horizon for political change, Ilanlou said the national psyche has shifted toward what she calls “dreaming” -- a defensive habit in which people cling to hopes of a miraculous rescue.
“Dreaming is the brain's defensive response to a dead end.... People imagine that, through some miracle, the dam will break; that a savior will arrive, or an event will occur, and everything will suddenly be fixed,” she said.
SEE ALSO: Inside Iran, Activists Call For Internal Change, Not Foreign Intervention As Protests Rage OnIlanlou cautioned that overcoming this paralysis will require confronting hard truths. “We must accept that the issue is not simple. There are no easy fixes, no quick wins, and no low-cost paths forward,” she said.
Despite her bleak diagnosis, Ilanlou identified sources of resilience beneath the surface.
She credited a “cultural reserve” built over 16 years by grassroots “circles of thought” following mass post-election demonstrations in 2009 meeting in private homes and bookstores, which she said have helped stave off moral decay and extremism.
SEE ALSO: 'They Have Found The Courage': Iranian Women Go Hijab-Less In Public Amid ProtestsTo her, the Women, Life, Freedom movement that rocked the Islamic republic in 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini while being detained for an alleged head scarf violation, was the culmination of that long-gestating intellectual maturity.
Ultimately, Ilanlou argued, progress depends on abandoning what she called the “Superman” complex -- the idea that a single leader or faction can erase others and unilaterally fix the nation’s problems.
“No one should seek to erase another group or claim to be a Superman,” she said. “If we can reach that point of collective maturity, there is hope we can find our way out.”