The Iranian animated short film In the Shadow of the Cypress was one of the films nominated for Best Animated Short at the 2025 Oscars. In this interview with Borrowing Tape, the husband-and-wife director duo Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani break down the short's commentary on real-life PTSD among war veterans in Iran, the significance of the titular cypress tree and the daily struggles of making it big as an Iranian animator and director.
Listen here. The following transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity:
Hello, I'm Shaurya Thapa of Borrowing Tape, and today I'm joined by Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani, who are the directors of the animated short film In the Shadow of the Cypress. This short film has also qualified for the Oscars shortlist for Best Animated Short. First of all, congratulations, Hossein and Shirin, for making it to the Oscars shortlist.
Shirin Sohani: Thank you.
Hossein Molayemi: Thank you.
For viewers who have not watched In the Shadow of the Cypress, I would just like to tell them that your animated short film is about a father with PTSD-related stress who eventually tries to repair his relationship with his daughter. There is also a whale involved, and the father has flashbacks of his past. So, what was the inspiration behind the story and these characters? How did you get inspired to make a film about this?
Shirin Sohani: At first, we knew that this film was gonna be a film about the importance of family, and at first, there was only a father and a boy, but then we changed the location of the film to the south of Iran, actually the Persian Gulf and then when we changed the location the other elements came into the story such as the sea, the whale, the ship and then they changed the idea of this story a lot, changed it completely. And what the main inspiration source for this film is our own personal life experience. For example, Hossein has always had a lot of challenges with his father, and my father was a war veteran of [the] Iran-Iraq war in [the] 1980s, and he lost one of his eyes during the war while he had been taking pilot training before the war, so it was vital for him to keep his eyes healthy, but then he lost one of his eyes in the war. And so, he said goodbye to his dreams. And then, these events also there are a lot of veterans of the Iran-Iraq war in Iran around. I don't know; maybe hundreds of thousands of war veterans are suffering from PTSD in Iran, and so all of them are the main sources of inspiration for our film.
Apart from the themes that inspired your film — as you said, it's deeply personal to both of you — when it comes to the animation in it, if I'm not wrong, it was all hand-drawn. So, were there any animated or non-animated movies or directors that inspired In the Shadow of the Cypress?
Hossein Molayemi: In addition to what Shirin said in your previous question, Shirin's father has a fragment in his skull left from that war that makes him behave violently sometimes, and he was one of our sources of inspiration. As for your question, we usually try not to imitate anybody's style, anybody's attitude, and we try to be unique. So, no, we didn't want to be influenced by any other artist in making this video.
Can you tell me a little about when you got the idea for this film? How long did it take for you to animate it and then make it fully and send it to producers and distributors? So, how long did all of that take?
Shirin Sohani: It took us around six and a half years to make this film, from the initial idea to the stage that the film got ready to be submitted to the film festivals. The first two years, I don't remember completely, but I guess the first two years, we were working on and off on the film. But the next years, because the production of such a 2D animated film is really heavy and we were a very small team, so we were working full time on the film. And it was a very — I don't know what to call it — film that should have been produced with the help of a large team. But most [of the] tasks of this film were done by just three of us. Actually, Hossein and I, as directors and producers and writers and also artists of the film and one of our animators who did around 80% of the shots of the film.
The English language title of your film is In the Shadow of the Cypress, so can you explain that title? Why this specific title for your film?
Hossein Molayemi: Actually, to be honest, it's even difficult to explain it, even in my mother tongue, in Persian. Later on in English, but I will do my best. Actually, Shirin and I discussed hundreds of potential titles for this film. But each of them had its own flaws. For example, each of them focused on a certain part of the film. But we wanted something more comprehensible. We wanted something more ambiguous, poetic, and internationally understandable for the audience. In Persian culture, the tree cypress is the symbol of resistance. In Western culture, as I have heard and I have read, it's a sign and symbol of mourning and grief.
And both of them could be applied and related to our film. On the other hand, in the Persian language, to have somebody's shadow on your head means to have their support and shelter. And the meaning of to be overshadowed by somebody in English. Both of them could be related to our film. But why Cypress? When you want to take shelter from [the] sun, most probably, your first choice would not be the Cypress tree because it has a tiny shadow. And because of the physical shape of the father, which is very tiny and curved, we thought that it may be similar to Persian, to the Cypress trees, which are depicted in Persian miniatures. In one scene, you can see that the father comes back from the sea, from the ocean, and drops his own shadow on the daughter despite being too late. The capacity of the father for supporting the daughter, because of a variety of reasons, is limited. And his shadow represents his capacity for supporting his daughter.
[To Hossein] This isn't your first short film, and I saw that you previously worked on Run Rostam Run in 2017. So let's say Run Rostam Run to In the Shadow of the Cypress; what has changed for you creatively or artistically — how have you matured from that film to this film?
Hossein Molayemi: I was the director of Run Rostam Run. We did it in 2017, but I had started it eight years earlier. The foundation of that film belongs to many years ago when I was an MA student at university. Then, while making Run Rostam Run, my philosophy of life and my point of view on the world had totally changed, but I wanted to make it. After several years of interruption, I resurrected it and worked on it again, despite my mind; that had changed. Immediately after accomplishing that project, we started working [on] In the Shadow of the Cypress, so there was not any interruption between them.
You're based in Iran, physically. So what are some of the challenges that you think animators like you would face in Iran or something that can be improved with the film industry, or more specifically, the animation sector in Iran? What can be improved? Or what are the challenges you face?
Shirin Sohani: Actually, we faced a lot of challenges during making this film. There is no difference whether you make animated films or live action or other projects because we are suffering from a lot of difficulties which are not usual in the world. For example, heavy international sanctions which caused the devaluation of our currency. Our currency is now the worst in the world. The worst — if you search [for] it in Google. And that is a catastrophe because the economic situation can affect everything in your life and your hope about the future. The social and political issues in Iran can affect your life as well. When you are creating some piece of art, you should be concentrated. You need a lot of energy, and these kinds of problems can take [up] your energy. It can consume your energy. But hopefully, fortunately, we did it. We managed to finish the project, and it was a huge success for us before entering the film festivals and other successful results. But just finishing it for us was a huge success. There are some challenges, like the lack of equipment. But I think they are not the most important. [The] most important challenges are related to these issues: economic, political, [and] social issues. Every day, and they are getting worse every day. That is the point. And there is no hope. Maybe Hossein can continue in a better way.
Hossein Molayemi: Other than what Shirin said in terms of economic crisis and the constant devaluation of the currency, we faced some other challenges as well. For example, a lack of skilled animators, we are facing a lack of skilled animators to animators, I mean, in the world. But this situation is worse in Iran because a lot of them have immigrated from our country due to sanctions and economic problems. Other than that, during [the] making [of] this film, I was struck by alopecia universalis, which is a self-immune disorder. And this disorder and the expenses that it imposed on us slowed down the process of making this film. And whatever we try, we cannot imply what we have been through during these years because whatever we try, we can show just the tip of the iceberg, actually.