Woman, life, freedom.

It's been the rallying cry of Iranians protesting the Islamic Republic since the death of Masa Zena Amini in 2022 following her arrest for improperly wearing her hijab.

Thousands of protesters, including women and children, were arrested in the months following Amini's death.

Many spent time at the notorious Aine prison in Thran.

One night, a fire broke out, threatening the lives of the detained people inside.

Three years later, details of the fire and of the prisoners remain scarce.

But now, one survivor has given her account, and it's the subject of a new short film called That Night.

I recently spoke with the director, Hoda Subani.

Hoda, thank you so much for being here.

This film tells the story of the night of the massive fire at the Evin prison in Thran through the eyes of your friend who's a survivor of that fire, Nidan Naji.

Why did you feel strongly about telling NATO's story?

Since I was 19, I had many friends who ended up in prison because of the political activities back in G movement 2009 and then after that many other friends and Neta was one of my best friends in Iran who ended up in prison and I wanted to have the conversation with her.

So she doesn't carry this pain by herself and also the fire night had very huge impact on her life and on my life and many others and was a big news headline all over the world.

So I was like this is a very literal story of why prison is a place that the government and regime is using it to oppress more its opponent and it's very clear that they don't want information about the prison to get out.

In fact we see in the film Na being told by guards don't talk about this once she's released.

She's not supposed to say anything.

And now she's the star of this film.

How did she feel?

Was she scared about speaking out about her experience?

I would say no because she's very brave and she like I would say yeah it was like few days after she got released we had the first interview because it was very important to remember the details of what happened that night in their cell in their war.

But when she was inside of Iran, we didn't tell anyone that we are making the film.

And then after a few months, she left Iran to Germany.

And then we started like talking publicly about this film.

This film is mostly an animated film.

Why did you make that choice?

It's a very good question because I think animation is one of the artistic forms that we grow up with and it's the first way we learn to receive stories and learn stories and I felt like all of these news in authoritarian countries like Iran and many others around the world we consume news about violence on a daily basis.

it almost becomes the background routine and I felt like the animation can help us to lift us out of these constant uh news headlines and these headlines are are trying to turn us into numbers and statistics but animation brings back the focus into human story and human experience.

M this event, the fire, remains shrouded in so much mystery.

We still don't really know how it started, who was involved.

Why is there still so much that we don't know about the circumstances of the fire?

And do people in Iran talk about this publicly?

It was different for those who were inside of the prison and those who were outside?

We were seeing videos and footage of fire and those who were inside were hearing mostly gunfires and tear gas going into their cells.

We are trying to find out how we can get more information about that night and find out the truth about that night.

But because it's prison and there is like these walls between people so no one can like talk to each other and say what exactly happened and there is not a united POV between everyone.

What do you want people watching the film to take away about the woman life freedom movement and also its strength right now?

First of all, many women in not all of Iran, but many cities, they don't wear mandatory hijab anymore.

But I feel the government is very angry.

The hierarchy and like you know the patriarchal government of Iran is very angry and mad at women, Iranian women and they are trying to put back the pressure on like a legal system on them like marriage law or like civil rights on them.

But I know that my friends and everyone that I know in Iran, they are trying and they are doing that they are finding ways to fight against this system and to ask for their very basic rights.

The film is that night.

Hoda Subhani, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me.