Oscar Shortlist Interviews: Director Yegane Moghaddam Shares Her Favorite Shot From ‘Our Uniform’ (Exclusive)

We invited the filmmakers behind each of this year’s 15 Oscar-shortlisted animated shorts to share their favorite shot from their film and explain why it’s special to them. The pieces are being published in the order that materials were received.

In this piece, we’re looking at Our Uniform from Iranian filmmaker Yegane Moghaddam, who self-produced the film. Our Uniform was a hit on the festival scene, winning the Jean-Luc Xiberras Award for a first film at Annecy, the audience award at Fantoche, and earned Oscars qualification by winning the grand jury prize at Spain’s Animayo festival.

Our Uniform tells the story of an Iranian girl who recalls school-age memories through the wrinkles and fabrics of her old uniform, quite literally. Rather than using paper, canvas, or a digital medium, Moghaddam painted directly on the cloth used for making school uniforms to tell the story of a character who dreams of a better future.

Below, Moghaddam shares her favorite scene from the short and tells us its significance:

This shot stands out to me because there was a lot of improvisation involved in making it.

Initially, it was an important shot for me because it opens up a dialogue on individuality and self-expression. After introducing “our schools,” “our classes,” “our uniforms,” “our teachers,” “our moderators,” etc., here is the first time you hear the single pronoun “I,” to talk about oneself.  When I planned it in my storyboards, I decided to undo the buttons one by one only to discover that there’s a big void inside her, implying her lack of self-identity and the inability to talk about her desires. But the result failed to amuse me. The tone was moralizing and cliche.

I realized I’d been blind to the possibilities of animation and decided to take a new turn on that shot. This time I added the zippers right under the buttons to emphasize how deep she should dive to explore her real desires. While I was doing the zipper, I thought, let’s add one more layer with safety pins and then another layer with patches, etc… I could go forever on that shot and never reach her deepest depth. But at some point I had to stop, and I did.

I’m really happy that I used a mixed-media technique for it did avail me of one advantage: Endless combinations and therefore endless visual possibilities.

I need to add that everything was done inside the software. After I had my stop motion footage prepared, I composited all the clips beneath one another to create that layered effect.

Last but not least, I like to believe that this shot sums up the entire film and says all I ever wanted to say. Quite poetically and economically.

Read the other entries in the series:

• John Musker on I’m Hip
• Flóra Anna Buda on 27
• Tal Kantor on Letter To a Pig
• Dave Mullins on War is Over!
• Bret Parker on Pete
• Karni Arieli and Saul Freed on Wild Summon
• Rita Basulto on Humo
• Jared and Jerusha Hess on Ninety-Five Senses
• Stephen Vuillemin on A Kind Of Testament
• Gabriel Augerai, Romain Augier, and Yannick Jacquin on Boom
• Priit Tender on Dog Apartment
• Stéphanie Clément on Pachyderme
• Lucija Mrzljak and Morten Tšinakov on Eeva
• Dan Abraham and Trent Correy on Once Upon a Studio