Our Story is One

To make this documentary we will interview relatives of these 10 women murdered in Iran, we will have experts from different fields who know the reality of this country, we will use archive and resource images and we will use animation to create a dynamic documentary that will help us to understand the story we want to tell.

Some of the experts who will participate in the documentary:

Payam Akhavan LLM SJD (Harvard)
He is Professor of International Law and Senior Fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto, a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and former legal advisor to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague (1994-2000), and has worked for the United Nations in Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Guatemala and East Timor. He is a senior advisor to Global Affairs Canada and co-founder of the Iranian Human Rights Documentation Centre. In 2021 he received the Human Rights Award.

Augusto Lopez-Claros
Former director of the Global Competitiveness programme of the World Economic Forum in Geneva and former IMF representative for the economic transition process related to perestroika. He is now director of Global Indicators and Analysis at the World Bank. He is co-author of the essay Equality for Women, Prosperity for All. The disastrous global crisis of gender inequality, 2020. Barcelona: Erasmus Ediciones.

Francisca Sauquillo
A practising lawyer since 1966, she has dedicated her life to defending social causes. Founder and president of the Movement for Peace -MPDL- since 1984. She is also president of the editorial board of the magazine Tiempo de Paz. She is the author of numerous books, articles and papers on disarmament, peace, human rights, negotiated conflict resolution, humanitarian aid, immigration and feminist movements.

Esteban Ibarra
President of the Movement Against Intolerance and expert on hate speech. He has been a promoter of the inter-institutional agreement promoted by the General Council of the Judiciary in the fight against hate speech, and with OBERAXE of the Secretariat for Migration with innovative programmes such as Pandora to support victims of hate crimes in hospitals and health centres.

Leticia Espinosa
President of the Círculo de Orellana, which works to promote women's talent. With a degree in Contemporary History and a PhD in Social and Legal Sciences, she began her professional career more than thirty years ago, dedicating herself to the promotion and management of culture and social action.

Rosa Rabani
Doctora in social psychology, awarded by the Generalitat de Catalunya in 2001 for her research in the field of gender and work. She has published several works, including her book Maternidad y trabajo. Conflictos por resolver (Icaria) with a foreword by Carme Chacón. She has been interviewed on the back cover of La Vanguardia and is the author of opinion articles in the newspapers El País and El Confidencial.

Arash Arjomandi
Doctor in Humanities (UPF), Professor of Business and Organisational Management at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, international consultant for multinationals and organisations, director of Erasmus Ediciones. He is the author of several books for the publishing houses Planeta, Edebé and Pre-Textos and an opinion columnist for the business daily Expansión, as well as for the newspapers El País and ABC.

Sergio García
Doctor in sociology with an international mention and specialist in education and social development. Professor at the University of Navarra and researcher at its Institute of Advanced Social Studies: I-Communitas. He is co-founder and director of the Institute for Global Knowledge, Governance and Development and associate researcher at the think tank Globernance. He is a contributor to El País, RNE and other national and regional media.

Objectives:

• To make visible the situation of women who are fighting for equality, both in Iran and in other countries.
• To reflect on how gender equality can contribute to the construction of peace and to the economic and human development of any country.
• To help raise awareness of the importance of SDG Goal 5: achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, as well as to provide useful food for thought for SDGs 10, 11 and 16.
• To inspire viewers to take concrete action to support oppressed women, both in Iran and in their own countries.
• To recall a series of historical events to serve as a starting point and learning for the design of future actions.

Everything that is ignored is despised.
**Antonio Machado

Consider man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value.
Only education can make him reveal his treasures and enable mankind to benefit from them.
mankind to benefit from them.
Bahá'u'lláh

Knowledge leads us away from ignorance and helps us to reveal those hidden gems that we all have within.

We are motivated by the idea of shedding light and awareness on the fundamental importance of humanity working towards gender equality, and that is what drives us to develop this project.

The "Our Story is One" campaign, launched by the Bahá'í International Centre, and in which our project is framed, has received support from hundreds of artists, governments and institutions around the world.

This documentary is aimed at adults of all ages, cultures and beliefs who have the courage to fight ignorance in order to make gender equality and the situation of women in Iran and other parts of the world a reality.

The Surqalya association is the promoter of the project. It was born with the intention of promoting the arts as a means of expressing diversity, creativity and social commitment, encouraging artistic creation that addresses social and environmental issues from a gender equity perspective.

The team in charge of bringing the documentary to fruition are the following:

Javier Ríos is in charge of directing and coordinating the project, as well as directing the photography. He has more than 20 years of experience in the audiovisual field, as director of photography and camera operator. The documentary is an area in which he is comfortable and in which he has co-directed the feature documentary "Cuando lleguen los barcos" which tells the story of a Senegalese emigrant in the Canary Islands.

Amaya Blanco is a writer, a doctor in literary studies and a certified creative writing teacher. She has more than 15 publications to her credit, including novels, poetry, short stories and literary translations. She is also an expert in project management. She is in charge of the script for both the interviews and the animation part.

David Hejazi is an award-winning film composer and violinist who has worked on productions for major Hollywood film studios such as Warner Bros and 20th Century Studio and video games from developers such as Capcom and Lucasfilm Games (with releases on PS5, Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch platforms). Some of the different productions he has worked on have been broadcast on television networks such as Fox, NBC and Paramount Network and streamed on platforms such as HBO and Netflix among others.

Jose Ruiz is a specialist in sound post-production and a teacher of the same subject. The best known works in which he has collaborated are: El bar (Alex de la iglesia), Un monstruo viene a verme (J.A.Bayona), Palmeras en la nieve (Fernando González Molina), El silencio de la ciudad blanca (Daniel Calparsoro), Campeones (Javier Fesser) and Blackwood (Rodrigo Cortés).

Dani Lacave will be in charge of directing the animated part of the documentary. He is a filmmaker and director based in the Canary Islands. He has made more than twenty film projects. Among the most awarded ones is: "La muñeca rota" (The Broken Doll). He has also recently worked as a scriptwriter and director on the TV series: "La isla misteriosa" and "Insulae" for TVC.

Bruno Lanzarote is founder and director of Bla Bla Comunicación. He is a cartoonist, illustrator and graphic designer. He has published several educational and informative comics for various clients, including the City Council of Madrid, the Ministry of Environment, the Canary Islands Foundation for Reforestation or for the Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands. In 2015 he published the project "Bruniana Jones & Max: Sangre de Dragón" and in 2023 the illustrated story "Los Dragones de San Borondón".

Adrián Machado has extensive experience in different areas of editing (documentaries, series, television programmes, etc.) in different production companies and TVC. In addition, as a teacher, he often gives classes on: "the narrative of editing".

Claudia Falcón is a computer engineer and specialises in 3D animation with a university degree in animation from the Centro Universitario de Tecnología y Arte Digital in Madrid. She currently works at the production company Hormigas negras.