The Things You Kill is a feature film, shot and set in Turkey, by Iranian/Canadian filmmaker Alireza Khatami.
We subsequently had a chance to sit down and have a conversation with writer/director Alireza Khatami.
HNMAG: Are your parents still with us?
Alireza Khatami: Yeah. They haven’t seen the film, but…
HNMAG: I wonder how they would react.
Alireza Khatami: I’m not planning to show it to them.
HNMAG: Are they okay in Iran?
Alireza Khatami: It’s been a very tough situation for the country.
HNMAG: Were you born there?
Alireza Khatami: Yes. I’m indigenous to the southwest part.
HNMAG: Did you live in Turkey? Do you speak Turkish?
Alireza Khatami: My tribe speaks a dialect of the Turkic language. We understand about ten to fifteen percent of the language that is spoken in Turkey.
HNMAG: Right.
Alireza Khatami: The roots are the same. So it took me a little while to understand the Turkish language in Turkey. It wasn’t a straightforward process.
HNMAG: You speak Farsi as well?
Alireza Khatami: My mom is from a different ethnicity, so at home we had to speak Farsi. So my Farsi accent is pretty much like a person who speaks on TV. I don’t have a regional accent.
HNMAG: Such as a standard Farsi accent, like actors here use a standard American accent.
Alireza Khatami: Yeah. I grew up between languages.
HNMAG: When did you gain an interest in film and television?
Alireza Khatami: I was trying to be a poet. I was a young man in a small town trying to be a poet and I remember one day, I went to this library and there was this older woman. Grumpy but kind of hard, who was tired of me. I was constantly going there and looking through the books, et cetera. They had a pile of books that were not registered. One day they were closing down and they said, okay, if you want some books, there’s a pile you haven’t checked. So I ran to the pile and just pick two books, which the title sound poetics. I grabbed them and came out.
One of them turns out to be a collection of scripts.
HNMAG: What language were they in?
Alireza Khatami: Farsi. They were scripts for Iranian films. That triggered my curiosity when I was eighteen years old. I was like, I can do this. This is very similar to poetry. Then I was reading about this old Hungarian man and his commitment. The commitment was inspiring. I had no idea who the guy is, but I knew that he is stubborn enough to make movies that are not commercially viable, but he believes in something. That’s something that he believed in, that he could make him fight, could make him endure. I wanted to know what is to have that faith in yourself.
HNMAG: He was making films when Hungary was still part of the Soviet block?
Alireza Khatami: Yeah.
HNMAG: You’re a young man in Iran, on this inspired journey. Did you eave Iran then?
Alireza Khatami: No, I went to engineering school for irrigation. Then I came to become a political activist. I clashed with the authorities.
HNMAG: That could be dangerous.
Alireza Khatami: Two years later, I’m not in school anymore. I’m an assistant director trying to make a living in capital city of Tehran.
HNMAG: Okay, so you were working in the film industry.
Alireza Khatami: Yeah. Then I left Iran in 2004 at twenty-four.
HNMAG: At that point, did you go to Canada?
Alireza Khatami: No, I lived in nine countries.
HNMAG: Wow!
Alireza Khatami: Since then. I’ve lived in fifteen cities.
HNMAG: Why did you move so much?
Alireza Khatami: I was in exile, so I would go wherever they would give me a visa.
HNMAG: How long have you been in Canada then?
Alireza Khatami: I came to Canada six years ago. This is the longest I’ve lived in another country. I have a permanent residence (PR) here. This is home.
HNMAG: Great. Now you’re a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU).
Alireza Khatami: Yeah.
HNMAG: You have an important job and you’re making films. You have a comfortable and stable life in Toronto.
Alireza Khatami: I’ve been around the world, and I found something here that I could call home again. I built something here. I’m grateful for that.
HNMAG: How did you decide to make a movie in Turkey?
Alireza Khatami: We shot it in Turkey. I wrote this based on my own personal experiences. I was dealing with family issues. I was in a dark place in my life. One day I’m writing, I was supposed to adapt a book. But early days in working on that project, I found myself writing this film. And slowly, I realized my sisters are on the phone, my mom is in the front. My dad is in the front. I was very scared because I thought I would never be able to make this movie.
Like many projects we start land up on the shelf. I sent it to a friend of mine just to read it, and he called crying. In that moment, I realized it’s no longer about me. I have to make this for other people who connect to this broken man in this town.
HNMAG: Is it common for someone in Turkey, to have a garden that’s not walking distance from their house?
Alireza Khatami: Uh, yeah it is. Not in every city. But in many cities. It’s a gorgeous country which has beautiful gardens. My father has a garden that is similar to the situation in the movie.
HNMAG: In Iran? Does your dad’s garden have problems with irrigation as well?
Alireza Khatami: Yes. Many scenes are based on that. It’s a region where water is a scarcity.
HNMAG: Your parents haven’t seen it, but have you had the conversation with them about the movie?
Alireza Khatami: I told them it’s a movie in a Turkish language and it’s in Turkey. It has nothing to do with us.
HNMAG: That makes sense. You don’t want them to disown you.
Alireza Khatami: It’s unfair to them to watch it. And I ask them if I’m going to make a movie, promise me not to watch it.
HNMAG: Do you have any plans for your next feature?
Alireza Khatami: Yes, we are working with the same producers, and we received financing from Telefilm Canada.The story is very Canadian. It happens in Toronto. It’s an English language movie.
HNMAG: Do you have a title?
Alireza Khatami: It’s called Yesterday Will Come.
HNMAG: Okay. That’s different. Great! Is there anything else you would like to share about The Things You Kill?
Alireza Khatami: The film was originally intended to be shot in Iran.
HNMAG: Did you change it to Turkey because that was more viable?
Alireza Khatami: The censorship office in Iran asked us to change things.
HNMAG: Right.
Alireza Khatami: I refused. Then I was looking for a place that is historically close and had great actors.
HNMAG: The acting was terrific. The locations seemed modern and western in terms of the way people lived. The movie would have been very different set and shot in Iran.
Alireza Khatami: I don’t know, but that movie never existed, soI cannot really imagine it.
It was supposed to be shot in Iran and we had to wait a year. We developed everything for Turkey to resurrect the movie.
Alireza Khatami had an amazing journey from discovering his love for filmmaking, fighting the Iranian authorities and having to live in nine different countries, for many years before he gets hired by TMU as a professor and makes a new home for himself by becoming Canadian. There were many conflicts and trama that he must have faced a long the way. His award winning movie The Things You Kill reflects harsh circumstances and how toxic masculinity can still consume a presumably well adjusted professional. It’s not a light, easy bit of entertainment but it is very well performed and execuated with terrific cinematography. We are looking forward to to seeing his next feature that will be set in Toronto. Alireza Khatami has earned his place as a Canadian filmmaker to watch.