News Center_ The film “Bidad”(Injustice) was produced independently, outside Iran's official cinema system, without adhering to mandatory hijab regulations. Due to the sensitivity of its subject and the risks faced by the production team, the Karlovy Vary Film Festival withheld the film's name until several crew members safely left Iran.

"Bidad," directed by Soheil Beiraqi, begins with a seemingly simple desire: a woman wants to sing. But this desire quickly transcends its personal boundaries, transforming into a political, social, and legal issue. "Sati," the protagonist, refuses to let her voice disappear behind the voices of men; she wants to sing with her own voice and be heard. However, this desire places her in confrontation with a system of official and social restrictions.

But beyond breaking the taboo, the question remains: Did the film succeed in revealing the historical suffering of women who have paid the price for years for possessing their voices, or did it merely transform this suffering into a dramatic subject?

The Answer Is Not Entirely Clear

Women's singing in Iran is not an issue separate from the long history of control over women's bodies, voices, and social presence. Before a woman stands before a microphone, she faces various forms of restrictions at home, school, university, the street, the workplace, and public spaces. Some of these restrictions originate from the law, but another part is imposed by customs, traditions, family, and patriarchal relations.

Here, the film acquires special importance. A woman in Iran does not face a single official ban; sometimes her family hinders her, customs consider her presence a breach of convention, or society asks her to limit herself to preserve men's comfort. Therefore, a film aiming to break the taboo of women's singing could have highlighted these social and historical layers more prominently.

The film portrays part of these pressures—from humiliation and control to arrest and psychological pressure. However, compared to what singers and women artists have endured over the past years, this suffering remains limited in the film. Women have been prevented from appearing on stage, forced into exile, deprived of artistic activity, imprisoned, or subjected to judicial punishments.

The case of Parastoo Ahmadi and the "Caravanserai Concert" team showed that holding a women's musical performance can turn into a criminal case carrying punishments such as flogging, a ban on leaving the country, and deprivation of artistic activity.

It is important to note that women's singing is not defined as an independent and clear crime in Iran's penal code. However, some cases have relied on charges such as "violating public chastity" or "openly committing a forbidden act." This raises questions about the principle of the legality of crimes and punishments, and the interpretation of criminal laws.

Thus, the issue is not limited to the question of whether women are allowed to sing or not. The fundamental question is: Why can an artistic activity transform into a case concerning public order, morality, gender, and even security?

Here, one of the film's dialogues deserves attention. When Sati sings, the young man helping her says, "My hormones are stirring." This sentence could have been an opportunity to critique a patriarchal view that sees women's voices not as a right and artistic expression, but as a factor requiring control over men's behavior. However, the filmmaker's choice and use of this sentence—if not accompanied by sufficient critical distance—may risk reproducing the same patriarchal logic: a woman sings, a man is aroused, therefore women must be restricted. Instead, the question should be reversed: Why should men's behavior be the standard for restricting women?

Where the film finds more success is in linking the protagonist Sati to Generation Z. This generation does not wait for permission; it turns the street into a space for demanding rights.

From this perspective, analyzing "Bidad" is not merely a cinematic discussion. The film should also be examined from the angles of sociology, women's rights, and criminal law. Restrictions on women's singing are not just artistic constraints; they are linked to control over the body, agency, gender discrimination, family structure, social norms, and the interpretation of criminal laws.

In the end, the film's issue is not just about whether "Sati" is allowed to sing or not. The deeper question is: Why is a woman's voice assumed to be such a danger to the social order that laws, customs, family, and even some cultural narratives intervene to silence it?