The film is considered to be controversial according to society’s standards of the matter, and reinforces the extent to which social pressure is bestowed upon individuals all around the world, and mainly focuses in Azerbaijan.


The female character is a very loud and outgoing person but her mother suppresses these qualities because she says that they are not appropriate. It isn’t appropriate because she is a girl and girls aren’t supposed to do many things, compared with men.

She talked about forms of protest and how well they impact today’s world. Rayane
Austen, Angelou and Bronte: Their work have inspired Tahmina to stand up for what she believes is and write her stories.


She never experienced first hand any oppression but she did see it. For instance she once had a friend who broke up with her boyfriend. Then the mother of Tahmina’s friend, instead of trying to comfort her daughter said “Now who will marry you?”.


Tahmina Rafaella, recommended that we find a balance between being present and being only with social media


It was a very productive lesson. We got to learn more about filmmaking, secret protest behind movies or books, and how art could be used to reflect or affect society.


Tahmina is a very wise woman, she sets her goals and works for them.


One of things that made her realize how women are restricted in society, that women had to smoke in a toilet, because it felt wrong to do it in public, while men can do it without any shame. Her manner was confident, casual, so she was very easy to listen to. She clearly expressed her thoughts and gave examples from real life to support her arguments about women's inequality.


As the class was rapidly typing away on their keyboard, it was clear to see she was able to connect with the class as well and walked out of the class being a new role model to many of the students.


Tahmina is a very passionate woman who wants to fight against discrimination against women and gender inequality. I think all of M4 found the event very successful and interesting and I am sure everyone enjoyed it.


She always saw gender inequality in Azerbaijan, but the issue wasn’t very prominent since Azerbaijan is a very open-minded country.


This inspired her to write about the issue, and she found that film was the best way for the issue to reach the public eye, and going to a politician or writing a letter wouldn’t put pressure on the people capable of solving this issue to do something about it.


Tahmina is an Azeri national living in LA and a former TISA pupil. She talked about her inspirations which include famous female authors Maya Angelou, Jane Austen , Charlotte Bronte and the Academy award-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi.


In the movies she told M4 that the women’s voices changes over time becoming stronger and not only with their voices but also with their appearance and the way they dress.


She told us that film is one of the best ways to educate people, to make people think the way the filmmaker thinks, to make a new perspective and she thinks that films are more accessible to most of the people.


Her film is called “Inner City” The film was shown at The International Film Festival of India and at the International Film Festival of Kerala. It was also shown at the Cairo International Film festival in Egypt, and the 20th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia. Tahmina also won the Best Actress award for her role in ‘Inner City’ at the 5th Lake Van International Film Festival in Turkey. One movie she cited a lot was Asghar Farhadi’s “A Separation". When describing things, she used a lot of repetition of ideas in different forms, so emphasizing something using a different descriptor.


The mother represents the society, and how the mother disagrees with her daughter shows how hard it is to say your opinion and to fight back.


She also mentioned a organization that her friends in America have started it is called Women In Motion. This is a group to help women get into the Film Industry this is not only script writing or acting this would be for everything. She mentioned the Standing Rock Protests and how Social Media can blow up an event spreading awareness and without Social Media we might not see these events or be able to stand with these people.

She wanted to use films to protest women’s voices that have been silenced, and was inspired by other film producers such as Asghar Farhadi who made the film called “A separation” and Ozu who made the film called “Early Spring”.

After being asked about her inspirations, she mentioned many Middle-Eastern movie authors, although she also addressed other writers like Maya Angelou, Jane Austen, and Charlotte Bronte.


The main message behind all of those films within this project is to stay true to you, no matter what.


The class of M4 took inspiration from the way she spoke and the topics she spoke about as they ready themselves for their final project.


Tahmina is a passionate speaker when it comes to this topic this can be seen after she presented an impromptu monologue about what really pisses her off, this being a topic that the M4 students had previously delved into. Rafaella concluded the session with the M4s by recommending books such as “The Orientalist” and other books by Tom Reiss.


Tahmina Rafaella decided to go into the film industry because she thinks that it is one of the most powerful forms of protest. This is because it easily reaches an international audience and people are more likely to watch a film rather than pick up a book and read it.


Art is a way to show people that we have some problems in life.


She made her film about this due to the fact that she realised that this is a true problem in Azerbaijan.



She told us a story about how her friend’s boyfriend left her and her friend’s parents responded "who is going to marry you now? ". This phrase shocked Tahmina tremendously.