Là où Dieu n'est pas (Where God Is Not) is a film based on the testimonials of those who have been brutally treated by the Iranian regime. It seeks to understand how the most repressive aspects of this totalitarian system rely on imprisonment and torture. What does the torturer do? What are his gestures and practices? How can a left-wing activist, under the pressure of a totalitarian regime, end up changing sides and participate under duress in such a repressive system? How can the fight be carried out? These are questions that have haunted me since the first feature film I made in Iran on the regime’s militia. Once again, I am trying to understand power by looking at it from the perspective of those who have directly experienced the violence meted out by the Iranian regime. 

-- Dir. Mehran Tamadon - 112min - 2023 - France, Switzerland --

"the title is taken from the brutal words sprung upon a prisoner by their jailer who declares that, within the forbidding walls of the prison, God simply does not exist. As Tamadon’s interview subjects reconstruct their cells in various warehouses in Paris, their testimony lays bare how terrifyingly true that statement is." - Guardian

"Over the course of the trio’s reconstructions and reenactments, they place their bodies back in the positions they took during their interrogation and torture. Will this enable them to convey their experiences? Is it helpful for them to return to the past? Providing no easy answers to these difficult questions, the film instead takes the liberty of repeatedly eyeing its own premise with quiet scepticism." - Berlinale

"a powerful portrait of the abuse of power....an unflinching account of being pushed to the extremes of one’s own humanity – what it means to be broken and to resist" - Sheffield Doc/Fest

"Tamadon's framing device is that this is a film aimed at the torturers: if they saw it, he reasons, they would be confronted with their crimes and reflect on them. Of course, that sounds naive and even more controversial when coupled with the concerns elaborated above, giving the viewer more food for thought and fuel for outrage, but there is little doubt that the director knows what he is doing." - Cineuropa

"Iranians remember their torture.....Where God Is Not and My Worst Enemy underline the hypocrisy of the theocracy" - The Economist

"In telling these survivors’ story, Tamadon’s film is as much of a personal story as a political one, depicting the chasm between survivors’ trauma and the audience’s understanding, movingly lingering on the unresolved nature of these memories." - OffScreen