_{That Afternoon by Nafiss Nia}

When Nafiss Nia came to the Netherlands as a refugee from Iran in the early 1990s, she was already a talented and precocious filmmaker. She had studied cinema at the Film Faculty of Art University and Modern Persian Literature at the State University in Tehran, taking courses alongside other young film enthusiasts like Asghar Farhadi (who has gone on to win two Oscars).

Nia went on to study at the Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam. Ironically, though, she is better known to the Dutch as a poet than a movie director. That is likely to change with her new feature film, That Afternoon, produced through HALAL and and which premieres at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

It’s a two-hander. Roya, an idealistic young Iranian woman (Hoda Niku) is at risk of being thrown out of the Netherlands. In desperation, she has come to see Nassim, who may be able to help her. The man in Nassim’s apartment (Alin Wishka) won’t open the door to her. Roya waits in the hallway, and begins to talk to him.

“Basically, this is the story of many immigrants living far from home but the original story is my story. These two [characters] are both me. I experienced the fear, the hope and desire of Roya as well as despair, darkness and disappointments of Nassim,” the director explains the inspiration for This Afternoon.

Nia has been a filmmaker since she was 15. She made many shorts in Iran. However, after she arrived in the Netherlands “full of hope and desire,” she quickly realised that her experience and expertise didn’t count for much. She hoped that studying scriptwriting in Amsterdam would give her a way into the local industry. Her teachers were all convinced that she would be successful. After all, she had stories to tell and was obviously talented.

As it turned out, Nia did “make it,” but as a writer. “I wrote some poems and they published them. I immediately found out that I am also good at poetry.” Nia continued to apply for film grants but, as she remembers, “suddenly, everybody knew me as a poet, not a filmmaker.”

There are some overlaps between That Afternoon and the 2015 docu-fiction, Dance, Iranian Style, which Nia wrote and which was directed by her friend Farshad Aria. Both have a protagonist called Roya who is a failed asylum seeker. The earlier project was partially inspired by a horrific real-life incident in which an Iranian who had been denied permission to remain in the Netherlands set himself on fire, eventually dying from his injuries.

“I remember standing at the memorial service. I was talking to a friend and I said I really can’t bear standing here, doing nothing,” she recalls. The friend responded, “you are a filmmaker, you can do something about it.” She therefore came home and began to write Dance, Iranian Style.

Her own experiences were very different from those of the rejected refugees in her films. She was given the legal right to stay in the Netherlands less than a year after arriving. However, she has done extensive research into the struggles asylum seekers are facing.

Nia’s script for That Afternoon received support from the Netherlands Film Fund. At an emotional meeting with the Fund, she told them, “I have nothing to lose. I have to make this film. You ignored me for many years. I can’t be ignored anymore.”

Having completed the script, Nia wrote on Facebook that she was looking for a producer and “can somebody help me?” A poet she knew was on the board of production company HALAL, and gave her script to the company boss, Gijs Kerbosch. “A couple of days later, Gijs called me and said ‘I don’t know why, maybe I was in an emotional mood, but I read your script in the train and I cried - and we have to talk.’”

That Afternoon was shot in a “freezing” disused building in Haarlem. Nia chose this forbidding location because she wanted to show that Roya didn’t “belong.”

Hoda Niku, who was cast as Roya, is an Iranian model based in South Korea. Nia discovered her on Instagram after looking through audition tapes from up to 20 countries. “When I saw her picture, I saw determination and yet innocence, hope but fear,” the director says.

That Afternoon will be released in the Netherlands by Gusto Entertainment. “I am really blessed. It took a while and I did fight and I didn’t give up - I am proud of myself. But at the same time, this film is made by the finest people of the film industry... everybody worked with their whole heart. I always say this isn’t my film, this is our film,” Nia pays heartfelt tribute to her many collaborators, among them director of photography Joris Kerbosch, composer Farid Sheek and editor Hayedeh Safiyari.

For a full overview of all Dutch films screening at IFFR 2023, click here.
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