›Women, life, lib­er­ty‹ The Ger­man film schools stand with the peace­ful protests in Iran

»We ask you to echo the ral­ly­ing cries of Ira­ni­ans for free­dom. Become the voice of those peo­ple who are pay­ing with their lives for free­dom« Iran­ian film­mak­ers recent­ly request­ed in an open let­ter.

The death of Mah­sa Ami­ni while in police cus­tody and the increas­ing repres­sions because of the coun­try­wide protests have shocked us and are a cause of great con­cern to us. As Ger­man film schools we have collectively com­mit­ted our­selves to diver­si­ty and against dis­crim­i­na­tion. We have com­mit­ted our­selves to ques­tion­ing exist­ing struc­tures and stereo­types con­struc­tive­ly and to address the issues of abuse of pow­er and gen­der equal­i­ty. There­fore, we also want to express our sol­i­dar­i­ty with the pro­test­ers with a unit­ed voice:

We are deeply con­cerned about the sit­u­a­tion in Iran and espe­cial­ly at the Iran­ian uni­ver­si­ties. We condemn the vio­lent repres­sion of free­dom of expres­sion and the right to per­son­al devel­op­ment. We see you, your coura­geous resis­tance, and the sac­ri­fices you make. You are not alone.
We stand behind you and your com­mit­ment to “women, life, lib­er­ty”!