Jostoju (1980) - full transcript

The Search

German subtitles

Death to the Shah!

The missing persons
from October 9, 1978

to February 11, 1979.

Camera

The missing martyrs.

Edition

The missing ones from
the Revolution.

Assistant Director

Camera Assistant



Sound Effects

Produced by

Consultant

Camera

Produced by the Radio and TV department

of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Black Friday

17, Shahrivar Ave.
(October 9)

Waiting for a missing one

Missing

Find my son.

Missing

We are waiting for you.

My father, my brother.



My sister has been desperate
for 9 months already,

she is never at home.

She walks around like she is crazy.

She goes to the Radio Square.

She says: My child
is in this building.

She always passes by there. She cries.

She says: They walled him in.

I tell her:
No, there are no more corpses.

And she says: If that's true,
he would be a martyr.

I would have prepared
a funeral service for him.

I'm ready to die
and to become a martyr.

I don't know what happened to him.

My kid is 5 months old.

They all went, him as well.

And I hope each one
had their own reasons.

I tell my mother
that he will come back.

But me, I believe that...

If until now...

He was 30 years old.

His hand was wounded.

No one said anything to his mom.

They bandaged his hands.

And he left with his brother
and others...

They came back... he didn't.

Someone said,

a soldier was seen shooting him.

Everyone says something different.

He left on November, 6.

My son... he went away.

Find my son, dead or alive.

So that all this wait is over.

So I can finally die...

It's been one year already.

Missing

My kids and I, we are deeply worried.

He left on December 31, 1978.

People tell me:
"Your son didn't come

back home.
We were looking for him in vain."

We don't have any news.

As soon as someone knocks
at the door, I open it,

hoping it's him.

In every hospital,

at the Evin Prison,

at the Behesht Zahra cemetery,

at the morgue. Photos
of the martyrs are everywhere.

At the hospitals, people show rings,

keys and handkerchiefs,

but there was nothing from him there.

We looked for him all over
Behesht Zahra cemetery.

At morgue no one has news of him.

Even at the tombstones...

nothing.

A zillion times
we looked at the pictures.

After the big massacre...

one couldn't see the corpses.

We saw only the photos.

I couldn't find my son among them.

I'm Fatemeh, wife
of a missing person,

Davoud Safai-Nejad.
I have a 6 year old kid...

another one 2 months old,
born after his disappearance.

We could see the dead bodies,
the clothes, the watches,

the ID cards, but nothing from him.

I was pregnant, when I lost him.

His kid was born, after he disappeared.

He disappeared
on the day of the Revolution.

I don't think he will come back.

He was a truck driver.

We are checking

all truck drivers.

I saw people who

looked a lot like him from behind.

But looking at the front,

I saw I was wrong.

One evening, my kid sat
next to me and ask me:

Mom, are you crying? And I say, "Yes".

Look at my back, he said.

His back was black.

He told me: don't cry anymore.

I fell asleep,

I saw my son lying on the ground,
his head was bleeding.

He told me:
When you cry, they beat me.

Three days later,
he was dressed in black.

He told me: Now I'm fine.

I know nothing anymore.

I looked for him at the Bazar
and in the park.

Nothing.

I can't cry anymore.

We don't know
if he is dead or alive.

We believe that they killed him.

There is no sign of him.

At the Behesht Zahra cemetery
they told us:

Take one from
an unidentified grave

and put a tombstone on it
with his name.

We didn't do that.

We still wait for his return.

I'm not a weeping father,

but I really want peace.

The house was empty.
I took my book.

And I saw the picture of my brother.

I couldn’t contain myself.

A beautiful memory of him.

Every evening
he measured himself and said:

Father, now I'm ready to fight.

My mother believes
we will still find him.

During the Revolution

they gave kerosene to the poor.

I still believe I will meet him.

I scream: Djafar!
He answers: Dear aunt!

One day, he said
at the hairdresser's:

Look, auntie,
how beautiful I am...

My father went away during
the Revolution.

He didn't come back.

One the evening before Moharam

we heard shootings.

My brother went out,
never came back.

The Revolution was on January 28.

I lost my brother.

My father went outside
during the Revolution.

My mother and I look for him.

We've never found him again.

My brother is sick.

Dead.

My husband's hand was wounded.

Our neighbour took care of it
in the courtyard.

One night, he went outside.

In the morning,
his clothes were wet.

He went to his mother.

When he came back, he slept a bit.

After lunch, he left again.

My brother told me he had a weapon.

He stayed away and
seized the weapon arsenal.

He didn't come back.

I'd never have thought that.

The guards attacked the air force.

In that same night, my son left.

He didn't come back.

I came, deeply worried,
to comfort my mother.

I went to my house
and came back again.

It's 10 months ago,
that he went away.

I told my mother
that he'd still come back.

I'm still hoping for it.

We are waiting for his return.

My name is Oreng Fararouni,
residing in Tehran.

In January of 79,

my son left the house,
like any other day...

to join the protests.

He told me
he was going to Farah-Abbad.

He didn't come back home
in the evening...

neither in the next day.
We looked for him everywhere.

We went to see his friend.

But he also hadn't seen him.

We think he left the country.

We didn't want to admit,

that he wouldn't come back.

Until this year,

on May, 1, on the TV,

there was a movie about
the Revolution...

showing the brawls
at the Farah-Abbad Square.

Someone saw my son,
covered with a cloth...

but his head was showing.

I had doubts.

I called the TV station.

We went there,
to see the film once more.

They paused the video.

It was my son.

We went back home
and were really sad.

To find out where he is buried...

we looked everywhere.

In the morgue, in the hospitals,

the Behesht Zahra cemetery.

We didn't find his grave,

not a single trace of it.

Now we don't know,
what we should do.

I'm Ali, photographer.

For 22 years I've been

taking photographs at the morgue.

Institute of Legal Medicine

My child has disappeared.

My father, my sister
and my husband have disappeared.

Find him... Show me his grave...

My brother left home
and never came back.

They haven't found his body.

He is a martyr. I want my son.

I pray to God that he is not dead.

He's been missing for 272 days.

My mother is dying, she wants her son.

I tirelessly looked for him
under the graves.

My brother has disappeared during
the Revolution.

Autopsy Room

Cold Chamber

I'm responsible for the autopsies.

We have no information
about the number of corpses,

even though that is pretty important,

considering the unanswerable questions.

Find his body.

Many come here,

in order to find their Martyr.

More than 5000 came here
looking for their missing ones.

We didn't see his body,

not even once.

During the Revolution
people would come,

looking for their family members.

They examined the photos
in the Cold Chamber.

Everyday it was a different group.

He left and didn't come back,

we are still waiting for him.

The exact number of people killed,

registered at the morgue,

is the same as the Army has given.

He has disappeared, that's for sure.

People came looking
for their missing ones.

They couldn't all enter
the Cold Chamber.

They were looking under the corpses.

The number inquiries

was higher than the number of corpses.

This young man is missing.

What does that mean: "missing people"?

They disappeared
as the shootings started.

Because people mention the exact date...

of the disappearance.

I can take that as an indication,

because the number
of delivered bodies...

is significantly smaller than

the number of missing persons.

People who come here

and don't obtain any information,

they leave in despair and
there's nothing we can do about it.

I went to the morgue
for days on end.

I looked at every body.

I still haven't found
the one of my friend.

Starting October 9, a certain number

of bodies was brought
here, to the morgue.

Those who were identified

were given back to their families.

Those not identified were photographed

so they can be identified later.

Hospitals sent them
to the Behesht Zahra cemetery

and, identified or not,
they were buried.

People came here everyday,
asking about those who are missing.

They said, their child disappeared,

without any trace.

2835 unidentified. 10/10/78.

They were looking
for their family members.

They came in groups.

They were looking for the graves.

But they didn't find them.

If they had wanted to bury
all the young people who died,

Behesht Zahra cemetery
would be too small.

People are looking
for their lost family.

Between 7 to 8 thousand bodies...
as far as we know.

6000 bodies were not found.

What happened to them?

Between 5 and 6 thousand
have disappeared.

They said: We can't find the bodies.

Where were they taken to?

Around 4 thousand persons
were looking for the dead.

A captain gave the order to fire.

They couldn't take the bodies.

They loaded them onto a truck.

They cleaned off the blood
with a water truck.

I saw it all with my own eyes.

The army used trucks to get rid of

all those bodies.

I saw the trucks that

took the corpses away.

The wounded, the dead
and the living ones,

were loaded up at night,

in garbage crushers,
and trucks of the city council...

and taken away.

The army let

the corpses be taken away with trucks.

They threw the corpses

into the garbage truck,

and took them outside of Tehran.

Dead or alive, they were

stuffed into the garbage crushers.

They took them out, behind the oven,

and threw in the graves.

Before and during the Revolution,

they threw them in salty lake.

I transport bricks to Teheran,

On the road to Afsarieh
I saw corpses.

They were on an army truck,

heading to the brick oven.

They buried the living and the dead.

The driver of a bulldozer,

who buried them,
has committed suicide.

The road to Khorassan stank.

I asked people why was that.

They said:
That's the smell of corpses.

On the top of the trash,
near the shooting range,

they buried them.

The driver went crazy.

He said: No!
The officer shot him.

He had gone crazy.

One of our comrades...

didn't want to bury them.
They killed him.

They dragged the corpses
onto trucks...

of the garbage collection at
the street going to Abé-Ali.

I'm Nasser Pourbakhch, driver.

On October 9,
they drove the bodies away,

in order to throw them
on the garbage heap.

On the road to Djadjeroud,

the army forced a friend of mine,

- a driver from the city -

to bury the corpses under the trash.

Shooting Range

They told my friend,

he should put trash
on top of the bodies.

But he didn't want to do that.

The threatened him
in order to force him to do it.

Between 5 and 6 thousand
dead were buried here.

One month after they were buried,

he got sick.

He wasn't himself anymore.
Then, he went missing.

We never heard anything
from him anymore.

Dead our wounded,

they were all thrown in the graves,

and buried.

They filled up the graves.

Many were buried.

They were brought in trucks,

and were thrown onto the trash pile.

I still remember my friend's name.

Because of his family,
I'd rather not mention his name.

During the Revolution,
my son went away.

We didn't hear anything from him.

They were thrown in the ditches

close to the cement factory.

I rummage around
from daylight till dawn...

hoping that I'll find something.

Maybe the body of my son.

What happened to her son?

Have they killed him?
Buried him?

His mother lost her mind.

It's one year ago
that they killed my son.

He is buried here, they say,

close to the cement factory.

After the slaughtering
of October 9th,

the bodies were taken in trucks,

here to Messgar Abbad

and buried.

Mayor's office of Behesht-Zahra

They ordered me to use lime.

The bodies were thrown in here.

I buried them under the lime.

They brought those murdered
and threw them in here.

The army brought the bodies

to bury them here in Hassan-Abbad.

Most of those killed
from Sartchechmeh

are buried here.

They brought them at night.

They threw them in front ski slope.

The bulldozer
shoveled the soil on them.

My brother has disappeared.

My dad is sick.
My mum has died.

I've searched here
in vain, the whole summer.

They say that they are buried here.

My dad is sick.
My mum is dead.

During the Revolution

my brother left and never came back.

I don't know, if was wounded,

or if he is dead.

I looked for him at the morgue,
and everywhere else.

At the cemetery, at the hospitals.

I was told he was buried here.

My mother is dead.

They told me I should just take
a grave without name.

But I didn't want that.
I wanted my brother.

The day after October 9th,

at 4 in the afternoon,

I saw with my own eyes,

two helicopters

throwing two 'packages' in the lake,

before disappearing again.

This white stain is the swamp.

The helicopters were flying low,

released the 'packages'
and disappeared again.

Airplanes
were dropping corpses from the sky.

They tied stones to their feet,

and let them fall into the lake.

They brought the bodies in helicopters

and threw them in the lake.

Because the lake is salty,

they decomposed

without leaving any trace.