An interview with Marjane Satrapi writer and co-director of Persepolis — the Cannes film festival Jury Award-winning coming-of-age animated film about a precocious and outspoken young Iranian girl that begins during the Islamic Revolution. It is through the eyes of Marjane that we see a people's hopes dashed as fundamentalists take power — forcing the veil on women and imprisoning thousands. Clever and fearless, she outsmarts the “social guardians” and discovers punk, ABBA and Iron Maiden. Yet when her uncle is senselessly executed and as bombs fall around Tehran in the Iran/Iraq war, the daily fear that permeates life in Iran is palpable. As she gets older, Marjane's boldness causes her parents to worry over her continued safety. Satrapi originally published Persepolis in 2001 as a graphic novel. She grew up in Tehran in a progressive family. Her family was involved with the communist and socialist movements in Iran, prior to the Islamic Iranian Revolution. She attended the Lycée Français there and witnessed, as a child, the growing oppression of civil liberties and the everyday-life consequences of Iranian politics, including the fall of the Shah, the early regime of Ayatollah Khomeini and the first years of the Iran-Iraq war. Persepolis is an Aacademy Award nominee for a Best Animated Film. Less