The Canadian feature “Bassima’s Womb,” directed by Babek Aliassa, was presented during a press conference held on Thursday evening, November 27, at Honar Shahr Aftab Cineplex in Shiraz.
Aliassa, an Iranian filmmaker who has spent most of his life abroad, is presenting his second feature film at this year’s Fajr International Film Festival, where it is screening in The Broken Olive section. “Bassima’s Womb” follows the story of a young undocumented Syrian woman who agrees to become a surrogate mother in order to reunite her deported husband with her in Canada, only to discover that she is already pregnant and must face an agonizing personal sacrifice. With a background in architecture, set design, and years of living between France, Belarus, and North America, Aliassa uses the film to reflect on migration, identity, and human resilience.
At the beginning of the press conference, Aliassa noted that Persian is his third language after French and English. “My film is about migration,” he said. “I wanted to portray migration through the idea of having a child. The film is essentially driven by the theme of migration. I have lived in different countries, including Belarus, the United States, Canada, and France, and these experiences naturally find their way into my work. My parents were a doctor and a nurse, so subjects connected to that world often appear in my films. Sometimes several ideas merge and eventually become a film.”
Emphasizing the female perspective in his work, Aliassa explained that women play a central role in all his films. “Women were also key figures in my first film,” he said. “I generally focus on female characters. This film is, in a way, a continuation of a documentary I made 15 years ago. At that time, I encountered a woman who had undergone a lung transplant, and I connected that experience to the idea of migration. To me, migration is like an organ transplant. When you migrate, you often realize that life does not always function as expected, and many people eventually return to their home countries.”
Aliassa also spoke about his personal background and path into filmmaking. “I was born in Isfahan. When I was a child, my father went to France to continue his medical specialization, and we lived there for six years. That is why French is my first language. I studied engineering there. I later became interested in cinema while watching films at the Cinémathèque Française and realized I could work in film set design. I studied set design in France, then learned screenwriting, and later, after my mother moved to Canada, I studied cinema and film editing there.”
Addressing the film’s cold visual atmosphere, Aliassa explained that the setting was a deliberate choice. “The cold adds something essential to the film,” he said. “In Canada, most films are shot during the summer, but the cold environment was important to me. We shot the film over 19 days in harsh winter conditions, which was extremely challenging, but the cold and the wind give the film a special energy.”
Referring to his approach to female-centered storytelling, Aliassa cited filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. “Bergman once said that if you want to avoid clichés, you should change the gender of your characters,” he noted. “I found this idea inspiring and treated it as a challenge for myself.”
Aliassa explained that the theme of surrogacy emerged from Canada’s immigration policies. “The core idea of the film came from realizing that when Canada accepts immigrants, it imposes strict conditions,” he said. “It is not an easy or unconditional process. The film reflects the idea that instead of helping migrants, systems often demand something from them. Ultimately, the entire film revolves around two women and female identity.”
Speaking about casting, Aliassa described the challenges of finding suitable actors in Quebec. “Casting in Quebec is very difficult,” he said. “I found seven candidates, only three of whom were professional actors and fluent in Arabic. My next film is based on a story by Sadegh Hedayat, which I plan to shoot in Quebec. I am grateful to the Fajr International Film Festival for inviting me, as I hope to find an actor here who can also work with me in Canada.”
The 43rd Fajr International Film Festival is underway in Shiraz from November 26 to December 3, 2025.
