Directed By Mobarez Javanmard

If Eyes Could Speak (2004)

​If Eyes Could Speak is a short experimental film written in 2003 and completed in 2004. This work marks my first definitive venture into surrealism and represents my earliest deliberate departure from the conventions of narrative realism.

​Synopsis

​The film follows a photographer working within the clinical silence of his studio, documenting various subjects under strictly controlled conditions. The narrative tension emerges during the development process: the photographer discovers that every subject in the photographs has their eyes closed a jarring detail that escaped his conscious perception during the shoot.

​Driven to find an explanation, he combs through his studio, only to encounter scattered paper fragments featuring haunting sketches of a woman without eyes. These images do not function as traditional plot devices; instead, they serve as psychological “pressure points,” systematically destabilizing the photographer’s assumed authority as a neutral observer.

​The film reaches its climax outside the studio walls. In the heart of the city, the photographer witnesses a woman walking with her eyes intentionally shut, guided by a companion who sees on her behalf. Rather than intervening or seeking clarity, the photographer remains a distant witness. He does not act. He only observes.

​If Eyes Could Speak does not frame blindness as a disability or a void. Instead, it presents it as a deliberate act a choice woven into a complex structure of guidance, control, and mutual consent.

​History & Recognition

​In 2004, the film was awarded Best Screenplay at an internal university film festival in Isfahan. Archival footage of the award ceremony remains preserved as a testament to this early milestone.

​Looking back, this work contains the formative traces of themes that have come to define my cinematic language: the ethics of witnessing without intervention, the fragility of perception, and the quiet, inherent violence embedded in the act of observation itself.

​Director’s Statement

​If Eyes Could Speak emerged from an early, fundamental distrust of the camera.

​To me, photography has never been about documentation; it is a mechanism of control. It is a tool that allows one to see while remaining unseen to be involved without facing the consequences of that involvement. The studio was never a neutral territory; it was a site of profound asymmetry.

​In this film, blindness is not a decorative symbol. It is functional and strategic. I view it as a strategy of survival rather than a loss of sense. The woman who walks with her eyes closed is not helpless; she operates within a sophisticated system where vision is outsourced and delegated.

​The photographer’s final decision is not one of ignorance, but of restraint. He chooses observation over interruption. This film was my first attempt to articulate a cinema built around ethical tension rather than narrative resolution—a cinema where the most significant action is often the one that is withheld.