Fatemeh Fereydoun, born in February 1992, started her artistic career in 2008 by studying theater at Soreh High School. She then continued her studies in theater at the University of Tehran and obtained a master’s degree in directing. She has directed seven theater productions (including “Satin’s Island,” “The Last Play,” ”Night Mother”) and three films in her directorial career: “The Turtle,” “Camion,” and “Keyras”. She taught at the best private theater institute in Iran for four years and then continued teaching in theater and cinema.

I just wanted to show a small example of a huge amount of emotions that everyone who should immigrate from their homeland should deny and swallow. We can not live freely in our own country, and the system is trying to keep us week in any aspect, so everyone who is concerned with thrown life should think about Iran, as same as it is in real world. And immigration to another country is always challenging. It doesn’t matter when you immigrate or where is you destination’ you should go through a port, a kind of gate that is difficult to pass through. Because people can never be completely cut off from their homeland, family and friends, and on the other hand, the future in which we can progress in our homeland is inconceivable to us, Iranian. This uncertainty forms the core of the film along with other elements like tension. This tension is something that all the Iranian who don’t agree the regime are experiencing after Mahsa Amini protest.
I wanted to share with the Turtle audience is an experience of constant tension and doubt. The feeling we go through and face on a daily basis in this geography, and humans in other parts of the world are less encountered with. When I speak about tension and doubt I mean when you leave your home it is nor guaranteed that you come back safe. The dusk in the final scene of the film and the twilight that is seen at the beginning as well show the ambiguity of the conditions and the decision of the characters of the film in relation to this dilemma.