A coach who leads what AFP describes as Iran's only all-female stunt crew says film sets that once doubted women now trust them.
A woman performed a fire stunt with her body ablaze during a training session at a skatepark in southern Tehran on 25 September 2026, according to photo captions carried by the Japan Times with an AFP-JIJI credit.
The session involved the group "Stunt Powerful", which AFP describes as Iran's only all-female stunt crew. It is led by Nasrin Teymouri, a coach and stuntwoman in her thirties, AFP reported.
Safety routines are part of the training, according to the AFP feature as carried by ARY News. During fire rehearsals, colleagues stand by with a fire extinguisher and a wet blanket.
AFP also reported that women supervise when a man prepares to be set alight for a bicycle stunt. The detail was included in the ARY News and Daily Times copies of the report.
The skatepark is called Navid Park, after its founder, and opened a year ago, according to the AFP report as carried by The Witness in South Africa. It is dedicated to extreme sports.
AFP described the surrounding neighbourhood as relatively traditional. The agency noted that a large Islamic republic flag and a mosque dome were visible nearby.
Teymouri told AFP that attitudes in Iran's film industry have changed over time. She said that until just a few years ago, men used to dress up as women to perform stunts in place of actresses.
She said women were not always welcome on set. In the past, she told AFP, their presence used to unsettle colleagues, and even prominent directors would bluntly tell them they could not be stunt performers simply because they were women.
Teymouri said that situation shifted as film-makers saw the crew at work. According to her account to AFP, directors accepted and liked what they saw, and eventually placed their trust in the women.
AFP reported that Teymouri now appears in successful Iranian productions and trains male stunt performers. She also earns a living teaching gymnastics, according to the report.
The coach described her own relationship with fear in terms that might surprise some observers of her profession. "I'm someone who gets scared very easily: I'm afraid of heights and speed. I'm afraid of everything," she told AFP.
She added that facing her fear gives her immense pleasure every time, and that this is what drove her to survive in the profession, according to the ARY News copy of the feature.
Teymouri has also inspired younger performers, AFP reported. They include Mahisa Babayi-Parsa, who is nine years old and told the agency she was not afraid at all when doing stunts.
Other performers named in photo captions to the AFP images, as carried by the Japan Times and The Witness, are Mojgan Nematollahi and Arshia Teymouri.
The statements about changing attitudes in the film industry are Teymouri's own account. The Tehran Telegraph has not seen independent data on how many women work as stunt performers in Iran.
The description of the crew as the country's only all-female stunt group is AFP's. No Iranian official or state media response to the feature had been reported.
AFP said the stunt group operates in a country where mixed-gender participation remains banned in many sports. According to the agency, men and women are not even permitted to visit the same gym.
The restrictions were described by AFP in its report, as carried by ARY News. No official comment on them was reported in connection with the feature.
The AFP report was also republished or rewritten by several outlets, including the Pakistani newspaper Daily Times. Those versions draw on the same AFP reporting rather than on separate accounts.
The setting of the training session is a skatepark in southern Tehran, in a district AFP characterised as relatively traditional. The agency's report describes a group that trains openly there, with the safety procedures it reported, in the same area as the flag and mosque dome it noted.
