Doc explores aftermath of Iraqi chemical attack on Sardasht

TEHRAN,June 29(MNA)– An Iranian director has made a documentary about the miserable lives of five women in the aftermath of the Iraqi chemical attack on the Iranian town of Sardasht during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. “The Dawn Which Smelled of the Aroma of Lemon” was screened during a ceremony the Bar Association of Iran on Tuesday, four days before the 27th anniversary of the tragedy, which occurred on June 28, 1987. The film was reviewed by a panel composed of director Azadeh Bizargiti, filmmaker and actor Marizeh Vafamehr, researcher Susan Shariati, and lawyer Sattar Azizi. Speaking at the ceremony, Vafamehr said that the film is a unique one for its kind since it depicts the war and its painful aftermath from the females’ point of view. “I personally regard the movie as very successful, since it describes the event and the people very well,” she added. Shariati next made a brief speech after the film screening, and said that the beauty of the film is that it is not about war, but it is about life, “working after the war, love after the war, family after the war and poverty after the war.” The doc centers on the pain and sorrow of both genders and indicates that how the female victims of the war experience life differently when compared with the male victims of the war, she said. Bizargiti dedicated her film to the civilian victims of the attack who were participating in the ceremony and said, “I chose Sardasht since I felt the region has been left alone and less attention is being paid to the chemically-wounded women.” “War is a catastrophe, a disaster that does not know male or female, but when war veterans are talked about only men are remembered, not women. Nobody knows how women suffer in the dark corners of their homes,” she added. Parvin Vahedi, a female civilian a part of whose life was documented in the film, also made a brief speech and hoped that nobody would experience the pain and sorrow they went through in Sardasht.