Two days after the brutal death of Mahsa Amini at the hands of the Islamic Republic’s morality police, Iranian pop icon Googoosh stands side stage at Jahrhunderthalle, a concert venue in Frankfurt, Germany. Her stellar band begins playing the opening bars of her timeless song, “Talagh.” She wears a sparkly black sequined gown with mesh sleeves. Her left hand instinctively taps out the rhythm in the air while her right rests on her hip. But sadness is stamped across her face. She shakes her blonde head and, verging on tears, asks those around her in Farsi, “How am I supposed to sing?”
This is an early scene in Googoosh: Made of Fire, a long-awaited documentary from German Iranian filmmaker Niloufar Taghizadeh. The 90-minute film premieres on digital platforms September 16, 2026, deliberately chosen to coincide with the fourth anniversary of Amini’s death, which sparked the Women, Life, Freedom movement. Rooted in opposition to the oppression and discrimination of women in Iran, the movement also seeks freedom for all Iranians systemically repressed by the Islamic government. (…)
“I had this film in my mind for a long time, not just about Googoosh and her story, but that whole generation of musicians, actors, directors, so many lives that are gone,” says Niloufar, speaking from her home in Germany, her English a charming combination of German directness and Persian poetry.
“There is a responsibility to talk about people who are still here so there will be a big history,” she says. “I always thought I will write and show and make films, fiction or documentary, about the unbelievable and amazing stories of these survivors. Googoosh, for me, like many Iranian boys and girls, sold so badly good the dreams: how happiness can be, how love can be, how a beautiful, free woman can be that helps us survive and get to this dream world. Googoosh is symbolic for many men and women in Iran.”
Earlier this year, I listened to the singer’s 2025 memoir, Googoosh: A Sinful Voice, and assumed the documentary was based on the book, but Niloufar corrects me. She began filming at the Frankfurt concert, wrapped at the top of 2023, and completed the project a year later. The memoir was published two years after that, and Niloufar still hasn’t read it. She doesn’t need to. Her engrossing documentary puts the viewer in a deeply personal position with its subject.
The film brings us into Googoosh’s Los Angeles home, where she is surrounded by her dogs. Her first-person narrative is smoothly cut with an astounding wealth of archival images and footage. Because Googoosh only expected to leave Iran—where she was under house arrest—for a short while in 2001, any personal items she has are treasured. The footage delves deep into her performance history, which began at age 3. Present-day footage captures her recording, performing concerts, attending photo shoots, and sharing stories about the framed photos around her house.
The cinematography is intimate, with close-ups not just of Googoosh but from her point of view as well. It feels like you’re her shadow. Niloufar was encouraged by her collaborators to cut some of the emotion, both as a favor to the film and to Googoosh, because it was suffocating. Having studied theater directing as well as film, she was taught to reduce reality for maximum impact, and she says, “If I think it’s not enough, maybe it’s too much.”
“Each year is a big drama, not just with [Googoosh] but also with [Iran],” she continues. “During editing, some of it was difficult to watch. Some days, by 2 p.m., Catharina [Kleber], my editor, would say, ‘I’m done for today.’ The film was more emotional than it is now.” (…)
