Director fled to Edinburgh after risking his life 'shooting films in secret'

Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info
An Iranian film director who fled his home country after enduring prison torture has said he 'no longer felt human'.
Javad Daraei, 33, risked his life shooting films in secret that told of the persecution of women, the LGBT community and disabled community under the rule of the Islamic Public. In 2017, Javad was ambushed by three men who dragged him into a car and brought him to a detention centre after the release of his last film in Iran.
After human rights organisations provided a flight out of the country for him, Javad moved to Scotland after being offered an Artist Protection Fund Fellowship at Edinburgh University. While he's now safe, Javad says his mind easily wanders back to the tiny windowless cell where he was tortured by 'brutal' prison gaurds.
On the wall of his bedroom is a picture of a Highland landscape as a reminder when he wakes up that he is safe in Scotland. He said: "Sometimes I feel mentally frozen in that place though physically I am in Scotland. But being here is gradually helping me recover the part of me that I lost in that terrible place."
Javad's films are banned in his native homeland but have won 57 awards and 52 nominations in the UK, America, Australia, Europe and Asia. Two are now to have their Scottish premiere with a special screening in Edinburgh.
Javad is also now making his first feature in English in Scotland in a production written and directed by him about the precarious life of a sex worker in Glasgow. As he talks in his small flat in the city's east end Javad plays with his cat Fifi, steadying the nerves that always come when he recalls the terror he faced in Iran.
His first film, I Don't Like Here was made when he was a student at Tehran University and focused on the mistreatment of a trans boy. Those who transition in Iran are at risk of being disappeared or killed.
Sign up for Edinburgh Live newsletters for more headlines straight to your inbox
He made the film after arriving in Tehran from his home in a religious mountain community in Khorramabad 100km east of the Iraqi border. He said: "When I went to Tehran, I met a community of gay and trans people. They lived with so much fear and it felt so wrong to me."
Homosexuality is illegal and punishable by imprisonment or flogging in Iran. In 2016 the film was smuggled out to festivals and led to Javad's first visit from the intelligence police who demanded to see the rushes but he had already stored the most incriminating shots in a hidden hard drive.
Javad said: "They weren't too bad that time. They warned me and I thought if that was the worst they would do then I would carry on."
I Don't Like Here will be shown at Edinburgh's Cameo cinema this month along with Limit, his second project which explores the torment of a man who is trapped by disability. The disabled in Iran are marginalised, excluded from society in a country where they can barely access healthcare or simple equipment like a wheelchair.
The movie was realised in 2017 and won him more international plaudits and many more gongs. Again he was warned by the intelligence police but Javad was determined to continue his underground filmmaking despite the risks.
His last film in Iran, Metamorphosis in the Slaughterhouse was screened at 17 international film festivals and won four awards in the US including best film and director. Focusing on the vigilante vengeance a young girl faces when her parents are accused of murder it was filmed in clandestine shoots in abandoned villages.
(Image: Ross Turpie - Daily Record)
The global recognition it received enraged the Iranian authorities. One day as he walked home Javad was ambushed by three men who thrust a hood over his head and dragged him into a car.
Javad said: "They pushed me to the floor of the car and they were punching me in the head and the neck. I was screaming begging to know who they were but they were just shouting insults at me. It was terrifying."
When the car stopped they dragged him into a detention centre where he was thrown into a room so small he couldn't stretch out. It had a piercing halogen light and there was a constant whirring of a fan. To this day Javad can't be in a room with a fan.
Javad could hear the wretched screams of other detainees ring out across the building. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is the brutal armed force which takes its orders from the Supreme Leader of Iran, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
They accused him of being an American spy. He remained hooded as the sadistic guards rained blow after blow on his body; they burned him with a lighter and they pounded him so violently they broke his leg.
He was held for 17 days and slept in a filthy mattress in the suffocating heat of the Iranian summer. Javad said: "Every day they got more and more brutal. I refused to eat. It was mental and physical torture. I no longer felt human. For the last few days I was unconscious."
Eventually he was released into a state run hospital where his leg was not properly treated and Javad knew if he was to survive he would have to escape Iran. The chance came when in 2021 when human rights organisations organised for him to be put on a flight out of the country.
Join Edinburgh Live's Whatsapp Community here and get the latest news sentstraight to your messages.
Javad ultimately moved to Scotland when he was offered an Artist Protection Fund Fellowship at Edinburgh University and he has been given the refugee status of the right to remain in the UK. As well as his film he is also writing an autobiographical play he hopes will open in London.
His experiences in Iran have left him traumatised but with the help of therapy and friends he has made in Scotland he is slowly recovering and has once again returned to filming. He has recently had surgery on the leg broken during torture. Javad finds solace in Scotland's cold and rain because warm days remind him of detention in Iran.
In Iran he is convinced that information about his filming was being fed back to the regime by one of his team and so it has taken him time to trust enough to form a small and precious crew around him to make his latest feature.
Javad said: "At first I still lived with the fear of being arrested again, of not being able to trust anyone. But I have the most wonderful crew who have shown me such patience and love.
"I am less pessimistic now. I believe the people you meet change your life and attitude and after experiencing such a terrible journey the people here in Scotland have really helped me. Before I wrote and made plays and films for the love of life but now it is the key to my sanity and survival."
Javad Daraei: Two Dead Films and One Still Alive shows as part of Refugee Festival Scotland at the Cameo, Edinburgh on June 18.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

The Guardian

2 hours ago

• The Guardian

Angela Livingstone obituary

My friend Angela Livingstone, who has died aged 90, was a translator and university teacher of literature known for playing a key role in making the most innovative works of 20th-century Russian literature accessible to the English-speaking world. Her publications include edited selections of writings by Boris Pasternak and Marina Tsvetaeva and masterful translations of their prose and poetry, among them Tsvetaeva's 'lyrical satire' The Ratcatcher and verse-drama Phaedra, both previously unknown in English. She also published Pasternak: Modern Judgements (1969), a groundbreaking book of critical essays (in collaboration with the poet and critic Donald Davie), a monograph on Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago (1989) and, late in her life, a collection of her own poems, Certain Roses (2017). Elaine Feinstein, reviewing Phaedra in PN Review in 2013, observed that Angela's version 'not only extends our understanding of a great Russian poet, but also illuminates the spirit of her translator, who is as little interested in the commonplace values of the everyday world as the poet she translates'. Angela and I got to know each other in 1999 when, as features editor at the BBC Russian Service, I made a programme on her translation of The Ratcatcher. It was Tsvetaeva's breathtaking sound patterns and rhythms, and Pasternak's stream of striking images that gave Angela, in seeking to translate them, 'a pleasure which is not like any other', she said. Like her favourite poets, Angela possessed a childlike ability to experience everything, however familiar, as if for the first time. She also loved Andrei Platonov for his peculiar use of language and described his great novel Chevengur of 1928 as 'a prose of concealed poetry', transposing 50 passages from it into English verse, published as Poems from Chevengur in 2004. Angela was born in Hayes, Middlesex (now the London Borough of Hillingdon), to Albert Hobbs, a further education lecturer in mechanical engineering, and his wife, Edith (nee Parker), a primary school teacher. Her love for literature and languages was kindled at Greenford county grammar school, and at Cambridge University, where she gained a first-class degree in German and Russian. At university she met Rodney Livingstone, a fellow student, who later became professor of German at Southampton University, and they married in 1959. Angela worked in the department of literature at Essex University for more than 30 years, becoming professor and its head in 1992 before retiring in 1996. Her first marriage ended in divorce in 1971. In 2014 she married Alan Palmer. He died in 2019. She is survived by Sonia and Benjamin, the children from her first marriage, four grandchildren and her sister, Pamela.

Daily Mirror

3 hours ago

• Daily Mirror

'How I brought down one of the UK's most powerful crime lords'

Former Daily Mirror Crime Correspondent Sylvia Jones tells the gripping story of how she went undercover to snare 'untouchable' gangster John 'Goldfinger' Palmer John 'Goldfinger' Palmer was in the elegant lounge of London's Ritz hotel when the beginning of the end arrived. He was sitting at a tea table with two Burmese opium producers in June 1994, celebrating finalising a £65million-a-year money laundering deal, when a large figure loomed over him and announced: 'Roger Cook, Central Television. We've come to talk to you.' ‌ It was a voice familiar to the 10 million viewers who regularly tuned in to watch television's biggest investigator uncover, confront and pursue criminals and wrongdoers. ‌ And it marked the start of Palmer's descent from a man with a royal-level fortune and a life of yachts, fast cars, Rolexes and helicopters to prison – and, ultimately, his death in a suburban back garden. Palmer, a former gold dealer, had risen to fame and fortune smelting gold bars stolen in the Brink's-Mat bullion robbery 11 years earlier. On trial at the Old Bailey in 1987, charged with conspiracy to handle the stolen gold, he admitted melting down large amounts at his mansion in Bath, but claimed not to know it was stolen. When the jury acquitted him he blew them a kiss. He went on to set up a huge timeshare fraud operation, cajoling or intimidating thousands of folk out of their hard-earned savings and ruling the holiday island of Tenerife with his posse of violent, steroid-fuelled musclemen. ‌ This ruthless 'business model' was essential for Palmer's real activities of laundering ever-increasing amounts of dirty money for his underworld criminal cronies, thieving Russian oligarchs, and other corrupt government officials and politicians who plundered their own countries. The latest series of the BBC drama The Gold fictionalises this period in Palmer's life. Played by Tom Cullen, he boasts to one of his heavies as he steps off a private jet: 'A ghost, that's what I am in England – no passport control, no nosy b****** spotting me in an airport and calling the press or the Old Bill. ‌ 'Because I beat them, you see. The English police – I beat the best they have.' This is where I came in. After becoming the first female crime reporter on Fleet Street when working for the Mirror, I moved to the Cook Report in the early 1990s. During painstaking research for a programme on Palmer, I assembled a mountain of evidence about his hugely lucrative money laundering activities and estimated he had more than £400m sloshing around in different banks in secretive financial centres, including Russia. ‌ The vast Communist state was crumbling as greedy government agents, businessmen and the Russian mafia began to plunder the country's most valuable assets. I traced at least 100 companies, dozens of offshore accounts and business interests in the UK, Europe and around the world, and as far away as South America, South Africa and the Caribbean. Palmer used these companies to move around millions of pounds from timeshare, property, leisure and finance organisations. He mixed this money up with large deposits of ill-gotten cash that swirled around and came out of the Palmer 'washing machine' looking untainted and ready to hand back to his criminal associates – minus his 25% commission, of course. ‌ I informed Scotland Yard about our impending Palmer sting – we called the show 'Laundry Man'. Brink's-Mat detectives whose bid to convict him had failed in 1987 literally fell off their chairs laughing. 'He will never fall for it,' they claimed. Gathering legally watertight evidence needed a very special plan, a sophisticated sting so close to the real thing that not even the streetwise Palmer would suspect he was being lured into a TV trap. ‌ I recruited Buddy Burns, a retired US undercover drug enforcement detective, to talk his way into Palmer's tight-knit organisation. A tough, grizzled Native American who had worked more drug stings than I'd had hot dinners, Buddy was a perfect choice. He posed as the 'representative' of notorious Burmese warlord Khun Sa, then the world's biggest opium producer and top of theFBI's most-wanted list. ‌ He was, Buddy explained in an initial phone call to Palmer's Spanish solicitor, looking for a discreet 'businessman' willing and big enough to handle £30m twice a year from poppy crops. The prospect of the biggest deal of his life was an offer Goldfinger couldn't resist. He took the bait within days. The next vital phase of our elaborate sting involved Khun Sa himself. ‌ Actors, however good, would never be able to convince the wily Palmer. So I sent ex-soldier Patrick King into the jungle of war-torn Burma to enlist the help of Khun Sa – who Roger had interviewed two years earlier. America's most wanted man agreed to help us and dispatched two of his closest aides. I posed as a shady local fixer hired by Buddy to look after the Burmese men. At a smart mews house in Marylebone, Central London, we secretly recorded meetings between Palmer and Khun Sa's henchmen. I handed out drinks and takeaway Thai food to Palmer as he sat cross-legged on the floor with the Burmese men. My real job, however, was to make sure no one stood in front of the secret cameras and to troubleshoot and rescue the situation if anything went wrong. Palmer's bodyguards were never far away so we had to be ready for anything at a moment's notice. ‌ By this time Palmer was so convinced he was finalising the biggest dirty deal of his career that he explained exactly how his money laundering operation worked, which we caught on camera. He was so comfortable that he even revealed he had several 'wives' and girlfriends. 'Just a secret between us,' he added – little realising his real wife, Marnie, and 10 million viewers would soon be let in on his 'secret'. ‌ Once we had a wealth of self-confessed evidence from Palmer, we brought in Roger for the final denouement. It was hot and stuffy that summer's day as I sat in a black cab with the two Burmese men and knee-to-knee opposite Palmer, heading for the Ritz. I had a tape recorder tucked into my stocking top and secured to my suspender belt – the only place our blushing sound man could think of hiding it where it would not show through my light summer clothes. Then, once we were seated at the Ritz at a table laden with gleaming silverware, dainty crustless sandwiches and fresh cream fancies, Roger appeared, followed by a cameraman and several of our colleagues. ‌ Our timing was perfect. Shocked, but trying to hold himself together, the previously untouchable underworld Mr Big staggered to his feet as Roger told him we had filmed every contact he had had with Khun Sa's men. Palmer denied everything as he quickly walked to the hotel exit swiftly followed by Roger and the film crew. But he was no longer the smiling, confident wheeler dealer who had entered the Ritz a few minutes earlier. ‌ He looked pale and anxious as he jumped into a taxi. The cab got stuck at a red light and Roger opened the door and continued his devastating onslaught, egged on by workmen on scaffolding in a side street who had recognised him shouting: 'Go on, Roger! Give it to him, Roger!' When the taxi finally pulled away, Palmer sat stony faced inside, the perfect image of a man who has realised he had just been totally suckered. By this time, detectives were raiding all of his premises and addresses in the UK. Every time Palmer rang his offices, the phone was answered by the police. ‌ The taxi driver later told us he had thrown his phone out of the window in anger. Scotland Yard was staggered by the speed and success of our sting. They used our information as the basis for search warrants and gathered a mountain of documentary evidence that eventually led Palmer to another trial, again at the Old Bailey. ‌ In 2001 I gave evidence against him. He was defending himself and wore a bulletproof vest as he cross-examined me. Palmer tried to convince the jury the sting was a police suggestion to set him up because they could not get to him. But he failed, and this time there were no kisses for the jury. He was found guilty of defrauding thousands of timeshare victims out of millions of pounds and sentenced to eight years. He served four before release. In his later years he lived a much quieter life with his partner Christina Ketley and their son in Brentwood, Essex, where he socialised with a close circle of old friends. ‌ Then, 10 years ago, he was gunned down in the garden as he burned old papers on a bonfire, blasted six times with a shotgun. He was 65. No one has been jailed over his death. At the end of the 1990s, Palmer had been worth over £300m, and the Sunday Times Rich List rated him on a level with the Queen. By 2005, after four years behind bars, he was declared bankrupt, with debts of £3.5m. Goldfinger, it seemed, had finally lost his Midas touch.

Daily Mirror

4 hours ago

• Daily Mirror

'World's best theme park' is just hours away from UK but has no rides

If you are looking for an alternative holiday spot this summer, one woman has just the recommendation. Despite being named 'best theme park in the world' twice, Puy du Fou in the Pays de la Loire region of France remains a hidden gem to many. Travel expert Bonnie Rakhit posted a clip on TikTok showcasing her visit to what she claims is the country's "best kept secret." "It's without doubt the most magical theme park I have ever visited," she exclaimed. Just an hour's drive from Nantes, Bonnie suggests the site is the perfect quick getaway from the UK. So what makes this place so unique? "There are no rides here," says Bonnie. "Instead you go on a time-travelling adventure from Roman gladiators to Viking raids, and the legend of King Arthur to the splendour of the Palace of Versailles across 50 hectares of breathtaking scenery." Bonnie also notes that the park is home to 20 internationally acclaimed shows, providing an all-encompassing experience for the entire family. Each spectacle has been translated into English, with scripts accessible through the park's mobile app. "The magic doesn't stop at night," Bonnie added. "We stayed at Le Grand Siecle - a hotel inspired by Louis XIV's Court. There's also a medieval village, a Camelot-style tented camp, an ancient Roman town and a castle called the Citadel." Concluding her review, Bonnie said Puy Du Fou plays host to over 2.8million visitors annually. "It's easy to see why," she said. "It's inspiring and completely unique - this isn't just a theme park, it's a journey through time. Add it to your bucket list." Engaging with her post on TikTok, one fan raved: "I have been a few times and it is insane, seriously amazing. The Coliseum is crazy!" Another person remarked: "I love Puy de Fou, used to live in Nantes and went many times. The evening shows are amazing! Planet Sauvage is also fab and the best safari park I have ever seen." Whilst a third praised: "This is genuinely the best park I have ever been to! So incredible I would say Europa Park is good for rollercoasters (although i don't think it's the best one in Europe but it's nice) but Puy Du Fou is amazing for story telling! Like incredibly impressive!". According to the English language section of the Puy de Fou official website, prices for an overnight stay start from £63.38 per person. This not only includes entry to the park and all its spectacles but also an overnight hotel stay complete with breakfast (at either an on-site hotel or in partnership accommodations near Puy du Fou) and complimentary translation services for all attractions. For those looking to visit the park alone, tickets are available for one, two, or three-day adventures, kicking off at a modest £31.69 per person. The site further states: "The Puy du Fou experience is designed for all ages to enjoy. Children and parents alike will be captivated all the way through as the shows are short and feature many amazing effects. "The few scenes that may alarm very young children due to their spectacular realism are indicated by a symbol in the mobile app and Visitor Guide."