In Mahsa Karampour’s Dans la gueule de l’ogre, presented as part of ACID at Cannes, the road is less a destination than a way of looking again. Behind the wheel is Siavash, the filmmaker’s brother, moving through the United States with the restless aura of someone who belongs everywhere and nowhere at once. Behind the camera is Mahsa, observing him with the tenderness, frustration and curiosity that only a sibling can carry.
The film unfolds as a free and delicate documentary road movie between Iran and America, between childhood and the present, between what has been lost and what can still be recovered. Siavash appears as a punk, elusive and melancholic figure, shaped by underground cultures, exile and reinvention. Through him, Karampour opens a window onto a subversive world that is at once Iranian, American and entirely his own.
But the true heartbeat of Dans la gueule de l’ogre lies in the gaze between brother and sister. After years of distance, separation and different lives, the film becomes a new encounter between them. What begins as a portrait slowly turns into something more fragile and profound: an exploration of identity, uprooting and the strange intimacy of family, where love is sometimes found not in explanation, but in the act of staying close enough to keep filming.
AM: How did Dans la gueule de l’ogre begin for you?
Mahsa Karampour: The project was born in 2007, when I felt the need to reconnect with my younger brother, who was making music within Iran’s creative underground scene. I had left Iran for France in 2003, and I really wanted to feel connected to that energy, and to understand what my brother was creating. I began filming the first images at that time. It also brought me back to my own childhood in the 1980s, when I was practising music in an underground context myself.
AM: Your brother later had to leave Iran. Can you tell us about that moment?
Mahsa Karampour: Yes. My brother took part in the film No One Knows About Persian Cats, and at that time there were many political problems in Iran. He had to leave the country. At first, he went to Istanbul, thinking he would stay for four weeks, but eventually he went to New York and never returned to Iran. That separated us even more. Then our father passed away. A few years after that tragedy, when my brother started making music again, I felt that we needed to restart something together.
AM: The film seems deeply tied to exile and the feeling of belonging to more than one place. Was that important for you?
Mahsa Karampour: Yes, very much. My brother and I are both deeply affected by what is happening in Iran and the region. For the past few months, the internet has been cut off in Iran, and we cannot even call our mother. So telling our stories of exile feels very important. With this film, I wanted to show a kind of ubiquity, the feeling that we live mentally in two countries at the same time. We are a bit French, a bit Iranian, but never completely one or the other. There is something unfinished in us: unfinished conversations, unfinished songs, things left unsaid.
AM: How does it feel to represent Iran at a festival like Cannes?
Mahsa Karampour: I do feel the weight of it, because our stories are connected to a larger history and to what is still happening today. But at the same time, I am not trying to represent everyone. I am telling a personal story, an intimate story, about family, exile, separation and creation. Through that, of course, something of Iran appears, but it comes through our own experience.
AM: What role did the camera play in reconnecting with your brother?
Mahsa Karampour: The camera became a kind of shield for me. It allowed me to follow him and communicate with him. In a way, he could not really say no to me, because I was his sister. But it was not always easy. Sometimes, when I was filming him, he felt uncomfortable. He asked me several times to stop the camera because it was too overwhelming for him.
AM: And who was the “boss” during the filming?
Mahsa Karampour: There was no boss. It was really collaborative, but that does not mean it was simple. There were moments of tension and vulnerability. Because we are brother and sister, the relationship was very close, but also very complex.
AM: And how did you approach filming someone so close to you, especially when he was uncomfortable?
Mahsa Karampour: When he felt overwhelmed, he would often put on a mask or a costume. He has around 100 of them. That was very interesting to film, because the costumes became another way of expressing something. But it was also difficult, for him and for me. The camera helped us communicate, but it also exposed things. It created a space where we could be together, while still protecting ourselves.
AM: Finally, how do you compare the experience of exile and immigration in France and the United States?
Mahsa Karampour: Both countries have their own difficulties. In France, you have to adapt a lot. You often have to make compromises with your identity. In New York, there may be more possibilities, but it is also a difficult environment for new immigrants. It takes time to become part of the fabric of a city or a country. Both places demand their own sacrifices.