Just came back from a documentary at the Melbourne International Film Festival. Sepideh – Reaching for the Stars (2013) by Berit Madsen, is a documentary about a 17 year old Iranian girl, Sepideh, who has a deep passion for astronomy and aspire to become an astronaut. The film explores some of the hardships that arise from her daring modern dream and the fight for science within a society faithfully driven by religion and traditions.
I believe tears started pouring down my face from the first few minutes til the last shot. Being a passionate stargazer myself, I was overwhelmed that the girl on screen believed in the same things I believed in. I was very self-conscious about my crying in the cinema, it’s something that I’m usually very embarrassed about. But I soon realised that there were many others sniffling around me. Usually, I would be watching something like this in my room on my computer screen. I would get emotional by myself and probably think that I am the only one feeling this way right now, or why is everyone else too busy with their little lives on earth to care about what’s out there and so on…(A bit like me vs. the world kind of mentality). However, going to this film alone was an incredible experience. If I had gone with someone else I know, my experience of the cinema will be that I am ‘watching a film with my friend’. (Us in a crowd of ‘others’). But being there ‘alone‘, I know yet do-not-know every one of them equally. Therefore, to me, no one presence overshadows any other. I feel each and every presence in the theater equally and feel as if I was just a part of this larger, bigger witness called an audience. And we were all a part of the same emotion that is bigger than us that we are experiencing.