Mahboobeh Kalaee: Creation as Antidote to Destruction during American and Israeli airstrikes

On what should have been an inconspicuous and inconsequential morning in Tehran, Mahboobeh Kalaee boarded a flight bound for Vienna on February 28, 2026. She was headed to the 25th edition of the Tricky Women/Tricky Realties Film Festival. At 9:35am, the United States Central Command announced that it had begun airstrikes against Iran. Her flight had taken off, was promptly grounded, and she’s been living under American and Israeli bombardment ever since.

Mahboobeh and I have never met, but I’ve been acquainted with her work for years. The Fourth Wall (2021) was the first Iranian film to take home the top prize from Fantoche and won the Zlatko Grgić Award at Animafest. Accolades on the festival circuit don’t necessarily translate into particularly nuanced coverage. Animation sits on the margins of mainstream film criticism. Short form, independent and experimental cinema increase the layers of obscurity. While rectifying this has been a through-line in my work for years, there’s a bigger picture when you’re opening a line of communication with someone in a war zone.

Mahboobeh should have been in the same cinemas as me in Vienna. I was incensed that violent and predatory men made that impossible and wanted to find ways to amplify her voice anyway. Reports of conflict from a land you’ve never been to can feel quite abstract, but it hits different when you have a window in. Critics are arbiters of taste. We mediate what the culture considers valuable. While the economics of this industry are precarious, our words retain power and this requires us to question what our work is for. Who our work is in service of, other than ourselves.

Writing to her from my apartment in the Balkans, I’m aware that the Sarajevo Film Festival was founded during the Siege of Sarajevo. I know DokuFest pre-dates the country it operates within, the Republic of Kosovo. This raises questions about the place of art in armed conflict. My concerns for her safety are coupled with anxiety around what happens to cultural memory when artists are killed. I find myself writing to the past, present and future because I wanted to ensure Mahboobeh’s thoughts on the serious and eclectic discussion of cinema are on the public record. To invite her to decode her films, so cinephiles and researchers from this moment and beyond have some context. Some points of reference to help shape their understanding. This was our conversation. 

How would you describe yourself as an artist? What influences your practice? What parts of you become important in the conceptualisation and creation of your work?

I think I am very attached to my lived experience and I often create what I live in. Observing the world around me has a great influence on what and how I create. I love watching people, spaces and the changes that occur in the environment. In this way, I begin interpreting the world I see and if I can find an exciting connection between those observations and my inner state, my thoughts immediately start to flow and I begin taking notes or sometimes I go straight to creating an image. I love writing very much, especially writing creative essays about my experiences. 

Often, the desire to interpret what I observe and to build a network of meaning becomes the structure of my films. I think I am always looking for a relationship between my inner self and what I observe, and I get excited by these discoveries. An excitement that sparks creation. This observation continues throughout production and leads to improvisation in my work. I have embraced improvisation in almost all of my work, that’s why I design my production process to be flexible.

You’ve been living under American and Israeli airstrikes for nearly four months. Does making and talking about art continue to be important, during armed conflict? Why/why not?

The answer to this question is of course yes! I don’t want to say in a clichéd way that artistic movements are so influential that they can have an immediate impact on political developments. They can be effective in the long run, but I have different reasons for pursuing my practice. It is very important to continue creating, even in situations where the needs at the base of Maslow’s hierarchy seem to have taken priority over the needs at the top. It is only in this situation that the artist can maintain a connection to the society they live in. What’s produced, regardless of artistic value, is very important in reflecting what has happened to them and the society they inhabit. It has documentary value. 

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Creating in these conditions (especially in experimental, simple and minimal ways, without complex production processes) will help to externalise the artist’s inner states and maintain their spirit. In fact, creating against the destruction that war brings is a kind of resistance. It expresses a desire to counter destruction, and in doing so, it also brings a kind of relief to the artist’s inner world.

How do you think experiencing this war will affect the type of work you make as an artist?

I think it made me more aware of the importance of documentary filmmaking and my desire to work within this genre. For example, in the first week of the war, Israel and the US attacked the Tehran oil depots. The fire and smoke from the explosion had turned the city sky grey for about a week. At the time of the attack, I was in a 6-story building that was very close to one of the oil depots in northern Tehran. The sound, fire, and vibration of the explosion that night were so intense that it felt as if it had happened right in front of the building.

Fire from the Aqdasieh oil depot in Tehran’s north-east, images taken from the European Space Agency satellite showed that smoke and flames were still visible 10 days after the strikes.¹

It was the home of one of my relatives, and we had difficulty getting out of the building with their young children, as the electricity had been cut off. My attention that night was focused on the children who were witnessing this situation. The next day, when the thick smoke and smell of burning oil filled the air, we spoke to a 7-year-old child and drew many sketches together. The level of pollution caused by the explosions that day led to acid rain. It covered the cars, trees, and the entire city with a textured layer of black. It was like black ink was pouring down on the city. My husband and I took many photos of these strange textures on the cars and continued talking with the child about them. This exploration led us to begin developing an animated documentary that we are currently working on and hope to release soon.

A child’s drawing made in the aftermath of the airstrike, depicting damaged buildings and smoke from the explosion.

A drawing by a 7-year-old boy depicting the aftermath of the explosion, with smoke filling the sky.

Strange textures created by acid rain in Tehran one day after the explosions.

You’ve said that working with film confronts you with your own truths, what did you mean by that?

Filmmaking is like studying myself. In the process of making a film, I am on a journey of self-discovery. This begins unconsciously, but as I progress, I constantly ask myself what is happening inside me and what has led me to create such an atmosphere. 

I made One Person (2018) in a month where I became involved in an emotional relationship. Everything went very quickly, like writing poetry. I was going through that romantic and loving atmosphere, but in the background, my younger brother had gone missing. He was found later, but this process brought me to a more explicit way of expressing myself. A more uninhibited type of language and a type of look that reveals what’s in the background of these relationships. It’s a space that’s not very romantic and ideal. That’s how I built The Fourth Wall (2021).

One Person

Even the narrative style and formal choices reflect my inner state. For example, in my student days, when I was making Sink (2018), One Person, or Mind (2018), I was very afraid of cutting and was constantly looking for narrative methods that would be very minimal and would begin and end in only one shot. Of course, being in a hurry and not having enough time for production during my studies also played a role. But most of all, I didn’t believe in cutting from the inside. I was very naive and thought that my narrative would lose its continuity with cutting. Similarly, camera movement was very difficult for me. When I was about to start The Fourth Wall, I clearly knew that it was time to face my fears. This was one of my biggest challenges. That’s why the camera moves like crazy in this film, and even though the space is limited to a small space (the kitchen), I was able to completely let go of the fear of cutting. That’s how I explore parts of myself with every project.

Theatrical release poster for Sink, available to watch online at This is Jelly.

How would you describe the relationship between reality and fiction in your films?

The imaginary parts of my films are a kind of invisible reality for me. There is truth to my ideas and fantasies, it’s a type of reality. That’s why I try to mix them together, to express the importance of “thinking” in this way. That the inner world and fantasies are as important and tangible as material realities.

Your technique is a mix of animating physical objects through stop motion, then illustrating over them in both digital and analogue forms. What makes you want to rupture the binary between material and abstract in this way?

This approach comes from my interest in imagination and fantasy. I believe the world of thought abstraction and imagination is as real and tangible as the visible physical world. That’s why I mix them together. For me, this blending is simply how I see and experience reality. The world, as I perceive it, is multi-layered and complex. I constantly see meanings and abstractions attaching themselves to objects and forms. These interpretations are visible to me. I try to create my work in the same way I perceive the world.

There’s a certain domesticity across a lot of your films. Sink, Mind, The Fourth Wall and By the Way (2025) all seem to take place in a house. But I understand you have a new project called Real Life in pre-production which involves a journey to a mountain prison. What drew you towards the home for your first four films, and what pushed you outwards for your next project?

For me, space in animation is more important than characters. Space is that cinematic whole that can become a filmic network even without characters. My attention to spatial changes and their use as cinematic expressive possibilities is always interesting.

When I was an industrial design student, I became very introverted and disillusioned. This was due to the inflexible atmosphere of my field, university and the lack of understanding of my mentalities in that atmosphere, in society, and in my family. At this point, I even came into conflict with my body. I had reached a level of introversion where I didn’t even understand anything material or external. It was during this period that I discovered animation as a medium to speak about and balance what I was experiencing. That introversion and staying at home brought a deep sense of solitude. It made me truly navigate a mental interior, and the place (internal space) always carried my narrative. This is characteristic of my work and comes from my interest in space in animation. 

But since I am fascinated by designing challenges for myself, I decided to experience the challenge of going outside and making a film in an external space. For this purpose, I found an abandoned tomb in a mountainous area in central Iran, close to my father’s village. I love that place deeply and studied it for a while to design a story that could exist both in that external space and in my own inner landscape. I am currently in pre-production on the Real Life project. Of course, the process has been stopped many times over the past year due to the conditions in Iran. This is because I had to prioritise small projects that I mainly did to earn some income. 

Real Life visual concept.

I think I heard you describe walls as semantic spaces in your Q+A at Fantoche. Assuming I heard you correctly, what did you mean by this?

Each wall in The Fourth Wall is the spatial boundary of a character. The juxtaposition of those walls (spaces) forms the structure of the family, the type of connection between them is the interpersonal relationships of the characters. When the walls are torn apart, it is actually the structure of the family that is torn apart. The walls are not just the boundaries of a kitchen, an enclosed space, but also represent mental space. When the walls collapse, it’s a deconstructive form that expresses the incompatibility of interpersonal relationships in the family.

The Fourth Wall

Why did you use the same checkered floor in The Fourth Wall and By the Way?

This floor is always in contrast and dialectic, the state of zero and one. It creates a visual dynamism in the image that is interesting to me. In By The Way in particular, the light, the darkness, and its connection with the topic were important to me.

By The Way

Another recurring motif is electricity, you foreground this in Mind, Plug Home and By the Way. What interests you about electricity?

The truth is that in each one, a separate reason has drawn me to this subject. In Mind, I showed the flow of consciousness as an electric current. In By The Way, the lack of electricity, frequent blackouts and energy imbalance in Iran prompted me to capture a time-lapse of sunlight in my home. This became a documentary, with an 80-year-old man describing the arrival of electricity in Iran. This film was made while we were facing daily blackouts, in the summer of 2024.

Mind

Avant garde and experimental cinema speaks a language that not everyone can understand; has that enabled a level of freedom of expression in your work?

It is true that experimental cinema offers the filmmaker unlimited cinematic possibilities. This position has given me space to find a language that fits my own way of working.

At the same time, it has always been important for me that the viewer can still connect with my work to some extent to sense meaning and reflect on it, beyond purely abstract perception. I don’t aim for a completely vague or inaccessible atmosphere.

I prefer a kind of “new moderation” in understanding a space where experience can be shared. Through this, I feel I can communicate more directly and widely with the audience through my work.

The Iran-U.S. Memorandum of Understanding has declared an immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts. Peace can be fragile, but given the potential end of hostilities, what are your hopes for the future? Creatively and personally.

Such agreements are not unprecedented. We experienced war at a time when my country was already engaged in negotiations and dialogue. Therefore, this recent event has not changed the course of my personal plans or the way I envision my future. 

In truth, neither an agreement nor a war can take away my desire to continue my work or to keep living. The tension and uncertainty of war may make my path more difficult and slow my progress, while a period of stability may allow me to live with greater ease and possibility. Yet, regardless of these circumstances, what has sustained me is my defiant desire to live. 

For this reason, external conditions whether favourable or unfavourable cannot fundamentally diminish my commitment to creating and to life itself. At this stage of my life, I remain hopeful and optimistic about the future.

Endnote