A Film Lover's Final Frame: Iranian Student Dies Fighting for Freedom

January 2, 2026: In her dorm room at the University of Tehran, a 24-year-old Italian literature student watched Sentimental Value, Norwegian director Joachim Trier's latest film. Raha Bahloulipour logged it on Letterboxd, giving it a heart and tagging it "protests"—a note that she'd watched it as anti-regime demonstrations rocked her country.

Seven days later, Raha would never watch another film. On January 8-9, Iranian security forces killed thousands of protesters across the country. Raha was among them, felled by a bullet that pierced her lungs.

When Art Meets Resistance

Raha's 888 days on Letterboxd tell a story of profound cultural hunger. She logged 795 films, meticulously noting when, where, and in what context she watched them. This digital diary, started in August 2023, became an inadvertent record of a young woman's intellectual and emotional journey under authoritarianism.

"What a Day! What a night!" she wrote on Telegram on December 29, the first day of protests, mixing English, Italian, and Persian. "These streets, these feelings: I want my life to be like this." She ended by calling for solidarity demonstrations on campus.

For Raha, politics wasn't a choice—it was an imposition. Living as a woman under the Islamic Republic meant restrictions on what she could wear, listen to, and watch. In February 2025, she posted: "I am in the most penniless era of my life. I can barely afford one meal a day." Like many Iranians, she struggled to imagine a future. "I hate, hate, hate the Islamic Republic, and I am so tired of it."

Cinema as Sanctuary and Strength

Raha's Telegram channel name—"Le vent nous portera" (The Wind Will Carry Us)—embodied her cultural worldview. The title comes from a French rock song, named after a film by Iranian auteur Abbas Kiarostami, who took it from a poem by Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad. East and West, past and present, all flowing together.

"Until the cinema can give you courage to go on, you must continue life even if it's full of pain and suffering," she wrote at age 17. Four years later: "I love cinema because I love humans. I love that humans live and exist." And later still: "I owe so much to cinema. Most of the courage I feel in myself is because of cinema."

Even as protests intensified in January, Raha never stopped watching films. She tagged 22 movies with "protests," viewing them throughout those stormy days. On January 4, she watched V for Vendetta, about mass demonstrations against dystopian fascism. The same day, she found time for Jennifer Lawrence in Die My Love and rewatched the feel-good musical La La Land. On January 6, she discovered Trier's acclaimed The Worst Person in the World—her final new film entry on Letterboxd.

The Last Connection

On January 9, the regime imposed a sweeping internet blackout. Raha managed to get online briefly. "I connected for only a moment," she wrote on Telegram, "and I just want to write: Women, Life, Freedom. Forever." This became her final post and political testament.

The death toll remains disputed. Nobody believes the regime's count of 3,000; opposition sources suggest the real number might be 10 times higher. Even at the conservative estimate, this represents the worst killing of protesters in Iranian history.

Raha's story has spread quickly because her posts express a joyful nature that's now gut-wrenching to witness. "I really am a big fan of life," she wrote in November 2025. A viral video shows her practicing Italian: "Maybe because my love for life knows no end." She once quoted Matt Haig: "I want life. I want to read it and write it and feel it and live it."

A Different Kind of Martyrdom

Raha's exuberance contrasted starkly with the martyrdom culture promoted by Iran's theocratic regime. While religious fundamentalists celebrate indifference to earthly life, pinning hopes on posthumous rewards, Raha embodied the opposite philosophy.

Now, as Iranians bury their dead, an entirely different culture has emerged around them. Funerals feature not traditional resigned mourning, but defiance and celebration of life. Instead of the Islamic term shahid (martyr), Iranians have adopted the Persian javidnaam (eternal name) to denote this new mentality.

The designation fits Raha perfectly. She won't finish the 279 films on her Letterboxd watchlist. She won't complete her Italian degree. But her writings will indeed be eternal, and her name will live on among Iranians still fighting to reclaim their country.