During a three week stay in Iran the director, Laura Isabele Schneider, got to catch a glimpse of the people and their culture. In Tehran, a young aspiring singer told Laura her touching story. As a bisexual woman she is struggling to be accepted in her strict religious society and with being true to herself. She immediately felt that she wanted to tell her story in a short film. However, in order to present the film in Iran as well – where anything concerning LGBTQ is censored – Laura had to change her rather straight forward approach in storytelling. She worked to get the essence of the interview and experimented a lot in order to find a fitting symbolism. Therefore, the final result is a film with fragmented and experimental storytelling, focusing on the emotional side of the story and thus telling it in a subtle way. In the “Tehran Museum of Art” the director got to see amazing historical pottery, and especially the more than 5000 year old “Animation vase” inspired her to use pottery in her project, as well. Depicting a jumping goat, the vase is an astounding early piece of animation. In “I Just Call It Love” Laura tries to combine and contrast the traditional side of the Persian culture with a modern perspective.

BY  Laura Isabel Schneider (DE)


Laura Isabel Schneider was born in Germany in 1996. The German-Spanish artist has been studying Animation at the Filmuniversity Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF since 2017. In 2019 she was an exchange student at the Hochschule für Design und Kunst Lucerne in Switzerland. 'I Just Call It Love' is her debut film.