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film cinema

 Cinematic Imaginaries and غير مجاز مي باشدmopolitanism in the Early Twentieth Century

 

With the emergence of new communication technologies, social spaces, novel practices, domestic conflicts, revolution and international wars in the first two decades of the twentieth century, the space of experience in Iran was constantly transforming.1 During this “new time,” cinema propelled a horizon of expectation, and in fact, a wide range of possibilities and futures for cinema audiences. Through cinema, actions in the present were informed by the past, and motivated by future expectations. As documents from the first two and a half decades of the twentieth century reveal, Iranian movie theatres predominantly featured international motion pictures in their programs, as no Persian-language short or feature film had yet been produced. Keeping in mind the “reflexive” quality of cinema that provided a cultural horizon in which the traumatic effects of modernity and modernisation were registered and articulated, one could extrapolate that the “aesthetic and sensorial” dimensions of cinema, processed through the act of spectatorship, inspired attitudes for the articulation and negotiation of national imaginations.2 The international moving pictures screened in Iran evoked a futural prospect of what Iran could and ought to be – a temporalisation of historical time on screen and in cinema space that characterised modernity in the early twentieth century. Much of the literature on early cinema in Iran has attended, in a rather dismissive tone, to the inundation of Iranian cinemas with international films, cinematic colonisation and henceforth the non-existence of an Iranian cinema industry; very little has been expressed in terms of the cinema culture that such cinematic events engraved in the Iranian imaginaries and cinematic visions. Through a genealogical investigation of cinematic activities during that era, this chapter argues for the shaping of a cinema culture that, relating to conditions of Iranian modernity, functioned to embody the global غير مجاز مي باشدmos in its vernacular morphogenesis – a trait that came to bear upon Iranian cinema in various forms in the following decades.

To recover a cinema history that has been buried under the temporality of politics in Iran, this chapter will first explore the socio-cultural heterogeneity that marked the experience of Iranian modernity in the early twentieth century. Highlighting ethnic, religious, ideological, political and cultural diversity in Tehran, the following pages argue for the existence of a غير مجاز مي باشدmopolitan urban society at the turn of the century. The inauguration of cinematographic screenings and the gradual inception of a cinematic culture in the first decades of the twentieth century were much indebted to the diasporic groups and/or غير مجاز مي باشدmopolitan merchants and intellectuals residing in Iran. Prompting new spaces for the socialisation of diverse residents, as well as projecting heterotopic images – of other lifestyles, peoples, cultures, landscapes, wars and practices – cinema further facilitated the creation of غير مجاز مي باشدmopolitan imaginaries. With the growing popularity of cinematographic screenings and their accompanying leisure activities, cinemas became concentrated in certain areas of the city, thus further prompting the urbanisation of Tehran and the city’s compartmentalisation.

As this chapter will demonstrate, cinema’s newly found position elicited various reactions from the diverse residents of Iran. Amid the brewing of nationalist sentiments, the غير مجاز مي باشدmopolitan intellectuals and the elite seem not only to have accepted cinema as a medium that projected “moral” social norms, but to have adopted it as an effective tool in the education of the public (especially students) and in the service of the nation. Therefore, film screenings were included in school and conference programs, and the masses were encouraged to attend “moral” and “scientific” film screenings. Inspired by the technology, some غير مجاز مي باشدmopolitan film enthusiasts engaged in creating the first newsreels and documentaries that depicted the Iranian empire and local practices of the people in attempts to imagine and stage Iran as contemporaneous with its global counterparts. As this chapter will show, merchants, cinema patrons and social critics associated films with moral edification and national progress, and provoked national consciousness among the public in the first two decades of the twentieth century.

***

In the literature on early cinema, some scholars argue for a rethinking of cinema’s “emergence within the sensory environment of urban modernity”; much of this scholarship also draws a connection between cinema and “late nineteenth-century technologies of space and time,” as well as the “adjacent elements in the new visual culture of advanced capitalism.”3 Such Eurocentric theories are lacking, nevertheless, in that they are based on early Western cinema and its relation to “Western” modernities, industrialisation and modes of capitalism; they thus neglect the analysis of such relationships in societies with alternative histories and modernities. The literature on the history of Iranian cinema, too, is wanting in that it has mainly dealt with the fascination of the Qajar court, especially Muzaffar al-Din Shah (r. 1896–1907), with the cinematograph. The dearth of documents and scholarship on Iranian film productions (and the absence of Persian-language narrative films) in the first two and a half decades of the twentieth century has compelled scholars to overlook the highly dynamic cinematic activities of this era and their contribution to Iran’s experience of modernity;4 even when attended to, these activities have been discussed in terms of their political implications, especially with regard to the role that cinema sponsorship by foreign forces had in disseminating propaganda in the country.5 On the other hand, some scholars of Iranian cinema have considered it as a royal private enterprise, inaccessible to the public,6 thus neglecting the role of merchants and tradespeople in the promotion of cinema culture. Such literature has, for the most part, disregarded the significance of cinema in the shaping of Iranian imaginations in such a historically eventful era.

In this chapter, I intend only to scratch the surface and recover a brief history of early cinema in Iran through primary sources such as journals, autobiographies, memoirs, travelogues, official documents and newspaper articles, and then analyse, not necessarily in a chronological order, my findings in relation to Iranian modernity from 1900 to the mid-1920s through the prism of cinema. I attend to the imaginaries that international films and hybrid cinema spaces rendered in the context of early-twentieth-century Iran. I argue that in this era, the Iranian modern subject was shaped through the negotiations that occurred through cinematic experiences, either in accepting or rejecting globally informed narratives or in receiving those narratives through multiple and hybrid experiences conveyed through spectatorship in the space of cinema. I contend that the cinema was a heterotopic site, a site of hybridity, both through the concrete public space of sociability that it entailed, and through imaging Iran’s Others on its screens. I specifically argue that cinematic encounters in the heterotopic space of cinema in the twentieth century allowed for the formation of غير مجاز مي باشدmopolitan identities; informed by global cinematic imaginations, Iranians further refashioned themselves within their local particularities, and became participants in the twentieth century. Iran’s experience of modernity, I contend, was shaped by غير مجاز مي باشدmopolitan cinematic imaginations that envisioned a horizon of expectation for what the future of Iran ought to be: progressive, moral and sovereign. I also rely on extant short actualités and newsreels filmed in Iran (mostly Tehran) by national and international agents as primary sources, to investigate the interactions of ordinary residents – i.e. the train passenger, bystander, horse rider, woman, musician, etc. – in new urban spaces and settings that were captured in these films to comment on the experience of urban modernity.7 It should be mentioned that this study will only focus on cinematic affairs during this period, and will regretfully eschew discussing the uغير مجاز مي باشدe of other image projectors such as the magic lantern, the kinetoscope and its Iranian equivalent, Shahr-i Farang.

In this chapter, I consider an Iranian vernacular modernity that was shaped through local social changes which began to take place in the nineteenth century. Situating Iranian modernity in complex and widespread social transformations that engendered new practices and novel spectacles provides a different outlook on Iran’s experience of a “new time.” Such conceptualisation allows one to stay away from discussions of Iranian modernity that equate it with processes of state modernisation, and it dissociates modernity from notions of Westernisation and/or industrialisation. When investigating the unfolding of Iranian modernity within local settings and examining its multifaceted transitions from different starting points, one also comes to realise the indispensable significance of cinema to the history of modernity in Iran. In the nineteenth century, the daily life experiences of Iranians underwent many changes. This was especially the case with the spread of epidemic diseases, as well as the means to prevent the propagation of such illnesses in that era. The government-led means to forestall the multiplication and spread of diseases, namely cholera, malaria and black death, engendered the establishment of hygienic measures such as a city piping system, public washrooms, the publication of guidelines on good hygiene, the paving of roads, supervision of mortuaries and cemeteries, beautification of streets and planting of trees alongside roads. In addition, urban centres witnessed a propagation of public spaces such as hospitals, schools, embassies, theatres, public squares, reading-houses, cinemas, hotels and guesthouses. Altogether, these novel features brought unprecedented life experiences to the everyday lives of urban residents of Iran – experiences that could be regarded as part and parcel of the ethos of Iranian urban modernity; the ethos of a new time that prompted the imagination of a progressive Iran, devoid of corporeal diseases.

It was within such urban transformations that a culture of movie-going was engendered – a culture that encompassed various reactions, including acceptance of and objections to this new communication medium. The technology of cinema which shifted notions of time and space, the moving images that it projected and the space that it occupied in Tehran’s changing urban setting all allude to the novelties that cinematic modernity conjured as part of the larger transformations in the early twentieth century. Cinema itself was a public space, the organisation, location and management of which further shaped the Iranian urban environment. Cinema introduced a public practice that shifted away from the private consumption of print media, and as such facilitated opportunities for the public to socialise and formulate critical opinions. Cinematic images further provided moments of world openness for Iran’s diverse inhabitants to further refashion themselves into غير مجاز مي باشدmopolitan participants of the twentieth century.

1.1 Cinematic Heterotopia in Early-Twentieth-Century Tehran

At the turn of the century, Iran was a diasporic hub for many of the diverse communities who congregated in urban centres for commerce, or political or artistic endeavours. Many of these communities took refuge in Iran away from the chaos of wars and conflicts in their homelands. Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Georgians, Assyrians, Germans, Russians, Indians, Americans, French and British had come together in cities such as Tehran. Such an extensive network of immigrants, religions and ideologies engendered a culture in flux that included a multiplicity of experiences, socio-cultural norms and practices.

Russian activities in Azerbaijan, on the north-western frontier of Iran, had disgruntled the Azerbaijani populations since the early nineteenth century, and drove many Azerbaijani khans8 into exile – some of whom came to Iran – throughout a quarter-century of Russian domination.9 The Russo-Persian conflicts which concluded in the Gulistan Treaty (1812) and the Turkmanchai Treaty (1828) also opened a weakened Persia to Russian commercial and political influences, allowing many Russian merchants, activists and political figures of Azerbaijani, Armenian and Georgian descent to immigrate to Iran. By the same token, many Iranians also lived in the Russian Empire. In 1900, this number reached 200,000, the majority of whom were concentrated in the South Caucasus.10 In fact, a large population of Iranians resided in Tbilisi (Tiflis), Georgia, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.11 From the late Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, most of these Iranian immigrants dwelled in the Seidabad District and the territory adjacent to the Narikala Citadel, forming the largest professional groups of tradesmen, hawkers, builders and shopkeepers (especially involved in the trade of rugs).12 Tiflis, moreover, became one of the centres of Persian intellectuals and free-thinkers.13

In Iran, on the other hand, at the turn of the century, the Armenian-Iranian merchants were at the forefront of Iran’s trade with Europe.14 The confiscation of Armenian Church properties in 1903 by Tsar Nicholas II, the participation of Armenians in the peasant uprisings – as well as the worker and student strikes of the Russian Revolution of 1905, and the conflicts between Caucasian Muslims and Christian Armenians from 1905 to 1907, led to a crack-down in 1908 by the Russian government on all revolutionary activities.15 As a result, many revolutionaries were killed, arrested or exiled, while many sought refuge and free expression in Iran.16 The Russian Revolution of 1905 also had a great impact along the north-western frontier of Iran, especially since Iranian migrant workers constituted a large part of the population in that region, namely in Azerbaijan’s Baku; these migrant labourers, many of whom worked in oilfields, became involved in local and regional political activities.17 These workers who returned to Iran brought with them revolutionary ideas, which significantly contributed to the ideologies behind the Constitutional Revolution of Iran (1906–1911).18 Moreover, the contraction of the Ottoman Empire and its eventual collapse in the early 1920s, and the 1915 genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, led to emigration, exile and forcible displacement of many Christians and Muslims from their Ottoman homeland to various countries, including Iran. Therefore, at a time of heightened national solidification among Azerbaijanis, Armenians and Georgians in various Russian regions, as well as in Ottoman Turkey, the borders of Iran and its north-western neighbours had become increasingly indistinct due to the influx and outflow of populations and commercial contacts, as well as the co-habitation of these communities. As is evident in the news reports and articles of the time, and as this chapter will attempt to show, the multiplicity and coexistence of various populations in the above-mentioned regions prompted a traversing of national, ethnic, religious and ideological identities, as different communities engaged in the same activities, or came together in political and ideological movements. For Armenians, as Houri Berberian discusses, “internal and external political, intellectual, and social circumstances” in the early twentieth century had created a “multiplicity of identities, coexisting and competing for primacy.”19 In other words, during this time, identities were impacted by “setting and context,” and were thus “‘highly situational,’ multiple, fluid, and negotiable.”20 In the case of Armenians, Berberian specifically suggests that the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Armenians of the Caucasus, Ottoman Empire and Iran were transnational communities, consisting of workers and activists that maintained contact with their homeland and other diasporic communities, while also travelling in more than one community.21 The collaboration of Iranians and Armenians was especially evident during the Constitutional Revolution of 1906–1911, making the Iranian province of Azerbaijan (and especially the city of Tabriz, where many Armenians resided) the centre of resistance.22

In Iran, the transnational flow of migrants into and out of the country, and the increase in population of urban cities such as Tehran and Tabriz, necessitated the fostering of facilities such as guesthouses, hotels, theatres, teashops, restaurants, cafés, stores, schools and other spaces for public congregation, education and entertainment of various communities; so much so that in the first decades of the twentieth century, the number and variety of such public spaces increased dramatically. The building of guest/traveller lodges such as the Grand Hotel on Lālahzār Avenue, the Paris Guesthouse (Mihmān-khānah-’i Pārīs), the Iran Guesthouse and the Hôtel de France, as well as the opening of new shops, such as New Spring (Naw Bahār), Azerbaijan, Bon Marché (named after the famous department store in Paris) and Bon Jour Boutique, in the first two decades of the twentieth century point to the proliferation of such public places. Many of these sites of sociability were in turn owned and operated by members of the diasporic communities living in urban centres.

In terms of public performances, the number of theatrical spectacles and plays performed by residents of Iran and the artists who passed through or toured the country grew significantly. The theatrical play, “Three Fiancés and One Bride,” by the Armenian actor-director Monsieur Gustanian and Miss Gul-Sabā,23 the historical “Eastern dance” piece of “Kay-Khusraw,” about the “moral grandeur and power of ancient Persia” conducted by a famous Russian ballet dancer and four European women,24 and the “historically important piece” of “Nadir Shah of Afshār” conducted under the supervision of “Ghulām-Rizā Sharīf-Zādah (the Head of the Republic of Azerbaijan State Theatre)”25 are among some of the performances that were staged in Iran during this era. Many of these theatrical performances were co-productions between Iranians and the diasporic communities. To name a few, the “Firdawsi” spectacle (a play about the life and work of the highly revered Iranian poet of Shahnamah, the Book of Kings, the national epic of Iran and its neighbours) was sponsored by the American School of Higher Education (Madrasah-’i ‘Ālī-yi Āmrīkāyī), was performed by “the most famous Iranian actors” and included Caucasian and European music with Iranian anthems.26 An “Iranian concert and European ballet by the famous Russian actor of the Imperial Ballet, Monsieur Ruba, in unison with other European actors and actresses,”27 is another example of such co-productions. It is easy to imagine how the advertisement of such performances appealed to the various communities that lived in Iran (Figure 1.1). In terms of education, the number of pedagogical institutions also flourished in the first two decades of the twentieth century. In addition to Tehran’s School of Higher Education, Dār al-Funūn, schools such as Iran’s Civilisation (Tamaddun-i Irān), the Charitable Boarding School for Orphans (Madrasah-’i Shabānah-Rūzī-yi Khayrīyah-?i Ītām), the School of the Sun of Schools (Madrasah-’i Shams al-Madāris), the School for Armenians (Madrasah-’i Arāmanah) and the Music School were already established and in operation by the early 1920s.28 The number of drugstores, health clinics, shops, book stores, reading houses, concerts, conferences and public lectures also increased considerably throughout this period. The German Doctor Kopeliowitch,29 Mademoiselle Dermis,30 Doctor Khudzā31 and the French Doctor Wilholm32 were among the international practitioners who continuously advertised their clinics in the newspapers of the time. Many of the newly established boutiques and dress shops were also owned and operated by the diasporic communities. A Zoroastrian shop in front of the Shams al-ʻImārah building in Tehran, for example, sold “excellent textiles,”33 while an Armenian merchant, Armenak Aghassian, traded the “latest fashion English women’s shoes and men’s boots and Parisian cravats” in his English shop on Lālahzār Avenue;34 it should be mentioned here that to compete with foreign textile imports, Iranian residents also advertised the Iranian handmade fabrics and artifacts sold in their shops. It is within such heterogeneity in material form and experiential quality that one needs to examine the emergence of cinema as a modern technology, and a sensory mode and practice.

Figure 1.1 An example of a newspaper advertisement for a cultural event in 1920

The first spaces that began to project cinematographic films in Tehran were commercial spaces such as shops, studios, hotels and coffee houses that were both private (in that they were owned by individual merchants) and public (in that they were spaces of assembly and interaction for urban residents). As film screenings became more popular and more cinematographic devices were imported from Europe by merchants, these ad hoc spaces gave way to more formal and professional cinema spaces. Many of the theatres, hotels and/or locations where films were screened in the first few years after the inception of the technology of cinema were run by Armenian, Russian, Georgian and Azerbaijani émigrés, who thus became the first public cinematograph operators. To name a few, Russi Khan (1875–1967), an immigrant under Russian patronage, also known as Mihdi Ivanov or alternatively as Georgian Fyodorovich, was one of the court photographers of the Qajar Dynasty, who later opened and operated a number of theatres around the city.35 Two months after opening his personal photography studio,36 Russi Khan started to screen films in his shop.37 Aghayev, of Azeri descent, was another cinematograph owner who operated the cinematograph at the same time as Russi Khan in the 1910s. The famous Armenian-Georgian photographer who was born in Iran during the Qajar Dynasty, Antoin Sevruguin (late 1830s–1933), also opened several movie theatres in the 1910s. Ardashes Patmagerian (1963–1928),38 an Armenian merchant, also known as Ardishīr Khan, was another important figure in establishing cinema and a culture of movie-going in the early twentieth century. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, a certain “Monsieur Levine,” the manager of Iran Cinema (Sīnamāy-i Īrān), and “Parī Āqā-Bāyūff” (Pari Aqabayev or Aqababian), or Madame Parī, an Armenian-Iranian woman who had received her education outside Iran and had been active in both theatre and cinema in the 1910s in Tehran, were among cinema owners too.39

In addition to the diasporic communities who were involved in the business of cinema, the activities of غير مجاز مي باشدmopolitan locals in the operation of cinematographs and/or conducting film screenings should not be underestimated. Mirzā Ibrāhīm Khān-i Sahhāf-Bāshī, for example, was one of the first Iranian merchants who brought the cinematograph to Iran and made use of it as a commercial enterprise in his shop in 1903. According to his memoirs, Sahhāf-Bāshī, who travelled extensively around the world, saw “a recently invented electric device,” i.e. the cinematograph, at the “Pālās Sīnamā” (Palace Cinema) in Paris for the first time in 1897 after he had “walked in the public park” in the evening.40 Interestingly, a cinema by the same name, Sīnamā Pālās (Palace Cinema), was established by a Russian immigrant, Monsieur Tāmbūr, in the Grand Hotel on Lālahzār Avenue in the late 1910s.41

Around the same time as Russi Khan and Antoin Sevreguin, Hājī Nāyib Muʻīlī, another Iranian merchant, was known to have operated a cinematographic device in his café on Lālahzār Avenue in Tehran in the early twentieth century.42 Moreover, as has already been discussed by many Iranian cinema scholars, Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Khān-i ʻAkkāsbāshī (1874–1915), the photographer and cinematographer of Muzaffar al-Din Shah, was perhaps the first Iranian documentary filmmaker.43 After accompanying the Shah to the Paris Exposition in 1900 and seeing the Lumière cinematographic exhibit, ʻAkkāsbāshī, by order of the Shah, purchased a few cinematographic devices, brought them to Iran for the use of the Qajar court and filmed a few royal events; some of these included Muzaffar al-Din Shah at the Festival of Flowers in Belgium in 1900, some scenes from the Shah’s second European visit and ʻĀshūrā mourning processions in Tehran.44

Operated by people from a variety of backgrounds, Iranian cinemas became the space of socialisation for the Iranian and diasporic communities. As early as 1903, Sahhāf-Bāshī’s cinema, according to the memoirs of Ghulām ʻAlī khān-i ʻAzīz al-Sultān (1878–1940), the second Malījak of the Qajar court,45 hosted “foreigners” on “Sunday mornings” and the public on “Sunday evenings.”46 According to the same account, on some nights, “Antoin Sevreguin’s cinema hosted only Armenians, and turned away Muslims.”47 The Grand Hotel (Girānd Hutil) of Lālahzār, the Fārūs Publishing House (Matbaʻah-’i Fārūs), where many public gatherings ensued, and early public movie theatres such as Sun Cinema (Sīnamā Khurshīd) and Pathé Cinema (Sīnamā Pātah) also facilitated the physical encounters of Iranians with people from a multitude of ethnicities and nationalities in such spaces. These cinemas and film-screening venues themselves were located in the commercial and tourist centres of urban cities, where the assemblage and interactions of Iranian merchants, students, passers-by and diasporic communities were further facilitated. Russi Khan, for instance, launched his first public cinema on ʻAlā’ al-Dawlah Avenue, previously known as Ambassador Avenue (Khīyābān-i Sufarā) – home to the embassies of countries such as Germany, Belgium, Ottoman Turkey and Britain, as well as the Russian Loan Bank and Paris Guesthouse.48 In 1909, Antoin Sevreguin, in collaboration with Ardishīr Khan and Pathé Institution, opened a new public cinema on “ʻAlā’ al-Dawlah Avenue, in front of the Loan Bank” of Russia, in the personal apartment of Ardishīr Khan.49 Cinema business was so good on this street that later, in 1917, Ardishīr Khan opened another cinema by the name of Sun Cinema in the same thoroughfare.50 In 1908, Aghayev also advertised “new worth-seeing cinematographic films that portrayed the foreign worlds in motion” in a merchant’s shop on the Nāsirī Avenue, thus bringing the global into the local shops of Tehran, where many gathered and socialised.51 The propagation of cinemas in such areas of Tehran further prompted the mingling and interactions of heterogeneous communities, and shaped a culture that was informed by various ideologies and opinions. Russi Khan later opened more cinemas at some of Tehran’s significant landmarks: one on Nāsirī Avenue, in the yard of the famous Iranian institution of higher education, Dār al-Funūn,52 and another on the upper level of the Fārūs Publishing House on Lālahzār Avenue, home to many of the newly founded hotels, motels, theatres and touristic attractions in the city of Tehran.53

The physical spaces of cinema, as unexampled public spaces that facilitated a familiarisation with previously unfamiliar practices, lifestyles and ideologies in the urban sites (through encounters of diverse people), thus also forged a hybrid character upon the cityscape that closely matched Iran’s experience of modernity. Such proliferation of public spaces further configured the compartmentalisation of the city, giving rise to some districts in the city that became the centres of socialisation, critical thinking and entertainment. In fact, Lālahzār Avenue soon served as the main location for many more theatres, public spectacles and cinemas in Tehran. The implantation of cinema in this avenue was a product of Tehran’s new metropolitan constitution, and it became a terrain for the reproduction of the city’s popular culture for many years to come. Excellent Cinema (Sīnamā-yi ʻĀlī), Casino Hall (Sālun-i Kāzīnaw) and Palace Cinema, all established in the second half of the 1910s in Tehran, were among the movie theatres that were established in this street, increasing its urbanite character even further (Figure 1.2).

Figure 1.2 A photo of Palace Hotel and Palace Cinema on Istanbul Crossroad

Other than screening films in public places, many enthusiasts started to rent or sell cinematographic devices for projection at weddings and other festivities, or to hold private film screenings for families and relatives. The famous Qajar court photographer, ʻAbdullāh Mīrzā, advertised the sale of one complete set of cinematographic equipment at his shop in 1907.54 In an announcement in the New Iran (Irān-i Naw) publication, the Spectacle House of Monsieur Būmir and Russi Khan also advertised the rent and sale of cinematographic devices, especially since “a number of devices” were available at their theatre by that time.55 In fact, cinemas had become so popular among the Iranian urban populations that, by the 1920s, many restaurants, cafés and other sites of sociability were equipped with instruments required for film projection. Economy Guest House (Mihmān-Khānah-’i Iqtisād) specifically advertised “very cheap” accommodation where specialised spaces and technological instruments had also been provided for the welfare of its guests, namely “electric lights, a space for gymnastic [activities], cinematograph [screenings] and [stage] performances.”ادامه مطلب

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Iranian Cinema: Before the Revolution

In recent years, post-revolutionary Iranian cinema has been praised in many international forums. What has attracted international audiences to this national cinema is its distinct style, themes, authors, idea of nationhood, and manifestation of culture. In this essay, I will contextualize the emergence of this new cinema by providing a brief historical background of Iranian national cinema, with an emphasis on the foundations of filmic art in that region.

If one were to trace the first visual representations in Iranian history, the bas-reliefs in Persepolis (c.500 B. C) would be one of the earliest examples. Persepolis was the ritual center of the ancient kingdom of Achaemenids. As Honour and Fleming [1] state, “the figures at Persepolis remain bound by the rules of grammar and syntax of visual language[.]” This style of visual representation reached its high peak about a thousand years later during the Sassanian reign. A bas-relief in Taq-e-Bostan (western Iran) depicts a complex hunting scene. Movements and actions are articulated in a sophisticated manner. We can even see the progenitor of the cinema close-up: a wounded wild pig escaping from the hunting ground (Omid, p.19). After the Arab invasion and conversion from Zoroastrianism to Islam —a religion in which visual symbols were avoided — Persian art continued its visual practices. Persian miniatures are great examples of such attempts. The deliberate lack of perspective enabled the artist to have different plots and sub-plots within the same space of the picture.

A very popular form of such art was Pardeh-Khani. Similar to the Benshi of silent Japanese cinema, a Pardeh-khan (narrator) would uncover the painting as the story progressed. Another type of art in the same category was Nagali. A Nagal (or storyteller) would do an entertaining performance usually in Ghahve-khanes (coffeehouses), which were the main forums for cultural interactions between people. As a performing artist, Nagal had to possess a good oratorical and singing voice as well as theatrical talent. Above all, the Nagal relied on his imagination a great deal, to improvise according to the audience’s feedback and add to the original tales that he was reciting. He would also acquire inspiration from the images and pictures fixed on the walls – pictures of religious leaders, sport heroes, epic characters – and appropriate them into his narrative. The dominant themes in Nagali were epics depicted from Shah name [2] or the story of Alexander’s quest for the elixir of life.

It is worth mentioning that there were many other dramatic performance arts that were popular before the advent of cinema in Iran. Khaymeshab-bazi (puppet show), Saye-bazi (shadow plays), Rouhozi (comical acts), and Ta’zieh (a form of Persian passion play, presentation of tragic dramas based on the martyrdom of Hossein, an extremely important figure in Shi’asm) are just a few examples. [3]

With respect to Iranian perception of imagery, one should be aware of the long tradition in poetry. From Yashts (the ancient Persian Hymns) to post-Islamic Sufi poetry, as well as contemporary Iranian poetry, we can find numerous examples of this fine art of image making. The extravagant use of symbolism and juxtaposition of codes and symbols gives Persian poetry a unique visual sense. [4]

Cinema Reaches Iranian Soil

It was on August 18, 1900 that the first Iranian photographer recorded images of life on celluloid. Mirza Ebrahim Khan Akkas Bashi was the official photographer of Mozaffar al-Din Shah’s court, who accompanied the monarch in his first visit to Europe. He was introduced to the “cinematographe” in France while they stayed in Paris in July of the same year to see the Exposition. On the same day of the Exposition, the Shah ordered Akkas Bashi to purchase all equipment necessary for recording and displaying the motion picture in his court. Akkas Bashi took his first images in Belgium while they attended the Festival of Flowers. These images are perhaps the first ethnographic footage taken in the history of Iranian cinema, even though its main purpose was documenting the Shah’s visit to Europe.

As we can see, film was brought to Iran by the King as a tool of entertainment for members of the monarchy and the royal court. After seeing the first film of his life, Mozaffar al-Din Shah writes in his travelogue diary:

“….[A]t 9:00 P.M. we went to the Exposition and the Festival Hall where they were showing cinematographe, which consists of still and motion pictures. Then we went to Illusion building ….In this Hall they were showing cinematographe. They erected a very large screen in the centre of the Hall, turned off all electric lights and projected the picture of cinematography on that large screen. It was very interesting to watch. Among the pictures were Africans and Arabians traveling with camels in the African desert which was very interesting. Other pictures were of the Exposition , the moving street, the Seine River and ships crossing the river, people swimming and playing in the water and many others which were all very interesting. We instructed Akkas Bashi to purchase all kinds of it [cinematographic equipment]and bring to Tehran so God willing he can make some there and show them to our servants.” [5]

Unlike many other places in the world, where cinema as marketable commodity was used as mass-entertainment medium [6], in Iran cinema circled amongst courtly nobles and the Royal family (like in Japan). Cinematography had to be presented on occasions such as weddings and circumcisions or other festivities in aristocratic settings, usually projected along with French comedy shorts that were imported through Russia.

The first public screening took place in Tehran in 1904, presented by Mirza Ebrahim Khan Sahaf Bashi. He arranged the screening in the back of his antique shop. In 1905, Sahaf Bashi opened the first movie theater in Cheragh Gaz Avenue in the national capital. There were no chairs in the Saloon and audiences had to sit on the carpeted floor, as they would sit in mosques or at Ta’zieh shows. Sahaf Bashi’s cinema did not last for more than a month, because of his political activities as a nationalist and an individual who was lobbying for a constitutional monarchy. Also, religious opposition provided the Shah’s police with a sufficient excuse to arrest Sahaf Bashi, close down the cinema and confiscate his projector and related equipment. He was soon sent into exile. Perhaps this was the first instance of censorship in the history of Iranian cinema.(Omid, p.870).

Two years later, a few Russian and Armenian immigrants individually tried to establish new movie theaters in Tehran. Russi Khan was the most successful figure among these new cinema owners. With the connections that he held in the Royal court, he could expand his business despite religious contentions. The presence of the Russian Army in the north and Tehran was another support for Russi Khan, since they shared the same nationality and provided an additional market for his enterprise. In 1909, with fall of the Mohammad Ali Shah (heir of Mozaffar al-Din Shah) and the success of the constitutionalists, Russi Khan lost his support. Consequently, his film theatre and photography studios were destroyed by the public. Soon after, other cinema theatres in Tehran closed down.

Movie theatres sprang up again in 1912 with the help of Ardeshir Khan (an Armenian -Iranian). Ghafary, a film historian in Iran, believes it was Ardeshir Khan who fashioned movie theater operation as an organized business. The existence of such an infrastructure encouraged other Iranians to open new movie theaters (Issari. p. 61). Another important person in this era was Ali Vakili, who established a few movie houses and a publication on show business in the late 1920s. Until the early 1930’s there were little more than fifteen theatres in Tehran and eleven in other provinces. By 1978 these numbers grew to a 109 in the national capital and 318 in various Iranian cities. [7]

Pioneers of Iranian Cinema

 

After Akkas Bashi, photographer for Mozafar al’Din shah, and Russi Khan, who was also hired by the Royal family to film court activities, Khan-baba Khan Mo’tazedi was the third Iranian person involved with cinematography. As an engineering student living in Paris, Mo’tazedi found work in a film company. This enabled him to learned how to operate a movie camera and how to process film. With his return to Iran in 1916 Mo’tazedi brought some film equipment (films, camera, projector and processing material). What began as a hobby eventually became his profession.

Mo’tazedi also became a court photographer. He shot a considerable amount of newsreel footage during the reign of Qajar to the Pahlavi dynasty. [8] Mo’tazedi is also credited for being the first person to have arranged a public screening exclusively for women before 1920. From the late 1920’s on, Mo’tazedi worked in the Iranian film industry and became one of the major cinema owners of the time. He was also the first to add Persian inter-titles to foreign films.

In 1925 a young Armenian-Iranian, Ovanes Ohanian (Oganianse), a Russian national who studied film in Cinema Akademi Of Moscow, returned to Iran. His goal was to establish a film industry in the country. Since he found it impossible to initiate any production without professionals in the field, Ohanian decided to begin a film school in Tehran. Within five years he managed to run the first session of the school under the name: “Parvareshgahe Artistiye cinema” (The Cinema Artist Educational Centre). [9] Acting and performance, rather than film production, were the cornerstones of the institution.

After five months, with a few of his graduates and the financial help of a theatre owner, Ohanian directed his first Iranian film, Abi va Rabi, (1929). The film, lensed by Mo’tazedi, was shot silent on 35mm black and white stock and ran 1,400 meters long. [10] As Ghafari states: “This film was patterned directly after the comic acts of the Danish cinema couple Pat and Paterson. Iranians had seen [films of] this couple many times in the cinemas and liked them.” [11] Abi va Rabi was received well by critics and the public. Unfortunately the only copy of the film burnt to ashes two years after its release in a fire accident in cinema Mayak, one of the first theatres in Tehran.

By the end of the school’s second session, Ohanian started his next project, another comedy entitled Haji Agha Aktor-e-Cinema (Haji Agha the Cinema Actor, 1933). The film was a reflexive construction (as appears in its title) about a traditionalist who is suspicious of cinema, but by the end of story recognizes the significance of film art. Haji Agha Aktor-e-Cinema did not do well at the box office. Not only were there technical shortcomings, but additionally, the release of the first Persian talkie (produced in India) diminished its prospects for profit. After the failure of his second film, Ohanian could not find any support for further activities. He left Iran for India and continued his academic career in Calcutta. Subsequently he returned to Iran in 1947, where he died seven years later.

The second Iranian director of that same era was Ebrahim Moradi. As a member of a guerrilla movement (Gangal) in the North of Iran during the late 1920’s, the young Moradi sought asylum in the Soviet Union with his father. Moradi lived in Russia for a few years, where he was introduced to the technical aspects of film. In 1929 he established his own film studio called Jahan Nama in a port city by the Caspian sea, Bandar Anzali. Moradi started shooting his first film Entegham-e-Baradar (A Brother’s Revenge) about a year later. By 1931, 1700 meters of film was edited but he had no money left for completing his project.

Privy to some information of cinematic activities in the National Capital, Moradi moved to Tehran in search of financial help. Yet the young director never completed his first film. In a few months, however, he started a new project, Bolhavas (The Lustful Man) a melodrama released in 1934. This silent film, which received good reviews, was the last Iranian feature production done within its borders until the end of the second World War.

Sepenta

Abdul Hossein Sepenta, the father of Persian talkies, was born in Tehran in 1907. As a young writer and poet, Sepenta went to India in the mid-1920s to study ancient Persian language and history. In Bombay, his friendship with professor Bahram Gour Aneklesaria (an expert in old Iranian languages) encouraged him to consider the new and developing medium of film. Through his adviser Dinshah Irani, Sepenta met Ardeshir Irani, another elite of the Bombay Parsi community. Irani was the executive director of Imperial Film, and agreed to invest in Sepenta’s first Persian talkie. Sepenta began educating himself about the film medium.

He met with Debaki Bose, a pioneer of Bengali cinema who was also interested in representing his culture in a new, epic form. After an introduction to the theory of film, Sepenta started writing his script, with Ardeshir Irani as technical supervisor. Irani also co-directed the film. Dokhtar-e-Lor (The Lor Girl) [12], the first Persian talkie to be released, is the product of this interaction. The film was an absolute success and stayed on Iranian screens for more than two years. Imperial film was so impressed by the success of the talkie that they offered Sepenta production control over another film. Sepenta made four more films for Imperial Film: Ferdousi (1934), Shireen va Farhad (1934), Cheshmhaye Siah (Black Eyes) (1935) and Leyla va Majnun (1936). Interestingly, he also made one film for the East India Film Company in Calcutta. All of his films dealt with the glorification of the old Iranian culture or the optimistic future of a modern Iran.

Sepenta returned to Iran in 1936 with the hope of establishing a film company with the help of government and private sector funding. Unfortunately, he failed to mobilize any support from either party. Due to his mother’s sickness and his financial situation Sepenta was forced to stay in Iran. To support his family he started working in a wool factory in Isfahan. Sepenta remained productive, publishing eighteen books and five films, and, as chief editor of two magazines, writing many articles on art and culture. At the age of 62, three years before his death in 1968, Sepenta tried his hand at film once again. But this time in a manner far from the epic form of his earlier work. With a simple 8mm camera Sepenta recorded the everyday reality around -footage which was has never been released for public screening.

Years of Absence

The period of 1937 to 1948 marked a decade of non-productivity in the history of Iranian national cinema. One can find many reasons for these years of cinema hibernation. The most obvious causes are: Iran’s general political crisis generated by the Second World War; the country’s occupation by allies; the undermining of the cinema industry by the establishment; and, of course, the domination of foreign films (especially Hollywood).

Reza Shah, the first monarch of the Pahlavi dynasty, came to power in the early 1920s. Despite his fascination with modernisation and technology, the Shah could not understand the importance of a film industry. The only contributions to cinema he made were the 500 Toman awarded to Mo’tazedi for his newsreel based on the Shah’s coronation.

After being impressed by a Mo’tazedi’s newsreel documenting the installation of an Anglo-Persian oil company in Khusestan, the Shah ordered the construction of a new movie theatre in Tehran. The industrial sights of his country on celluloid overwhelmed the Shah. As Mo’tazedi remembers, the Shah remarked: “Marvelous! How well done! What modern installations! But alas they [British oil company] give Iran little money….” Right after the screening, the Shah ordered the police chief to start building a movie theatre in the poor part of town. The name of the theatre was Tammadon (civilization!). [13] This was the most generous contribution made to Iran’s film industry by Reza Shah’s regime.

Reza Shah’s superficial depiction of civilization and modernity brought many Western values to Iranian society. For instance, he banned the chador for women, dictated a Westernized dress code for men, and forbade Iranian passion plays. Because of their long history of colonial interest in Iran, the Shah thought the British and Russians untrustworthy. So he turned to Germany for professional and technological knowledge. By the end of the 1930s there were about 400 German skilled labourers working in seven German based companies in Iran.

During World War II, the Allies found Iran to be a critical strategic zone for supplying Russians with military hardware. In spite of Iran’s proclamation of neutrality, the Allies demanded the deportation of German citizens from Iran. Due to negative responses from Reza Shah, Iran was invaded by the British (in the South West) and the Russians (from the North) on August 25, 1941. With American troops entering in October of the same year, Iran, as ‘The Bridge of Victory’, suffered the woes of occupation by three Western powers. Reza Shah was sent to exile by the British and was replaced by his son in September 1941.

Both the physical existence of Western powers and the cultural domination by Allies, made imperialism ever-present in the media. For propaganda purposes more cinema theatres were opened to show dubbed newsreels and expository documentaries. Hollywood productions dominated the screens and left no space for any local cultural activities. [14] Dubbing was one of the few means of participation for Iranians in the film industry during this era.

Since a large percentage of Iran’s population was illiterate, they were incapable of reading the explanatory inter titles, and many were unfamiliar with European languages. Dubbing was the ideal solution for distributors and cinema owners to gain further profit. For this purpose, many dubbing studios were establish between 1943 and 1965. The demand for the development of dubbing systems in Iran resulted in many local exports in the field of sound reproduction. But it also had its side effects, most notably that of slowing down the development of sync sound recording on the set for future activities. [15]

Another Birth

In 1947 Esmail Kooshan, an economist with a secondary degree in communications from the Univerum Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), returned to Iran. [16] On his way from Berlin he bought two European films which he dubbed in Persian in a studio in Istanbul. The commercial success of these two films increased his concern of the local film industry. Soon Kooshan established Mitra Film with the association of a few relatives and friends. The first feature production of the Studio was Toofan-e-Zendegi (1948) (Storm of Life), a critical social drama directed by Ali Daryabegi, a theatre director/actor who had no experience in filming. The film was a total failure at the box office and received no praise from critics.

Despite withdrawal of a few partners from the company, Kooshan did not give up and made his second film in the same year. This time Kooshan photographed and directed the film himself. Zendani-e-Amir (Amir’s Prisoner) had a relatively better rate of success, which encouraged Kooshan to proceed in his career as filmmaker. Finally, after another disappointing post-production response from Varieteh Bahar (The Spring Festival, 1949), Kooshan made his ground breaking film, Sharmsar (Ashamed, released in 1950). Sharmsar was produced under the name of Kooshan’s new company, Pars Film. This romantic musical with a woman as the main character depicts the story of a village girl who ends up in the city after being seduced by an urban man. But soon she recovers from her shock and employs her talents to achieve fame and fortune, then returns to her village. The lead character of the film was Dilkesh, a popular singer of the time. Indeed it was her presence which guaranteed the financial success of the film.

Meanwhile, other Iranians in the private sector, tempted to test their luck in the film business, stepped into the picture. Mohsen Badie produced the next blockbuster in the history of Iranian cinema: Velgard (Vagabond) by Mehdi Rais Firuz. This film, released in 1952, is a melodrama with moralistic overtones, accompanied by songs and suspenseful action. Issari suggests: “It was the combined box office success of Sharmsar and Velgard, […], that gave the Persian [Iranian] film industry a shot in arm and saved it from extinction.” [17]

The movie that really boosted the economy of Iranian cinema and initiated a new genre was Ganj-e-Qarun (Croesus Treasure), made in 1965 by Siamak Yasami. Yasami had worked with Kooshan prior to establishing his own company; Porya Film, in 1960. A huge financial success, Ganj-e-Qarun grossed over seventy million Rials (one million dollars). The theme of the film concerns the worthless and desperate life of the upper middle class in contrast with the poor and happy working class, which is ‘rich’ in morals.

Four years later Masud Kimiaie made Qeysar, an award winning film at the 1969 Tehran Film Festival. With Qeysar, Kimiaie depicted the ethics and morals of the romanticised poor working class of the Ganj-e-Qarun genre through his main protagonist, the titular Qeysar. But Kimiaie’s film generated another genre in Iranian popular cinema: the tragic action drama.

From 1950 to the mid-1960’s the Iranian film industry grew rapidly. Many studios were established as well as others that entered the cycle of the film industry independently. There were 324 films produced during this period (1950-1965). By 1965 there were 72 movie theatres in Tehran and 192 in other provinces.

The foundation of that new-born cinema was commercialism. It was saturated with dominant themes of dance, music, simplistic dramas and Persianized versions of Western popular movies. But it also brought about the possibility of an independent national cinema. One of the first efforts for such cinema was Farokh Ghafari’s Shab-e-Ghouzi (The Night of Hunchback, 1964). Filmed in a magic-realist form and based on a story from One Thousand and One Nights, Shab-e-Ghouzi was the first feature film selected for international festivals. The other notable film in this category is Khesht va Aiene (Mudbrick and Mirror, 1965), produced and directed by Ebrahim Goulestan, the owner of Goulestan studio. Goulestan created an alternative environment out of which sprung several outstanding documentaries throughout its operation until 1978. One of the best known production of Goulestan Studio is Khaneh Siah Ast (The House Is Black, 1963), a documentary written and directed by Forugh Farrokhzad, a leading poetess in contemporary Persian literature. This film was selected as the best documentary in the 1963 Oberhausen Film Festival.

By 1970 Iranian cinema entered into its mature stage. The College of Dramatic Arts, instituted in 1963, produced its first graduates at the decade’s beginning. Many progressive film co-ops and associations came into existence; and there were a few regular film festivals taking place in the country.

Young Iranians showed a great interest in avant-garde forms of cinema, which reflected their activities. One of the best known of such efforts was Cinemay-e-Azad (Free Cinema). The collective was formed by a group of cinema students and interested individuals in the mid-1970s. They started to screen experimental and short 8mm films by their members and soon supported and participated in each other’s projects. This movement spread around the country and in a short time they had their own national festival. The Ministry of Culture and Art also organised similar associations under the name of Anjoman-e-Cinemay-e-Javan (The Young Cinema Association) with collaborations by National TV.

One of the most important organisation which was (and still is) a great help to development of national cinema is The Institution for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults. The institution was founded by Lili Jahan Ara, a close friend of Farah Diba (The Queen). With the support of Farah Diba, a library became the first project of the Institution. And in 1969 it started its cinema department. Soon many young talented filmmakers and animators joined the organization. The main attraction of the institution was its title, which could provide the artists relatively greater freedom of expression than elsewhere. Many prominent directors of Iranian national cinema started their careers there or made films for the institution. Among them are: Bahram Baizai, Amir Naderi, Abbas Kiarostami, Reza Alamzadeh and Sohrab Shahid-Sales.

The 1970s was a special decade for Iranian cinema. As Goulmakani states: “the seventies saw the height of the Shah’s confidence in his social and political successes. Deluding itself into believing that it had grown unassailably stable, the regime now allowed the making of a few films with critical social themes.” [18]

Many important filmmakers emerged from the pre-revolution era. Including Parvis Kimiavi, who made the reflexive masterpiece Mogholha (Mongols, 1973), a film which allegorizes the cultural imperialism of TV by comparing that situation to the invasion of Mongols. Bahram Baizai is the director of one of the ground-breaking films of the Iranian New wave, 1972’s Ragbar (Downpour). Sohrab Shahid-Sales is an auteur director who embodied his original style in his 1975 film Tabiat-e-Bijan (Spiritless Nature). Abbas Kiarostami is now a well known director of the 1990’s who directed one of the last films that screened before the revolution in 1978, Gozaresh (The Report). Dariush Mehrjui, a UCLA Cinema and Philosophy graduate, directed Gav (Cow) in 1969 and the controversial Dayerehy-e-Mina (Mina Cycle, 1975), which was banned for three years. The latter’s subject matter dealt with people involved in the blood business. Interestingly, the film was only banned until the government opened its first blood bank.

 

Mongols

The new cultural, political and economic environment from mid-sixties to late seventies created a unique national cinema that had roots in Iranian perspectives of art, literature and culture. The mainstream commercial cinema in the 1970s encountered an innovative form of cinema. The counter cinema was a political cinema that developed its symbolic language due to a long history of censorship. This “Third” cinema was very different from that existing in Latin America, Africa or any developing countries, because of different social-historical contexts. Some of the filmmakers of that period were forced to leave the country for political and cultural circumstances. Those who stayed challenged the new fashion of religious and moral censorship of art and culture. It should also be noted that the attractive Iranian cinema of today is the outcome of a tradition developed in the pre-revolution era.

Endnotes

1. Honour, Hugh and John Fleming, The Visual Arts: A History. New Jersey, Prentice Hall Inc, 1992. Page: 96.

2. Shah name or Book of kings a vast epic based on pre-Islamic history and mythology by poet Ferdausi (10century A.D) in verse form.

3. A great introduction on art and in entertainment in Iran before the advent of cinema is provided in M. Ali Issari book: Cinema in Iran: 1900-1979 pages 40 -67.

4. This exert from a long poem can be a good example of such visualization, written by Sufi poet Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi 13 century A.D)

 

 


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Women of Iranian Popular Cinema: Projection of Progress

 

In the West, the media-driven portrait of Iranian women after the 1970’s Revolution is often blurred with over-simplifications that render their image bleakly oppressed, chained by Islamic fundamentalism, and scarred with violations of the rights and body. Yet, under the iron rule of the mullahs, an Iranian woman receives the Nobel peace prize; two Iranian females become the first Muslim women to conquer Everest; a woman becomes the national car-racing champion amongst both men and women challengers in Iran; women occupy over 60% of the capacity of higher education centers; the feminist non-governmental organizations grow by over 400%; [1] the international prize for technological innovation in Geneva goes to a provincial Iranian girl; and presidential candidates herald women’s issues in the election campaign. [2] Patriarchy in Iran is not fundamentally different from that in non-Islamic societies, but the religious dogma is bound to raise higher the bar of challenge for attaining equality for women’s right.

The encounter of Iranian society with feminism happened over a century ago, contemporary with the inception of modernity. The first public account of Iranian feminism is Tahereh Qorat-al-Eyn, an intellectual figure of the constitutional revolution, a poet, and the first woman to drop her veil publicly and to call for equality of men and women. Condemned to heresy, she was executed in 1850 at the age of 36 for her affiliation with the Babist movement. Almost half a century later, another poetess, Alamtaj Esfahani, born in 1884, challenged not only the literary traditions of Persian poetry, but also broke the boundaries between her private aristocratic life and the public, lamenting her personal unhappiness but in plight for universal freedom of women from oppression. Although women were instrumental in the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, the first parliament of Iran deprived them of vote and participation in the political process. Marginalized and pushed back, they took matters in their own hands. The Society for the Freedom of Women and the Secret Union of Women were formed in 1907. These associations resolved to put education on top of the priority list, and by 1913 63 schools for girls had emerged. Before the collapse of the Qajar Dynasty women had gained prominence as painters, poets, writers, publishers and activists. [3]

After Qajars, Reza shah became the monarch and pledged Iran to modernity. The unveiling of women was legislated and the process of female marginalization reversed, while Muslim women who refused to abide by the new dress code were excluded from the public sphere. Although the reinforcement of the dress code subsided by the end of Reza Shah’s reign (1942), the liberalism of the Pahlavi regime did not bode well with the conservative and traditional majority of Iranians. Although equal rights were provisioned for men and women, only a few chose to benefit from it. As a matter of fact, the rush to westernization gave reason to the religious and traditionalist patriarchy to save and protect ‘their’ women from the moral corruption of the urban Iran. In this context, the broad participation of conservative Muslim women in the revolution of 1979 demarks their struggle to reclaim the public sphere within the boundaries of their cultural and religious realms.

The right to participation in public sphere and the political process is at the heart of the Iranian women’s movement since the beginning. The politics of “veiling,” however, have been the centerpieces of not only religious but also secular legislative debates. The forced unveiling of women during Reza Shah’s regiment of modernity set back the women’s movement by as much as did the forced veiling of women during Khomeini’s regiment of Islamic rule. From the long history of struggle for the right to dress, however, Iranian women have inherited skills for negotiation, resistance and survival. Today, in spite of cultural and constitutional inequalities that cripple the women’s movement, it is they who push the wheels of democracy and (even post-) modernity.

The challenge for reterritorialization of gender roles is taking place in every aspect of life in Iran, be it domestic or public; pragmatic or ideological; academic or aesthetic. As the limits of the old identities delineate the boundaries of the new ones, the symbiosis between the traditional and the novel translates into cultural representation and into art, which has been a traditionally poignant instrument of social resistance and political discourse in Iran. Given the intensity of cultural traditionalism in contrast to an equally intense appetite for modernism, cultural production in Iran lays vast claims to a dialectical creativity that vitalizes the redefinition of the national, cultural and even gender identity.4 While the modes of cultural articulation and artistic practices in Iran are numerous, this article focuses on cinema, as one of the advocates for women, amidst the religious despotism that is believed to be holding back the movement for the Iranian women’s rights.

In recent years, Iranian cinema has become the yardstick of cultural, social and political progress in Iran. With formal innovation and mystical realism, Iranian filmmakers have developed a non-confrontational narrative style to express their voice, while circumventing the censorship Iranian cultural watchdogs. As such, the films of Kiarostami and the Makhmalbafs have secured the Iranian Cinema an internationally acclaimed artistic position as “the cinema of the 90s.” The spectators of the International film festivals marvel at the candid camera-stylo of Rakhshan Bani-Etemaad and the acute sensitivity of Jafar Panahi, who give image to the sociological plight for women’s right in Iran. However, parallel to these art-house productions, which are not aimed at but mostly consumed by the cultural elite inside and outside of Iran, there exists a prolific cinema industry that caters to the demands of a large population of Iranian cinemagoers who seek visual pleasure, distraction, emotional stimulation, moral identification, and socio-political involvement —as do most cinemagoers around the globe. Similar to Hollywood films, produced to be entertaining and profitable, this type of cinema aims not only to pleasure the spectator but also to reflect their aspirations and anxieties. As I will later demonstrate, the narrative of popular Iranian cinema manifests the desire of Iran’s young generation, impatient to become modern —Islamic or otherwise— and eager to reclaim its national identity, differently from that branded by the U.S. president: The Axis of Evil.

The purpose of this essay is less to debate the artistic or cinematic merits of this type of Iranian cinema, than to examine the efficacy of its particular mode of narrative in bringing about social reforms. Given the significant expansion of the Iranian film industry over the past 20 years, and its youth (under oppression), it is hard to judge whether this particular screen (i.e. the popular film) is a mirror, a phantasmic distraction or a projector of the histrionic clash of Iran with (post-) modernity. However, if we anchor the Iranian encounter with modernity to the inception of the feminist movement in the 19th century Iran, we can consider the cinematic representation of women as a gauge to the success of the Iranian women’s discourse of social equality and democracy.

The post-revolutionary era in Iran is classifiable into three distinct periods: the post-revolution and war era (1979-1988), the post-war period of reconstruction (1989-1996), and the reform years during Khatami’s presidency (1997-2005). This essay looks at the film industry in Iran during each of these eras and aims to quantify participation of women in this form of cultural practice. The growth of female participation in Iranian cinema is measured both in terms of the number of women behind and in front of the camera, in terms of the diversity of characters that populate the narrative, and also in terms of the box office success of films that are centered around a lead female character. This quantitative approach provides evidence of women’s success in transgression from the private to the public sphere, not only as fictitious film characters, but also as significant participants in the cultural practice of cinema.5

The Revolution Era: Unsacred Sight (from perdition to repentance)

The revolution era encompasses the overthrow of the monarch in 1979, the war that started almost one year after revolution and lasted until 1988, and the death of Khomeini in 1989. The first years of this period were marked by a short-lived surge of cultural and political dialogue, which soon faded into a brutal and uncompromising persecution of those with different opinions from the ruling clerics. Under charges of treason during the war, heresy, and anti-revolutionary conspiracy, many of the “children of the revolution” were executed or driven to exile.

Films were not immune from ideological massacre either. According to Hamid Naficy, from 2208 films reviewed by the officials between 1979-1982, only 252 were granted exhibition permission.6 More prominent than political dissent, it was the ‘moral inadequacy’ and the inappropriate representation of female roles on screen that condemned many of these films. Under the growing regularization of life into Islamic style, the appearance of uncovered women on screen was strictly forbidden, let alone woman’s interaction with “na-mahram” men (men other than husbands, fathers, brothers and sons). To be on the safe side of Islam, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance almost entirely cut the images of women from the screen and screenplays. The films of prominent filmmakers such as Bahram Baizai, and Dariush Mehrju’i, whose works often centered a strong female character, were banned from the screens.7

From a total of 40 movies produced between 1979-1982, 29 of them had political content; they depicted the tyranny of Shah’s regime and the feudal system. Three were social-thrillers (involving crime, drugs, family feuds). There were also a few historical and allegorical ones such as Baizai’s The Ballad of Tara (1979), and Death of Yazdgerd (1980) (which remain banned) and Ali Hatami’s Haji Washington (1981) (which was not screened for 18 years) and the first war movie (Border, 1981, Jamshid Heydari), about the resistance of the inhabitants of a border village against the enemy’s intrusion.8

Without access to the sales records of those years, it is hard to assess the audience reception. However, given that any leisure activity was frowned upon as an anti-revolutionary act, it is not hard to imagine that cinemagoing was not a popular practice in those days. However, the majority of movies that were produced in the early years were television productions. These films were broadcast on state-controlled national television and shared revolutionary idealism that promoted Islamic values and socio-economic equality (not for women and political dissidents, of course). The common themes in these films were western-conspiracy, demonization of tyrant aristocracy, and critique of corrupt bourgeoisie. With the exception of Baiza’s Ballad of Tara, women were either entirely absent or scarcely present in marginalized roles.

By the end of 1982, the number of war movies increased —in Iran “Holy Defense” was used in reference to the war— and along with other thriller plots, they proved not only profitable, but also amenable to the war-time propaganda machine. As a result, the government promoted internal production by increasing the taxes on film import and by offering tax cuts and insurance to film producers.9 The steep increase in film production in 1984 is a reflection of state-support for domestic film industry. (See Figure 1.)

In terms of box-office success during the war-years, crime thrillers such as Senator (Mehdi Sabagh-Zadeh, 1983), The Eagles (Oghabha, Samuel Khakchian, 1984), Boycott (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1985), The Tenants (Dariush Mehrjooyi, Ejareh Neshinha, 1986), Kani Manga (Seyfollah Raad, 1987) occupied the first position on the sales charts. With the exception of The Tenants —a satirical comedy about the cultural amalgamation of a group of disharmonious inhabitants of a collapsing building— the rest of these films did not cast any female protagonists; they were thrillers made by men, for men, dealing with politics, drug traffic, war, and crime. It was not the state that prohibited the practice of feminine/family moviegoing; it was the content of the movies that discouraged it.

In a society where women were dismissed from their professional roles in the society, there was no need for the projection of the image of a woman unless in secondary roles as silent mothers, nagging wives, bickering sister-in-laws and domestic helpers. Even as characters of mothers, sisters and wives, women were not able to play their roles realistically, as the fiction of the medium did not change the reality that the male actors in characters of husbands, brothers and sons were “na-mahram.” Thus, the character of the wife had to remain fully covered from head to toe, in the presence of the husband character! Ironically, the regulators took the threat of intersubjectivity mediated by pictures so seriously that any scene or idea suggestive of the slightest visceral attraction between the characters of a husband and a wife were rendered threatening to the moral health and purity of the celibate viewer —and thus omitted from scenarios. The “gaze” was so forbidden that the first romantic movie of the revolution (Golhaye Davoudi, 1984, Rasoul Sadr Ameli) portrayed love between two blind lovers! Nevertheless, Golhaye Davoudi became the first film after three years of inception of the Fajr Film Festival to qualify for competition and win the prizes for best male actor (Jamshi Mashayekhi), best female actor (Parvaneh Ma’soomi), best cinematography (Firooz Malek-Zadeh), best editing (Abbas Ganjavi), and best music (Kambiz Roshan-Ravan). In spite of being numerous, no war-movies won a prize in any of the major categories.10

In an analysis of the wartime cinema industry, Homa Tavassoli criticizes the complete absence of women (nurses, mothers, widows, victims) from the battlefield films:

Besides over-regulation of the filmmaking practices, apparent limitations of female casting, and unnatural opposition to subject matters such as love, […], the real problem perhaps resulted from the filmmakers of that era who were more political than cinematic. […] The film makers of the war era were either the directors of pre-revolution film-farsi’s [film-farsi is a pejorative term used to describe low-quality B movies], or those who, because of prejudice, ideology or opportunism, treated film as a propagandist medium.11

Although the state-funded cinema industry was primarily a propagandist medium, its commercial prospects led to the reopening of cinema screens to female actors. Because of the non-Islamic roles they had played in movies made before the revolution, many actors had left Iran in fear of persecution; and those who had remained were prohibited from any cinematic activity. In fact, the process of cleansing the government organizations (paksazi) from employees, such as teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, and managers —mostly women— who in appearance and belief did not satisfy the Islamic codes and revolutionary ideals, had deprived the new republic of the expertise that the running of a country required. The cultural revolution was taken as far as forcing the closure of universities to allow sufficient time to cleanse the institutions of culture from politically and culturally unwanted elements —be it professors, subject matters or dissident students! In such an atmosphere many of the Iranian actors, guilty of ‘liberalism’ because of their participation in decadent cultural practices during the Shah’s regime, were considered anti-revolutionary and thus put out of work during the early years of revolution.

However, when proven beneficiary to the state —both commercially and ideologically—the new cinema industry of the Islamic Republic had no choice but to bring back the actors who were trained and experienced in the cultural institutions of the previous regime. To be cast as either unglamorous, passive and submissive or demonic and conspicuous was perhaps an unspoken price that the stars of the pre-revolution cinema had to pay at the beginning for rite of pasغير مجاز مي باشدe to the new cinema. The return of Jamileh Sheikhi and Fakhri Khorvash, often in negative roles, and Nadereh, usually typecast as a helpless (grand) mother in 1983, opened the door in the late 1980s to a wave of new and talented female actors such as Roya No-Nahali, Fatemeh Motamed Arya, Farimah Farjami and Bita Farehi.

As will be shown in the next section, the later years of the war era provided conditions for the release of films such as Bashu, the Little Stranger (1986, Bahram Baizai) and Wedding of the Blessed (1988, Mohsen Makhmalbaaf), with a humanist and balanced look at war and with central roles for female characters interpreted by Susan Taslimi —star of Bahram Baizai’s earlier banned films— in Bashu, and Roya No-Nahali, who received the Golden Phoenix of the Fajr Film festival for the best female performance of the year for her role in The Wedding of the Blessed.

The Reconstruction Era: Reclaiming the Stage (Characters, Stars, Directors)

By the end of the war in 1988, with the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 and the start of the presidency of Ali-Akbar Hashemi, Iranian cinema witnessed not only a steep increase in the number of women portrayed in films, but also a notable increase in films with leading female characters (See figure 2). Films such as Mother (1988, Ali Hatami) and The Travellers (1989, Bahram Baizai) assembled a cast of female stars —Roghiyeh Chehre Azad, Nadereh and Farimah Farjami in the former, and Jamileh Sheikhi, Mojdeh Shamsayi, Fatemeh Motamed Arya, Mahboobeh Bayat and Homa Rousta in the latter— to portray the canonical role of the mother in the matriarchic structure of upper-middle class families. In contrast to the early years, when the presence of women in films was granted on the condition of minimal bodily movement, towards the end of the first post-revolutionary decade female actors found opportunities to appear as psychologically complex and physically dynamic characters. The acclaimed performances of Farimah Farjami in The Last Act (1990, Varuzh Karim-Masihi), Susan Talimi in Perhaps Another Time (1987, Bahram Baizai), Bita Farehi in Hamoun (1989, Mehrjui) and Fatemeh Motamed Arya in The Actor (Makhmalbaf, 1992), set new standards for potential female characters. As I will show in this section, this change was mediated by a slight relaxation of the Islamic code due to death of Khomeini and also by the public’s increased appetite for family moviegoing that further pushed the commercial and cultural envelop of the film industry.

The end of the war not only marked a noticeable increase in the representation of women on screens, but also the entry of successful female directors behind the camera. In 1984, Marzieh Boroumand became the first women in the Islamic Republic to direct a big-screen hit, The City of Mice—a puppet show based on a children TV series The School of Mice (Boroumand, 1981-1984). Received enthusiastically by children, it also drew a large number of adult viewers with its satirical subtext that parodied the Japanese Samurai genre —which in those years had dominated the TV screens. However, it wasn’t until the end of the war that Pouran Derakhshandeh, Rakhshan Bani-Etemaad and Tahmineh Milani made their successful (commercial and critical) entry into the strictly masculine field of film directing.

Pouran Derakhshandeh’s first feature film, Parandeh Kuchak-e Khoshbakhti (The Little Bird of Happiness, 1988), was a commercial and critical success. (See Table 1.) and was nominated for a multitude of categories (best young actor, best director, editing, sound recording and the best leading female actor) in the 6th annual Fajr Film Festival, and won the Gold Torch for the best film in North Korea’s Piong Yang film festival in 1990. Rakhshan Bani Etemad started with movies such as Off-limits (1989) and Canary Yellow (1990) and established herself as one of the most prominent social artists of Iranian cinema with Narges (1993). Tahmineh Milani, who started her career with the Children of Divorce (1989), resorted to comedy in Afsaneh Ah (1991) and What Else Is New (1992) to express her uncompromising feminist views against the patriarchal culture. Common to films of all these directors was the presence of prominent female stars, feminist social criticism, and noticeable commercial success. [12] (See tables 1 and 2)

The success of Iranian female directors was partly a result of the void of a feminine voice in Iranian cinema. With their novel perspective on their subject matter, these women resonated within the social conscience of a large group of unrepresented Iranians: women and children. The box-office success in Iran is often determined by the level of entertainment that the film provides; the level of controversy that it provokes, or a combination of both. Although most candid films rarely pass intact through the censorship of the Ministery of Culture and Islamic Guidance, those that vex political and have a subtext of social criticism, or those that push the boundaries of the somewhat taboo subjects of love and ***uality, draw a large number of spectators to the movie theaters. A statistical survey of the popularity of films with leading female characters (presented in tables 1 and 2) indicates that in addition to catering cinema stars to the scopophilia of the cinemagoers, combining romance with a feminist critique of the social inequality of women, provides a recipe box-office success. Sizzling this recipe with comedy or suspense guarantees the film a place on top of the sales records.

In the 1990s films that explored the subject of love and male-female relationship usually stayed clear of ***uality. In the more intellectual films, love was dealt with as an abstract and existentialist question, as was the case in the Wedding of the Blessed (1990, Makhmalbaf), Hamoun (1991, Mehrjui), and The Actor (1992, Makhmalbaf). With reference to mystical definition of love in Persian culture and literature, love in all three of these films is presented as a symbiosis between the philosophical identities of the male protagonist and the instinctive logic of their women. Hence, the meaning of love in these films is a gendered one. For men it extends beyond natural desires that keep people together; and it becomes a yearning for an esoteric perfection that exists in articulation of one’s individual relationship to an abstraction, be it creativity (like in Actor), faith (as in The Wedding of the Blessed) or the ultimate meaning of life (like in Hamoun). For women, on the other hand, love translates to a slightly more palpable —but still transcendental— entity; it speaks to sacrifice, endurance, jealousy, and security.

It did not take long, however, for ‘love’ in the time of Islamic republic to descend to earth. One reason for such an unexpected shift was Hashemi’s speech in November 1990, in which he openly spoke of the young people’s natural ***ual desire and proposed temporary marriage (sigheh) as a legitimately Islamic solution to the problem of youth’s ***ual intimacy. [13] With unprecedented success of Aroos (The Bride, 1992, Behrooz Afkhami), and the rise of the young and attractive Niki Karimi to post-revolutionary stardom, Iranian cinema came to less celestial and abstract, and more earthy and visceral terms with the question of love; it allowed for representation of humanly attractions between a man and a woman. Aroos is the story of a young man who is forced into illicit business in order to accumulate enough wealth to marry his beautiful sweetheart. While driving to their honeymoon he runs over a villager; because of his refusal to help the victim his wife leaves him. Influenced by the goodness of his bride and devastated by loss of his marriage, he returns repentant to face the consequences of his actions and to pay for his crimes. With 38 million Tomans of sales (approximately 1.3 million tickets) Aroos not only set new standards for box office success, but also cast femininity as an agent for change of social mores and action.

It was, however, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad’s Narges (made in 1991 but not released until 1993), that daringly divested the Iranian cinema into a naked portrait of ***uality. As Dehbashi writes, “Bani Etemaad reconstitutes the very nature and disposition of ***uality. The love affair between the young thief, Adel, and his visibly older lover, Afagh, is narrated with such dark and passionate intensity that with this single stroke Bani-Etemad counters generations of both the over- and the de***ualization of women in Iranian Cinema.”14 Afagh (Farimah Farjami) and Narges (Atefeh Razavi) are portrayed as strong characters that dismantle the patriarchically constituted gender role and power relations. In spite of its box-office success, Narges was by no means a commercial film. However, it pushed the frontier of ***ual discourse by leaps and bounds and paved the way for the next wave of Iranian female films in the late 90s.

The theme of strong women sacrificing themselves repeated in other box-office hits of the early 90s. In Makhmalbaf’s The Actor, Fatemeh Motamed Aria gives an award winning performance as an infertile wife of an actor (Akbar Abdi) suffering an artistic crisis of creativity. To help her husband, she pays a young gypsy girl (Mahaya Petrusian) to marry her husband —if the first wife gives written consent— to have his child (polygamy is legal in Iran). Motamed-Aria’s character, however, loses her sanity as traces of love begin to appear between the actor and the gypsy girl. In Sara (1994, Mehrju’i), Niki Karimi plays a woman who sacrifices her health and reputation by working hard to repay a loan that she received in order to pay for her husband’s medical treatment. Fearing her husband’s refusal to accept the loan from a friend, she lies and tells her husband that the loan had come from her father’s inheritance. Under pressure from the demands (implied to be ***ual) of the man who lent her the money, a blackmailing colleague of her husband, she confronts her jealous and suspicious husband with the truth, only to find herself rejected from the marriage and her family. In Hamsar (Spouse, 1995, Mehdi Fakhim-Zadeh), a wife’s courage and success in uncovering a ring of embezzlement in the company where she and her husband work, leads to her rejection at home.

In spite of the strength of their characters, the women of the 1990s films were cast fatalistically. Portraying cultural and legal inequalities that victimized women, in spite of their determination and strength of the character, brought the problem of gender equality from the literary intellectual discourse into a more accessible forum of popular cinema. The steady representation of women in the films made during the post-war Hashemi era (1988-1996) began a gradual increase on Khatami’s platform of cultural reforms. By the beginning of his second presidency term (2000-2001), cinematic representation of women jumped to its highest peak in the history of the Iranian cinema. (Figure 3)

The Reform Era: Re-inventing the Image (rebellion, ***uality, mobility)

Although entangled in the intricate web of state-regulations and cultural and social limitations, the female characters of the films of the reform era differed significantly from their predecessors, in that they showed pragmatic resistance and adamant refusal to accept the conditions of their victimization. Thus rebellion against a pre-defined identity, against a denied ***uality, against an arrested mobility and against a marginalized creativity is the most common theme of the cinema of the third era of the Islamic republic. The statistics of casting and box-office success give an impression that cinema in this era has been particularly capitalizing on the heralding of women’s issues. As Figure 3 shows, within the first half of Khatami’s presidency the presence of women on cinema screens grew almost three fold; and as Table 2 indicates, the number of female-centered box-office hits increased significantly in comparison to the previous era.

Rebellion

One of the greatest hits of this era, Red (Fereydoun Jeyrani, 2000), starred Hediyeh Tehrani in the role of a woman who runs out of patience with the possessive and paranoid love of her husband and requests a divorce. In spite of unaccommodating judiciary laws that refuse her divorce, and in spite of the threat against her daughter’s life and murderous attempts of the husband (encouraged by his mean-spirited sister), she fights back (physically, psychologically and legally) and wins her freedom. In Tootia (2000, Iraj Ghaderi), an intelligent and active woman goes to the brink of divorce in her refusal to fulfill her husband’s ideal of a wife. Her choice to return to the marriage is not determined by the traditional expectations of her role, but by her maternal choice, when an accident endangers the life of her child. While the woman of Red rebels against the domestic tyranny of the patriarch, the award winning character of Mozhdeh Shamsai in غير مجاز مي باشد غير مجاز مي باشدhi (Dog Killing, 2002, Bahram Baizai), takes on a fight against the social corruption of patriarchic society.

It is not only the characters of mothers and wives in the new wave of Iranian feminist cinema that raise the volume of their voices of dissent against patriarchic order, but also the young girls who question the traditional restrictions on expression of their identity. In Dokhtari Ba Kafhshaye Katani (A girl in sneakers, 2000, Rasoul Sadr-Ameli), the character of a tomboy girl is borne to the cinema of Iran. Tadayee (played by Pegaah Ahangarani) is arrested with her boyfriend in a park —as dating is considered illegal and against the Islamic rules— and her family humiliates her as they have her medically examined to ensure her virginity. She runs away from home and starts her odyssey in the brutal and disturbed subculture of the inner city and returns home with a new perspective of her place in society and her relation to the opposite ***. In Deep Breath (Parviz Shahbazi, 2003), the question of identity is posed during a few days of escapism as an unconventional girl, Aida (Maryam Palizban), joins two bored young boys, a homeless and a rich runaway kid; she becomes the anchor of their purpose and aspiration in life.

Another taboo of the virgin Iranian cinema —pregnancy out of wedlock— would draw a significant attention in films such as Shukaran (Behrooz Afkhami, 2001), I’m Taraneh, 15 (Rasould Sard Ameli, 2003) and Khakestari (Mehrdad Mir-Fallah, 2003). In Shukaran, Hedyeh Tehrani plays the role of a seductress nurse, Sima, who starts an affair with a wealthy and happily married man. Once pregnant, the man attempts to end the affair by finding her drug-addicted father’s address, accusing her of being a whore, and denying any responsibility in the pregnancy —calling the claim a blackmailing attempt to find money for her father’s drugs. Although the film ends with the ambiguous death of Sima in a car accident, it does not cast a negative judgment on the eccentric character of Sima. Rather, she is presented as a smart and sympathetic character who falls victim to her ambitions. By contrast, I’m Taraneh, 15 and Khakestari are about young girls who are seduced by young boys of their age who impregnate them and run away. It is the girls, however, who have to deal with the result of their scandalous actions, and have to endure much of the blame, humiliation and discrimination from their families and society. Nevertheless, when presented with the supposedly honorable opportunity to marry the father of their children, these girls refuse to wed into a loveless marriage and opt for their dignity in independence from the men who have dumped them in the harshest situations.

It can be thought that the declaration of independence from spousal tyranny in Red, from social tyranny in Dog Killing and from intellectual tyranny in Tootia gives these dramatic films their happy feminist ending. However, the brutal reality of the life of a rebellious woman, a single young mother, or a runaway girl in Iran is far different from the empowering image that is cast in the characters of Taraneh, Tadayee and Aida. Nevertheless, whether excessive in style (like Dog Killing and Red) or realist in form (Like I’m Taraneh 15 and Deep Breath), these plots create intersubjective models of identification for a youth who observes itself in the mirror of the cinema screen. In other words, the emancipation that is narrated with the acts of Tadayee as she escapes her abusive home, Aida as she drops her scarf in public, Taraneh as she gives her own name to her child —effacing the existence of the father— at the same time that it shocks, releases the spectator into a desire to challenge the status quo and to claim a new identity. Similarly, the success of films like Dog Killing and Red speaks of audience fascination with a new kind of a woman, one that transcends physical and psychological abuse and triumphs over that which attempts to subjugate or chain her.

Mobility

Farzaneh Milani [15], whose body of work is focused on the place and the role of women in Iranian literature, considers mobility of women in the public sphere to have been the most fundamental agent of the feminine literary modernism of the past 50 years in Iran. She draws attention to aesthetics of immobility —such as wrapped Chinese feet, or the Persian adjective of Pardeh-Neshin (veiled)— that connote feminine virtue or beauty in traditional societies; and argues that mobility is the first condition of modernity and that over the past five decades, Iranian female writers have revolutionized the literary tradition in Iran by creating characters who physically entered into traditionally male-dominated public spheres. She then notes the unprecedented and impatient mobility of the contemporary Iranian women who occupy 43% of the job market and represent over 60% of the post graduate students.16

It was mentioned earlier that constricting women’s physical movement was one of the conditions for the appearance of women in the early post-revolution cinema —women could appear in seated roles! With appearance of Na’i (Sousan Taslimi) in Baizai’s Bashu the possibilities for movement took a notable bound. Na’i represented a farmer woman in a rural northern village, whose husband was fighting the war in the south. The demands of daily farming life (running, jumping, fishing, chasing wolves) in the absence of her husband, gave Na’i infinite opportunities for motion. Furthermore, her rural غير مجاز مي باشدtume excused her from the constrictions on an urban dress code required by the regulations. Sousan Taslimi performed an equally corporeal role in Perhaps Another Time, where she played a psychologically disturbed urban woman and her twin rural sister. The mental agitation in search of the lost sister gave the character a physical restlessness to discover the city, in its old and new forms and in spaces that would have remained unknown to her without her impatience to discover her lost, rural twin.

While Baizai’s films metaphorically address the potentials of feminine mobility in the early years of Islamic revolution, the reterritorialization of feminity in recent years has resorted to actual props. Automobiles have become an indispensable vehicle for extending the presence of women in the public sphere. In many of the recent family dramas the keys to a brand new car serves the same romantic notion as a big diamond ring does in most of Hollywood dramas. To give or take back the car keys from a woman signifies the man’s trust and love or their lack of. A woman rejecting the car keys symbolizes her refusal to belong to the limits of love and trust delineated by the man. For instance in Red (Fereydon Jeyrani) the paranoid and possessive husband (Mohamad Reza Forutan) convinces his wife (Hedyeh Tehrani) to end the separation by giving her an expensive new car to prove that he is not opposed to her participation in social life —although he remains opposed to her working as a nurse.

Automobiles also serve as an instrument of rebellion. For example, Tahmineh Milani frequently draws attention to the empowering role of cars in the feminist plight for freedom. In Two Women (Tahmineh Milani, 1999) Fereshteh (Niki Karimi), who is from a religious and traditional background, surprises her “modern” friend Roya (Marila Zare’I) with her driving skills as they run away from Fereshteh’s dangerous stalker. In the Fifth Reaction (Tahmineh Milani, 2003) the newly widowed Fereshteh (Niki Karimi), whose traditional and wealthy father-in-law has taken the custody of her children away, is persuaded by her girlfriend Taraneh (Marila Zare’i) to kidnap her children from the tyrant grandfather and flee the country. The women’s rebellious takes the form of an action-style car-chase as Taraneh steals her husband’s car to help Fereshte and her children, while they are pursued by the powerful grandfather and his menacing agents.

The feminine stretch into the field of “automobiles” has a sportive limb as well. The championship of a 28 year-old woman, Laleh Sadigh, in the 2004 Professional Car Racing Championship in Iran, drew significant media and popular attention to itself. Although incipient and expensive, car racing in Iran draws enough customers to create active organizations that promote this sport among women. Focus on Laleh Sadigh as the first female care-racing champion in Iran [17], and Shahin Rajayee, the first female trans-continental truck driver of Iran [18], push the envelop for claiming a space for women in this masculine field. In other words, the relationship of females to automobiles has become a signifier of their identity in relation to modernity.

This cultural subtext has also entered the cinematic narrative to such extent that the action-figure female drivers, or the urbanite female flaneuses, who explore the city aimlessly behind the wheels, are becoming standard features of Iranian popular films. In films such as Abi, and Soorati, automobiles become signifiers of the character’s rebellious personalities. In Abi, the character of Hedyeh Tehrani is a rich girl from upper town who suffers a nihilistic crisis as she deals with her mother’s inaction about her father’s affair with his secretary and his abusive treatment of her mother. She quits the university and runs away from her father’s house and entertains herself by getting into car-chase games with young men which end with bumping her expensive SUV into their cars and seriously but not fatally damaging them. In Soorati, the ex-wife (Mitra Hajaar) and the present fiancée (Faghih Soltani) of a theater director (Rambod Javan) have a competitive showdown of their coolness as they each take turns behind the wheel and drive madly in the streets of Tehran. In a regime where the representation of feminine ***uality is subject to strict Islamic law, the rules of attraction are negotiated by driving skills of the women in these romantic dramas.

Besides being an extension of feminine bodily expression, automobiles serve as a safe meeting place, a contained and private location for making acquaintance with the world outside the bounds of home, class, tradition, and law. In Ten (2002) Kiarostami, who is the pioneer of using the mobile mise-en-scene of the car as a site of interview and character development, creates one of the most compelling cases of a modern and mobile Iranian woman who navigates through the complexities of her society and becomes familiar with the paradoxes of her environment. It is only within the confines of her car that Farideh (Mania Akbari) gets the opportunity to share the stories of love, loss, ***, desire, and faith with unlikely characters such as a prostitute and a mausoleum attendee. Automobiles are also the sites of private encounter with the opposite gender. In films such as Deep Breath, a stolen car becomes the centerpiece of the plot as it is the only place where the runaway and homeless boys and Aida (Maryam Palizban), the energetic girl who motivates much of the adventures of the story, can coexist and escape the Islamic rules that forbid friendships between unrelated men and women.

Creativity

While automobiles open up the physical public space to women, art is another accompanying motif in representation of the modern Iranian woman. For example, in Soorati, in addition to being diehard drivers, the women of the story are all artists. Shahram (Rambod Javan) is an energetic and optimistic theater director whose wife, Sahar, (Mitra Hajaar), a successful cellist, has divorced him. Sahar and Shahram share the custody of their only son, Amir, until Shahram auditions Leila, a talented actress, (Faghih Soltani). Although the story of Soorati is about the struggle of Sahar and Leila over the love of Shahram and the custody of Amir, it emphasizes the artistic success of these women and their critical influence on the theater work of Shahram. The presence of female musicians in the cinema of recent years is remarkable, especially considering that during the first few years after the Revolution, non-revolutionary music (which included anything but laments and military marches) was considered to cause moral corruption and women were entirely banned from public musical practice.

Besides music, however, women appear on screen in other artistic roles as well. In Kaghaze-Bi-Khat (Naser Taghvai, 1999), Hedyeh Tehrani plays the role of a housewife who struggles between her inspiration to write a major novel and her fear of her husband’s reaction to the unveiling of her private feelings and thoughts. In Two Women, Roya (Marila Zare’i) plays the role of a successful architect who works in affectionate harmony with her engineer husband. Roya’s modern life is in contrast to Fereshteh (Niki Karimi) whose talent as an student of architecture is arrested, as she is forced to quit university and to accept a marriage arranged by her traditional family. Farideh, the flaneur of Kiarostami’s Ten, is a design artist, and the free spirited girls of Khakestari are art students. In other words, artistic occupation defines a particular role for the woman in society, which not only distances her from the pragmatic realities of her traditional female function, but also gives her imagination an artistic allowance to act differently and rebelliously against the status quo.

With stars, rebellious characters, props, motifs, complex psychologies, enduring personae, and with the shear number of their presence on screen, women have moved from the margins of the Revolutionary era to a dominant position on the screens of the present Iranian cinema. But how stable is this position?

Future Direction?

An overview of the Iranian popular cinema of the past eight years (i.e. during Khatami’s Reform era) reveals that representation of gender-based conflicts within a feminist idiom has been drawn from the wishes of the society that have dictated the box office. This trend, Shala Lahiji warns, is likely to “push the Iranian film industry of the coming decade into a kind of exaggeration of the life of women” since the filmmaker’s attitude towards women has become “one of the current criteria for evaluating a cinematographic piece of work.”19 The filmmakers are becoming increasingly aware of the risk of critical reaction to a distorted and unrealistic portrayal of females as pitiable, haughty, or romantically obsessed characters. Lahiji notes that although focusing on one aspect of a film can amount to bias and prejudice and diminish the value of artistic criticism, the exaggerated image of the women heroine in the films of the recent years “can be justified by suggesting that the whole Iranian film industry is being called to account for the wrongs it has done to women in the distant and not-so-distant past.”20

Lahiji’s view is also shared by prominent directors such as Dariush Mehrjui, whose films of the 90s to date have been constructed around the figure of a woman in a conflictual state between modernity and traditionalism. In an interview, he states that in general narratives can be based on only a few story categories and “these stories are either about men or women but in our patriarchic society we used to have more masculine stories” and thus the current state of cinema strikes one as exceedingly feminist. Yet, he emphasizes that limiting the scope of the stories of his films to the cultural and geographical borders of Iran is an outcome of society’s obsession with local politics and social tensions and that it runs the risk of “creating a simplistic view which isolates our [and women’s] problems from the whole of humanity.” [21]

It is naïve to suggest that the rhetoric of the reform era, and the statistics of female-oriented film plots in the first half of this era are indicative of women having actually laid claim to their rights. Ironically, it is the female legislators who voice some of the most oppressing rhetoric against the equality of women’s rights. [22] Nevertheless, while being discriminated against in the parliamentary procedures, these women do not shy away from reminding the parliament that they deserve equal treatment on the account of 50% of the votes that were cast by women. [23]

Haleh Esfandiari, in The Reconstrucled Lives, brings together the experiences of many Iranian women from different walks of life and concludes the paradox of the lives of the women in the Islamic Republic as this: that the Islamic Republic is sensitive to the international opinion and that it wants to distinguish itself from the rest of the Islamic Regimes in the Middle East by professing an enlightened version of Isalm which is progressive in women’s issues. Parliamentary representation of women, the image of a chic young woman carrying the Olympic torch in Atlanta, and encouragement of women in education, sports and family and health practices are facets of this policy. She notes however, that as much as the Islamic republic wishes to distinguish itself from the backwards women’s policies in the rest of the Islamic Middle East, it “is impelled to enforce the dictates of its own traditional ideal of an Islamic woman—pious, modest of dress, wife, mother, and housewife, and, even if educated and employed, still occupying a sphere distinctly separate and different from that of men.”24 It is within the gaps of this paradox that Iranian women have generated their expansively modern sphere of social progress.

As Hamid Naficy writes, in a non-Western culture, the self is not an individuated and unified entity as it is in the west. Rather it consists of a private inner core and a public outer self. Thus the duality of the identity necessitated a boundary interface that although amorphous, is necessary to protect the inner core from leaking out. This interface, he suggests, can be thought of as a veil which motivates people to search for the hidden; therefore generating “a dialectical relationship between veiling and unveiling: that which covers is also capable of uncovering.”25 Therefore it can be suggested that the veiled identity of the woman in the Islamic Republic, also provides interest in a grand spectacle of unveiling, and thus encourages not only a voyeuristic interest in seeing the uncovered identity, but also a creative taste in sculpturing a newer and even less probable identity.

Whether feminist or humanist, whether popular or repertory, whether box-office hit or totally banned from the silver screen, the Iranian cinema has succeeded in taking advantage of the paradoxical nature of Islamic Republic’s quest for Islamic Modernism and become the outlet of expression for a generation who has experienced revolution, war and reform, all condensed in less that 30 years. The cinema in Iran is among many of other slumbering institutions that are awakening to the voices of the ‘second gender.’ Yet, in the vast emptiness of the visual field of the representation of feminine diversity, the voices of cinematic women, whether behind or in front of the camera, echo perpetually with that which is awakened and that which is awakening. Although journalism is the brave frontrunner of reform in Iran, it is the primacy of the visual affect that accelerates the efficacy of the text. Here, we glimpsed at the image of progress made by women of Iranian cinema: from perdition to resurrection to revolution. This progress is owed in part to the readiness of the spectators for change and in part to the artists who have taken risks and have pushed the envelope of the viewer’s imagination and expectations beyond tradition and taboo. And from beneath the ‘hijab,’ which is meant to obscure a vision of femininity, the Iranian women are painting a striking figure of their identity that flickers through the darkness of the cinema theater and perhaps into the darkness beyond.

Tables and Figures

Table 1: Table of sales for the top 10 movies of a year (1988-1996) that had a leading female figure.

 

Table 2: Table of sales for the top 10 movies of a year (1997-2005) that had a leading female figure

 

Endnotes

1 Parastoo Do-Koohaki, Eight Years of Work for Women Between Traditional Thoughts and Modern Manifestos, Zanan, 14(121), May 2005, pp 15-21.

2 Nooshin Tarighi, Men’s Race for Women’s Votes, Zanan, 14 (121), May 2005, pp 2-10.

3 For more details you can see “The Iranian Woman’s Movement, a century long struggle.” By Ali Akbar Mahdi in The Muslim World, Vol. 94, Oct 2004, pp 427-448. An account of women’s cultural participation in Iran’s move towards modernity is given by Azar Naficy’s 2003 article: “The Quest for the “real” woman in the Iranian novel: Representations of privacy in literature and film.” Published on the Iran Chamber Society as well as, “Images of Women in classical Persian Literature and the Contemporary Iranian novel” in In the Eye of The Storm, pp 115-130.

4 Ibid.

5 In preparation of this article, the Iranian movie database was consulted. Other than sales records, the database provides no statistics. To obtain the figures presented in Figures 1-3, the films in the archive of the Iran Actor Database were counted. To calculate the statistics of the female on-screen participation, the actor’s database was browsed for female actors and the samples per every year were obtained by counting the number of times that a woman actor was cast in a film. To obtain the average number of females per film in different years, a percentage of total female protagonist over total number films produced in a given year was calculated (Figure 3).

6 Hamid Naficy, “Islamizing Film Culture in Iran—a post Khatami update” in The New Iranian Cinema, Politics, Representation and Identity, p.33.

7 Bahram Baizai’s Ballad of Tara (1979) and Death of Yazgerd (1980) remain banned. The films of Dariush Mehrjui ‘s often provide symbolic representation of the modernity chaos of Iranian society. While his earlier film The Cow (1969, The story of a remote and desolate villager whose cow is his only belonging and when the cow dies he is so devastated that he resumes the character of his cow; living in the barn, eating hay, and slowly believing that he is the cow.) was well broadcast by the revolutionary state television, The School We Went To (1980) was banned and has never been authorized for screening.

8 Source: www.iranactor.com; films were surveyed between years 1358-1361 (Persian calendar) and the categories were determined based on synopsis on the web site.

9 Hamid Naficy, The New Iranian Cinema, pp 39-40.

10 The best film of the year was The Scarecrow, a family drama by Hassan Mohammad Zadeh, and the best director award of that year went to Yadollah Samadi for The Man Who Knew Too Much, a drama of repenting and redemption.

11 Homa Tavassoli, “Masculine War of the Iranian Cinema,” Zanan 13 (114), November 2002, pp 37-39.

12 Pouran Derakhshandeh and Rakhshan Bani-Etemaad were graduates of film direction from school of cinema and school of dramatic arts in Teheran before the revolution of 1979. Tahmineh Milani has studied architecture in Tehran University.

13 Fariba Adelkhah, Being Modern In Iran, p. 160.

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Representations of Women and Veiling with the Advent of Cinema in the Middle East

The advent of motion picture production in the Middle East gave rise to new forms of cultural representation at a time of increasing modernization in the region. Countries such as Iran and Egypt, whose film industries grew at a steady pace over the course of the twentieth century and whose output consists of the majority of films produced in the region today, saw cinema as not only a form of popular entertainment, but an opportunity to develop a national identity that could reach audiences both domestically and internationally – thus, redefine the image of one’s nation not only to local populations but to populations at large. Representations of women and the cultural and religious practice of veiling or hijab in many ways became a marker of this newly redefined national identity; one that reflected changes in the sociopolitical landscape of those years. The countries’ steady push towards sovereignty and modernity coupled with the desire to eradicate all forms of ‘cultural backwardness’, in many ways emblemized by the veil, led to the production of films that supported these efforts both in Iran and in Egypt. Women thus became important figures in early motion picture production: on a practical level as active participants both onscreen (as actors) and off screen (as producers) while in allegorical terms by serving as cultural and political representatives of the East-West encounter (Shafik 92). Using Iran and Egypt as case studies, I will examine the role of women in early motion picture production in the Middle East focusing specifically on representations of veiling in relationship to questions of how national identities were being redefined amidst Western social, economic and political influence in the region. A brief overview of the historical context surrounding the production of some of the earliest feature-length films to be produced in Iran and Egypt will serve as premise for my discussion, which aims to determine the extent to which women, as participants in these early films, embodied dichotomous cultural transformations that were reflective of the era in question. Finally, an account of some of the leading actresses and producers to have come out of early Iranian and Egyptian cinema and their influence on women’s continued participation in the film industry as well as the evolution of hijab in film will provide an understanding of the trajectory that filmmaking would take in the latter half of the twentieth century and beyond.

The early nineteen hundreds witnessed a burgeoning feminist consciousness among women in Iran and Egypt coupled with nationalist movements in both countries which women actively participated in. As early as 1905, Iranian women took to political activism by way of public protests demanding the establishment of parliamentary democracy in order to mitigate further colonization of Iran’s resources (Naghibi 29). The onset of the 1905-1911 Constitutional Revolution signified a continuation of this struggle with demonstrations organized in protest of Muzaffar Al-Din Shah’s inadequate handling of the country’s resources and ongoing dependency on foreign powers. However, the path towards a parliamentary system of governance and the creation of a constitution did not happen overnight and was tainted by violent clashes between royalists and constitutionalists throughout the country. During a ten-month siege of the city of Tabriz, the government attacked the Majlis (parliament) and civil war between both factions ensued. During this moment of civil unrest, Persian women disguised themselves as men to join the fight for constitutional freedom, as Janet Afary explains:

Anjuman [newspaper] published reports that bodies of armed women dressed in men’s clothing had been found in the battlefields of Amirkhiz and Khiaban alongside those of the men. Peasant women in the small villages of Azerbaijan “bundled their new-born babies on their backs, picked up guns,” and fought alongside the men. Habl al-Matin [newspaper] reported that in one of the battles of Tabriz twenty women, disguised in men’s clothing, were found among the dead (Afary 194).

With these early demonstrations, Iranian women played an instrumental role in the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, breaking away from traditionally defined gender roles and forcefully demanding accountability on the part of their monarchy. As Nima Naghibi points out: “Persian women, veiled and unveiled, or disguised in male garb, emerged into the public sphere demanding national and international recognition of their rights as a women and as nationalists,” (Naghibi 31). Despite their efforts, women were denied the right to vote and participate in the political process by the first parliament of Iran but this did not deter them from continuing to organize—the Society for Freedom of Women and the Secret Union of Women were formed in 1907, its mission to put education on the top of its agenda and effectively so; by 1913, 63 schools for girls were established (Khalili Mahani 1).

The women of Egypt similarly partook in early nationalist movements, namely the revolution of 1919, which demanded termination of British colonial occupation and an end to the protectorate imposed on Egypt at the beginning of World War I. Margot Badran describes women’s involvement in this movement thus: “Women and men, the old and the young, and all social classes sustained a united struggle until independence was achieved. Women worked for the nation in any way they could. Gender rules were suspended” (Badran 74). As in Iran, traditional notions of women’s confinement were suspended as Egyptian women entered the public arena alongside men in defense of Egypt’s independence. The Islamic practice of veiling continued during these early revolutionary activities with women of upper and middle classes participating in demonstrations while on the surface adhering to the customs of harem culture. Thus, in this instance, the veil served as a “camouflage for ‘invisible’ feminist activism” (Badran 47) and a way for women to challenge the status quo by becoming active participants in the country’s nationalist struggle.

Egyptian women demonstrating in the 1919 revolution (courtesy of Wikipedia)

The function of the veil as a tool used by women in early twentieth century Egypt to enter into the public sphere is part of narrative that would recur in various forms over the course of the century. For example, in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, mandatory hijab restricted women from appearing in public spaces unveiled but did not inhibit them from participating as active members of society. Rather than denouncing the veil merely as a garment of oppression, Iranian women used veiling as a means to reclaim access to public spaces that would otherwise be denied them. Journalist Elaine Sciolino points to the functionality of veiling for women in modern-day Iran:
bq. Iran’s women, being subtle and adaptable, came to think of the veil as something more complicated than just an imprisoning garment. For many women, the Islamic dress became a tool to be used to their advantage, a way into public spaces. It gave them the right to be present in public spaces-to work in offices, to attend college, to drive, to walk on the streets. The veil gives women the license to do things (Sciolino).

Returning to early twentieth century Iran, state sanctioned policy on women’s hijab was initiated as early as 1936 with Reza Shah’s controversial unveiling campaign or “Kashf-e Hejab.” In an attempt to accelerate the modernization process, Reza Shah passed a law that would require women to abandon public veiling and adopt a more ‘Westernized’ form of dress, in essence, flipping the laws on mandatory hijab that would be set into place half a century later. Regardless of ideology or era of implementation, these veiling and unveiling policies reveal an ongoing politicization of women’s bodies that would in effect become a point of collision between imported Western values and longstanding Islamic tradition. But to what degree did this politicization occur in cinema, and to what end? While neither Iran nor Egypt can speak on behalf of the social, political, and geographical complexities of the entire Middle East, their prominence in feature film production over the last century and their precarious relationships with the West provide an interesting starting point from which to examine women’s evolving roles in the cinema of the region. I will now turn to the advent of motion picture production in Iran and Egypt, focusing on early representations of women and veiling in the 1933 film Dokhtar-e Lor (The Lor Girl), by Iranian producers Abdul Hossein Sepenta and Ardeshi Irani, and the 1927 film Leila, produced by the Egyptian Actress Aziza Amir who also stars in the film.

Ahmed al-Shari‘ai (the film financier/Amir’s husband), Istafan Rusti (director), and Aziza Amir (actress/producer) working in the editing suite. (From “I Have One Daughter and That Is Egyptian Cinema: Aziza Amir amid the Histories and Geographies of National Allegory” By Kay Dickinson)

While film production was introduced to Iran by way of the royal courts, it was fashioned into an organized business during the 1920s at a time of increasing advancements in the country’s infrastructure during Reza Shah’s reign. Along with the construction of railways, roads, schools and bridges, movie theaters began popping up in various cities with the help of a handful of entrepreneurs who were committed to seeing this new industry grow. Cinema owners and investors such as Ardeshir Khan and Ali Vakili established some of the first public cinemas in Iran and by the early 1930s there were approximately fifteen theaters in Tehran and eleven in other provinces with the numbers steadily increasing (Parhami).

With the establishment of the first film training center in Tehran by Armenian-Iranian Ovanes Ohanian, Iran’s first two silent feature films were produced and released to the public: Abi va Rabi (1929), which was patterned after the comic acts of the Danish duo Pat and Paterson and Haji Agha Aktor-e Cinema (Haji Agha the Cinema Actor, 1933), which was about a traditionalist who at first is suspicious of cinema but then recognizes it as an important form of art—a commentary on the disputes that might have arisen between traditionalists and modernists on the value of cinema in Iranian society at the turn of the century. While Abi va Rabi did well commercially, Haji Agha Aktor-e Cinema did not succeed at the box office due to its technical shortcomings and the fact that its release coincided with the first Persian talkie, Dokhtar-e Lor (The Lor Girl, 1933).

Co-produced and directed by Abdul Hossein Sepenta and Ardeshi Irani and starring Ruhangiz Sami-Nezhad in the role of Golnar, Dokhtar-e Lor was an instant success, so successful that the film played in theaters for two years following its initial release. The story is about a young girl named Golnar from the western province of Lorestan who is kidnapped by a band of thieves as a child. While performing in a coffee house, Golnar meets a security agent named Jafar who works for the newly formed central government. The two fall in love and plan to escape together to India. But the leader of the thieves, Gholi Khan, who wants to take Golnar as his wife, catches on to their plan and tries to prevent their escape. After several battle scenes between the security forces and the bandits, Jafar arrests Gholi Khan and his associates, restoring order to Iran and enabling Jafar and Golnar to marry.

The plot of Dokhtar-e Lor contains political undertones that present a commentary on the lawlessness of Iran during the end of Qajar rule and Reza Shah’s call to restore order in the land. As described by Mohammad Ali Issari in his account of early film production in Iran:
bq. When Reza Shah came to power in 1925, bandits still attacked caravans on the rugged mountain roads. Reza Shah’s first activities were to capture these local bandits, to strengthen the power of the central government, and to bring security to his people throughout the country (Issari 105).

Along with serving as a commentary on the social and political advancements made during the Pahlavi era, the film also brought an Iranian woman into the public eye in the first sound film ever produced by Iranian filmmakers. An intense search for an appropriate actress to play the part of Golnar preceded the producers’ final casting of Ruhangiz Sami-Nejad, the wife of one of the Iranian staff members of Imperial Film, the Bombay-based company which produced Dokhtar-e Lor. Although Sami-Nejad, who had never received any prior training in acting, was reluctant to take on the role, she was eventually convinced by the film’s producers Irani and Sepenta, who sold her on the fact that she would be the first Iranian woman in a motion picture produced for a Persian-speaking audience.

The film’s success was attributed to the fact that it was relatable to Iranians both in terms of its theme and language – Ruhangiz Sami-Nejad captured audiences’ attention with her fine performance and her endearing Kermani accent, which was to be imitated by fans of the film across the country (Issari 106). Additionally, Reza Shah’s 1932 banning of ta’zieh (passion plays) enacting Shiite themes and rituals meant that Iranians would have to find an alternate form of popular entertainment and this led them to turn to the movies. The film’s technical proficiency unlike Persian films produced years prior also added to its positive reception among critics and moviegoers.

Although Dokhtar-e Lor is no longer available in its entirety, a few scenes from the film are available online as well as in Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s 1992 film, Once Upon a Time Cinema, which was produced in part as an homage to the origins of Iranian cinema. [1] These scenes include the opening sequence of the film, one of the battle scenes in which Jafar fights Goli Khan while Golnar hangs from a rope off a cliff, and a scene where Golnar escapes the bandits by attacking one of them with a whip and riding off on his horse.

Approaching these scenes from a feminist perspective, one finds that the character of Golnar defies gender expectations of the time period in her appearance, actions and demeanor. The film’s opening scene sets the stage with Golnar as both subject and object of our gaze—she is literally placed center stage, performing a dance both for her diegetic audience in the coffee shop and her non-diegetic audience (ie. the film’s viewers). Already in her role as a performer, Golnar defies the traditional belief that women should stay on the sidelines and refrain from drawing the attention of male spectators. Golnar’s غير مجاز مي باشدtume supports this characterization: her non-traditional veil, which consists of a small piece of cloth wrapped around her head like a bandana and her long braided hair that falls to her waistline run contrary to what was typically worn in public by Iranian women of the early twentieth century. The film’s omission of the chador, the full-length veil characteristically worn by women of that era, points to a cultural shift that had been taking place in the early 1930s and a move away from veiling that ultimately culminated in the unveiling act of 1936, three years after the release of Dokhtar-e Lor.

Of the few scenes that remain of the film, it is interesting to see how Golnar contends with various unfavorable circumstances—whether she is dangling from a cliff by a rope or threatened by a group of bandits who are out to kidnap her—the “damsel-in-distress” narrative is one that resembles The Perils of Pauline (Louis J. Gasnier, 1914), an American serial of the silent era in which a young woman with an adventurous spirit finds herself in trouble on more than one occasion and must either be rescued from imminent danger or find a way to rescue herself. One commentator describes Pauline in heroic terms, stating:

The daring, athletic and active female star performed some of the riskiest, hair-raising stunts in these films (stranded on the side of a cliff, in a runaway balloon, in a burning house, etc). Every second week in each new installment, Pauline (Pearl White) evaded attempts on her life –she fought pirates, Indians, gypsies, rats, sharks, rolling boulders, and her dastardly guardian” (Dirks).

In the case of Dokhtar-e Lor, Golnar, heroism is demonstrated along with defiance and resourcefulness, particularly in the face of her male captors—a statement that speaks to notions of female agency and power, which I am positing as an underlying feminist bent to the film’s “damsel-in-distress” narrative. In the scene in which Golnar confronts the bandits, one of them threatens to beat her, to which she angrily responds: “What? Beat me?!” As the bandit proceeds to bring over a whip, Golnar begins to plead “Please, please don’t beat me!” to the amusement of the bandits who relish in seeing her squirm. Golnar continues to plead as she cautiously moves away from the group of bandits and makes her way to the bandit holding the whip, who is standing next to a horse. As she begs and pleads, to his surprise and to the shock of the other bandits, she grabs the whip from his hands and begins whipping him relentlessly before laughing to herself in amusement, mounting his horse and riding off, effectively making her escape. Thus, Dokhtar-e Lor presents an interesting dichotomous illustration of a woman who is both captive and self-savior—while the story is based on the premise of her living a life of captivity until she meets Jafar, who represents the new order brought on by the formation of a centralized government, it also positions her in metaphoric terms whereby her self-liberation reflects Iran’s liberation from tribal rule.

The influence of Western forces in Iran during the time of the film’s production is important to mention, particularly when considering the extent to which the film supported Iran’s newly redefined image as a strong and unified country headed towards civil progress and cultural and economic modernity. While compared to the Qajars, Reza Shah’s independence from foreign powers was significant, his government continued to maintain economic dependency on the West during the 1930s, particularly Great Britain and Germany. In 1933, capital investment in Iran’s oil fields led to a series of negotiations that resulted in Reza Shah’s acceptance of revised concessions made to the Ango Persian Oil Company (APOC), allowing Great Britain to reap huge profits and continue paying low royalties, much to the disapproval of Iran’s nationalists (Keddie 101). In an attempt to reduce his country’s involvement with Great Britain, Reza Shah turned to Germany for economic and political support, complying with German agents at the onset of World War II—a move which ultimately led to his abdication in September of 1941 at the hands of allied forces. Nonetheless, as Nikki Keddie summarizes, “the years 1925 to 1941 [in which Reza Shah reigned] saw the partial fulfillment of a far larger modernization program than had ever been attempted in Iran” (Keddie 89) and it was during this time that cinema emerged as a voice that articulated the path that Iranians began taking together as a nation.

I will now move on to examine the birth of cinema in Egypt, which many would argue occurred with the 1927 silent film Leila directed by Wedad Orfi and Istifan Rusti and starring Egyptian actress and producer Aziza Amir. One film reviewer upon seeing the film proclaimed:

Silent acting has finally been born in Egypt. In the Egyptian sky a shining star has arisen, a star which seems to serve Egypt and the children of Egypt… which wants to carry out a great propaganda service…what is this propaganda which will serve the homeland in the greatest possible way? It is cinema…pure Egyptian cinema, national cinema… what is preventing us from having, within a few short years, a city like Hollywood? (Dickinson 137).

While the original film print is sadly no longer available and no duplication of it exists for viewing, film theorists and historians on Egyptian cinema recognize Amir’s achievement as one that was not only unique for its time but also set the premise for the rise and development of Egyptian cinema over years to come. Upon seeing the film at its premiere, Tal’at Harb, a nationalist financier and founder of the Misr Company for Cinema asserted that “[Asiza Amir] has achieved what men have failed to,” (Dickinson 138) which was to produce a film featuring an entirely Egyptian cast and subject matter and that would appeal to an Egyptian audience. While short films made prior were not considered as great achievements due to inconsistent subjects that were oftentimes non-relatable to Egyptians, they did provide experience to actors and technicians as well as prove to investors that films could be made in Egypt (Khan 18). Still, Amir is recognized as having made a seminal impact on the history of Egyptian cinema with Leila, a film which raises anti-colonial and pro-nationalist themes during a time of continued struggle for independence in Egypt.

The film’s narrative follows a young village girl named Leila, played by Amir, who gives herself to a Bedouin interpreter named Ahmed who in turn falls in love with an American women, much to Leila’s devastation. Ahmed and the American run off to the United States leaving Leila behind, pregnant. Abandoned by Ahmed, she is at the mercy of local villagers who eventually turn against her when her secret is revealed. Leila then sets off to Cairo where she seeks refuge from the turmoil she faced back in the village and the film concludes on a somber note with a recap of all the hardships Leila confronted since she met Ahmed.

There are a number of underlying themes from the plot summary alone that one could relate to the social and political situation in Egypt during the 1920s, when the country was still contending with British political, economic and administrative control, despite having established its independence in February 1922. A feminist reading of the narrative places the character of Leila in metaphoric terms, like Golnar, as representative of Egypt’s ongoing struggle between colonial rule (as personified by the American woman) and ongoing regressive cultural attitudes (as personified by the villagers), with Leila, like Egypt itself, being caught in the middle and left to deal with the detrimental outcome of these forces. Most of the plot summaries written about the film do not disclose whether Leila did in fact marry Ahmed before becoming pregnant with his child, but it is inferred that the child was conceived out of wedlock—a reference to the stigmatization women faced when failing to meet cultural expectations on marriage and childbearing that existed during those years.

Despite its bleak depiction of one woman’s struggle, Leila was produced during a time of significant advancement in Egypt’s feminist movement. The Egyptian Feminist Union (EFU) was established in 1923 and its monthly French-language periodical L’Egyptienne began publication in 1925, which targeted upper and upper-middle class readership in Egypt while also aiming to foster an international exchange on feminist issues among Western readers (Badran 102). During this time, Egyptian feminists began raising their concerns with how Egyptian women were being portrayed in the West in a negative and ‘backwards’ light. As the President of the EFU Huda Sha’rawi declared in a speech given at the American University in Cairo in 1929:
bq. We found it necessary to put before the eyes of the European public opinion a true picture of the Egyptian woman, one other than that presented by writers who have gathered a mass erroneous information on the Orient. The only way to attack this was to create a women’s journal in a European language (Badran 102).

Thus, _L’Egyptienne_’s creation coincided with cinema’s emergence as a tool that could be used to redefine Egypt’s national and cultural identity both in its own eyes and in the eyes of Western audiences. Part of this meant to abandon cultural practices, such as veiling, that were considered by some feminists to be antiquated and to reinforce a more modernized image of Egypt that was effectively modeled after Western standards of feminist progress.

Similarly, in cinema representations of women and veiling were increasingly fashioned after Hollywood pictures of that era, depicting stylized and even glamorized versions of women rarely seen wearing the veil, as this movie posters from the 1938 film Yahya el hub illustrates: [2]

Movie poster of the Egyptian film Yahya el hub (1938) (courtesy of Wikipedia)

Aziza Amir, producer and star of Leila, continued her involvement in the film industry by participating in over twenty films before her death in 1952, sometimes taking on roles that entailed a more traditional appearance, but otherwise complying with the Westernized standards of dress that became the norm for actors and actresses of that era. It is interesting to point out that, along with adhering to Westernized standards of dress, Egyptian films adopted the same genres that had become popular in Hollywood cinema—notably song and dance films, melodramas and comedies. Egyptian cinema was progressively becoming an escapist form of entertainment: audiences expected strongly typed parts, love stories and happy endings—thus, narratives that had little to do with the everyday life of average Egyptians. With the exception of Kamal Selim and a handful of other directors interested in portraying socially relevant issues through film, Egyptian cinema of the 1930s and 1940s appeared to be largely colonized by Western genres and motifs not to mention representations of male and female characters. And while Leila posited some degree of reflection on the reality of women in Egypt and set the stage for filmmakers who wished to follow along that same path, Egyptian cinema of the interwar period by and large turned to Hollywood as a model for popular entertainment leaving little trace of Egyptian society as it actually was for audiences to reflect on.

Similarly, Iranian cinema struggled in its early years to find an image for itself that was separate from that which was propagated by foreign imports. Following the opening of Cinema Zardoshtian, which was the third cinema in Tehran to be established exclusively for women, an advertisement appeared in Ettela’at newspaper on May 11, 1928:

Two Simultaneous Pieces of Good News for the Respected Ladies

In Cinema Zardoshtian the showing of the famous Ruth Roland serials, the acclaimed world actress, will start for the respected ladies. Seeing the spectacular actions of a world-renowned talented girl (Ruth Roland) is a must for the ladies. Cinema Zardoshtian from today, 20 Ordibehesht, will give a free ticket to any lady with the purchase of one ticket (Issari 105).

Although this ad had been published prior to the emergence of sound film and the production of Dokhtar-e Lor, it demonstrates the appeal of American actresses such as Ruth Roland for female moviegoers in Iran who were new to film spectatorship. And while the period of 1937 to 1948 marked a decade of non-productivity in the history of Iranian cinema due to the occupation of allied forces and the domination of foreign films among other factors, the 1950s and 1960s saw a revival in domestic film production with commercialism being the foundation of its rebirth: “[Iranian cinema] was saturated with dominant themes of dance, music, simplistic dramas and Persianized versions of Western popular movies. But it also brought about the possibility of an independent national cinema” (Parhami).

In summary, I would argue that colonial infiltration in early motion picture production both in Iran and in Egypt served to create a model that commercial filmmakers of the early-to-mid twentieth century (and in the case of Iran, until the 1979 Islamic Revolution) would follow, positing dichotomous representations of both women and the national cinemas they helped characterize. And as both national cinemas began to expand (in the case of Egypt during WWII and in Iran’s case after the war), the role of women continued to expand as well, with more actresses and producers gaining recognition for their contributions to the film industry. The role of the veil in both Iranian and Egyptian cinema became progressively less relevant despite being an important part of the lives of Iranian and Egyptian women of certain classes and generations. This was perhaps a reflection of how veiling in cinema had become part of a larger discourse on national identity, one that complied with the image of modernity as it was understood during those years. Egyptian cinema theorist and historian Marisa Farrugia remarks:

In 1923, Zafiya Zaghul welcomed her husband, the Wafd party leader Sa’ad Zaghlul (d.1927) on his return from exile in Malta by lifting the veil that covered her face. The women who accompanied her did the same. This did not just mean that she adhered to the emancipation of women, but it symbolically meant the liberty of her nation. Five years later Aziza Amir stood in front of a camera for the first time. She was followed by Bahija Hafez, Fatima Rushdi, Amina Rizq, Assya Dagher, Munira al-Mahdiya, Mary Queeny and other female artists. They all pursued their careers in spite of the conservative ideas prohibiting women from appearing unveiled in public, let alone on the screen (Farrugia 97).

As Farrugia points out, the emergence of actresses in Egyptian cinema followed an awakening of sorts whereby unveiling and nationalism became the characteristics of a newly defined Egypt that by its appearance would emulate modernity as it had been seen in Western society and its cinema.

In Iran, the return of cinema after roughly a ten-year hiatus during the war began with the importation of foreign movies that were dubbed in Persian and shown to local audiences. Such films as Dokhtare Farari (Escaping Girl) produced in France and starring Danielle Darieux did quite well at the box office—thus beginning a trend for major studios in Tehran to dub films as a way to survive the period of scarcity in local productions (Issari 126). When the studios began producing films again in the late 1940s, audiences’ expectations towards the quality of films shown and to some degree their subject matters, raised the standards of production and led film content in new directions. As in Egypt, women’s roles in feature film production saw a steady increase—however, they participated more actively in front of the camera as actresses rather than behind it as producers or directors during this time period. Some of the actresses working in the film industry of this period include: Delkash, Shahla (who was also the first woman to produce and direct a feature film in Iran) and Faranak Mirghahari among others.

Iranian actress, Faranak Mirghahari (From Cinema in Iran 1900-1979 by Mohammad Ali Issari)

In both Egyptian and Iranian film industries, the veil became a relic of the past as more and more actresses emulated Hollywood and other Western film industries in their roles and appearances in film—perhaps an indication of moviegoers growing support of a new cultural identity posited by the cinema, which did not necessarily reflect issues relevant to contemporary Middle Eastern societies. Of the post World War II era, Mohammad Ali Issari remarks: “Escapist films [in Iran], aimed at the lowest standards of public taste, continued making strictly box-office-oriented films with very little or no artistic merit,” (Issari 147). While on the whole cinema during those years followed a consumer-oriented path, the future of film production in Iran would eventually give rise to such critically acclaimed voices as Forough Farrokhzad (The House is Black, 1962) and a host of other filmmakers that would emerge as part of the Iranian New Wave—a post-revolutionary movement which critics described as one of the world’s preeminent national cinemas. Women filmmakers like Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Tahmineh Milani, Samira Makhmalbaf, and Pouran Derakhshandeh began using film as a tool to critically engage with contemporary social issues from a feminine perspective, at a time when the veil had reemerged as a political force to be contended with both onscreen and off.

However, the process of Islamization that occurred in Iranian cinema after the revolution did not appear in new Egyptian cinema, as Viola Shafik points out:

[Egyptian cinama] has remained on the ‘dark’ side of moral binarism. In particular the retreat and veiling of actresses during the early 1990s was able to confirm cinematic practices as being opposed to Islamist-defined piety. The representation of the female body as cut-out icon in combination with the invitation to direct gazing seem crucial in upholding this opposition. What can be confirmed is that Egyptian film has done a great deal to support unilateral male gazing (Shafik 170).

Unlike Iranian cinema, contemporary Egyptian cinema has remained loyal to narratives which represent women in overtly ***ualized ways, with such classic typed parts as belly dancers making appearances in recent films like A Woman Bound to Fall/_imra’a ‘ayyila li-l-suqut_ (1992) just as they did during the post war era of Egyptian filmmaking. But like Iranian cinema, the emergence of such women directors as Inas al-Dighidi have allowed for an alternative depiction of women with the production of films like Cheap Flesh/_Lahm rachis_ (1995) and Night Talk/_Kalam al-layl_ (1999) that posit new characterizations of women and their oftentimes dichotomous positions in contemporary Egyptian society.

Thus, the turn of the century marked a time of great promise for Iran, Egypt and other countries that were inching towards modernization and redefining their nationhood. Cinema emerged as a cultural voice that could effectively articulate these advancements while also redefining cultural and gender identities for both local and foreign audiences. Women played an instrumental role in the emergence of cinema as pioneers of the industry while also embodying cultural changes that could be located within the films being produced. Representations of women’s veiling, a practice that remained a prominent part of Egyptian and Iranian society in the early twentieth century, all but dissipated in the cinema by mid century, with films becoming seemingly more Westernized as decades passed, despite the countries’ aims to do away with colonial influence in the region. And while the face of cinema evolved to varying degrees in both Iranian and Egyptian film industries, with Iran’s film industry transforming more dramatically after the 1979 Islamic revolution, a constant thread that remains vital to the evolution of filmmaking in the region is the continued participation of women—whose roles in early feature film production, veiled or unveiled, served as a symbol of change that had only just begun.

Faranak Mirghahari in Akharin Gozargah (The Last Hurdle) 1962 (From Cinema in Iran 1900-1979 by Mohammad Ali Issari)

Photo Credits:

Wikipeida photos sourced at Cinema of Egypt

Once Upon a Time in Cinema.

Bibliography

Afary, Janet . The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906-1911: Grassroots Democracy, Social Democracy, and the Origins of Feminism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.

Ali Issari, Mohammad. Cinema in Iran 1900-1979. Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press, 1989.

Badran, Margot. _Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egyp_t. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Dickinson, Kay. “I Have One Daughter and That Is Egyptian Cinema: Aziza Amir amid the Histories and Geographies of National Allegory.” Camera Obscura 64, vol. 22, no. 1, 2007.

Dirks, Tim. “The Perils of Pauline (1914)”. Filmsite Movie Review.

Farrugia, Marisa. The Plight of Women in Egyptian cinema 1940s-1960s. PhD thesis published by University of Leeds, 2002.

Keddie, Nikki. Modern Iran: Roots and Results of a Revolution. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

Khan, Mohamed. An Introduction to the Egyptian Cinema. London: Informatics, 1969.

Mahani, Najmeh Khalili. “Women of Iranian Popular Cinema: Projection of Progress.” Offscreen. Volume 10, Issue 7. July 31, 2006.

Naghibi, Nima. Rethinking Global Sisterhood: Western Feminism and Iran. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2007.

Parhami, Shahin. “Iranian Cinema: Before the Revolution.” Offscreen. December 1999.

Sciolino, Elaine. “Iran: Behind the Veil.” The Globalist. June 2001.

Shafik, Viola. Popular Egyptian Cinema. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2007.

 

 

 

 

 


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Islamic Psychotronic! Iranian Cinema Fantastique 1955-1965!

 

Here's a list of genre and fantasy movies made in the Shah's Iran from the years 1955 through to 1965.

It was during this time that Iranian cinema came unto its own both artistically and commercially with '65 being the year that saw homegrown films almost completely displacing US and European fare.

This list was culled from a book called Cinema in Iran 1900-1979 by M. Ali Issari and may or may not be comprehensive.

I have not seen any of these films and I would assume that most are very difficult to find.

There are some bone fide auteurs here, as a cursory Internet search will uncover, such as Samuel Khachikian, noted as the "Iranian Hitchcock" or Farrokh Ghaffari, a leader of the Iranian "new wave" whose film NIGHT OF THE HUNCHBACK is acknowledged as a true classic of Farsi cinema (and is the film featured in the poster above).

I have chosen to include films of Worldweird interest, in this case mostly crime films and thrillers, and not such much social dramas or comedies.

There are a handful of fantasy films and historical adventures, but gritty noir-esque fare seemed to rule the genre roost in Iran at this time.

I also included a few films which are described as comedies or dramas but whose titles may indicate some sort of fantastical content. 

35mm/B&W/110 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: January 16, 1963
Production Co: Pars Film Studio
Producer/Writer/Director: Esmail Kooshan
proper name
35mm/B&W/Cinemascope/110 min
Genre: Thriller
Premiere: May 2, 1962
Production Co: Pars Film Studio
Writer/Producer: Esmail Kooshan
AROUSE DAJLEH
“Bridge of the Tigris River”
35mm/B&W/120 min
Genre: Historical
Premiere: February 8, 1955
Production Company: Rey Film
Director: N. Mohtashem
BABRE KOOHESTAN
“The Mountain Tiger”
35mm/B&W/110 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: April 27, 1965
Production Co: Asre Talaie Studio
Writer/Director: Khosrow Parvizi
BAZGASHT BE ZENDEGI
“Return to Life”
35mm/B&W/95 min
Genre: Fantasy
Premiere: August 8, 1957
Production Co: Asre Talaie Studio
Director: Ataollah Zahed
BONBAST
“Dead End”
35mm/B&W/115 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: February 24, 1965
Production Co: Sazmane Cinemaie Panoroma
Director: Mirsamadzadeh
CHAHAR-RAHE HAVADES
“The Crossroad of Events”
35mm/B&W/100 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: March 20, 1955
Production Company: Diana Film
Director: Samuel Khachikian
DELHOREH
“Anxiety”
35mm/B&W/95 min
Genre: Thriller
Premiere: December 20, 1962
Production Co: Ajir Film
Writer/Director: Samuel Khachikian
ENSANE PARANDEH
“The Flying Man”
35mm/B&W/115 min
Genre: Comedy
Premiere: September 12, 1961
Production Co: Atlas Film Studio
Writer/Director: Parviz Khatibi
ESHQ VA ENTEGHAM
“Love and Vengeance”
35mm/B&W/100 min
Genre: Thriller
Premiere: September 29, 1965
Independent Production
Writer/Director: M. A. Fardin
ETTEHAM
“Accusation”
35mm/B&W/110 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: May 6, 1956
Production Co: Pars Film Studio
Director: Shappor Yasami
FARAR
“The Escape”
35mm/B&W/110 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: December 5, 1963
Production Co: Miغير مجاز مي باشدhieh Studio
Writer/Director: Abbas Shabaviz
FARYADE DEHKADEH
“The Cry of the Village”
35mm/B&W/110 min
Genre: Thriller
Premiere: July 22, 1965
Independent Production
Writer/Director: Ahamd Safaie
FARYADE NIMESHAB
“The Midnight Terror”
35mm/B&W/120 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: August 24, 1961
Production Co: Miغير مجاز مي باشدhieh Studio
Writer/Director: Samuel Khachikian
GORGEHAYE GOROSNEH
“The Hungry Wolves”
35mm/B&W/120 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: December 11, 1962
Independent Production
Director: M.A. Fardin
HEVDAH RUZ BE E’DAM
“Seventeen Days to Exectution”
35mm/B&W/95 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: December 26, 1958
Production Co: Asre Talaie Studio
Writer/Director: Houshang Kavoosi
JADDEH MARG
“Highway of Death”
35mm/B&W/120 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: June 18, 1963
Production Co: Caravan Film
Writer/Director: Esmail Riahi
JADOU
“Witchcraft”
16mm/Color/95 min
Genre: Melodrama
Premiere: January 25, 1956
Production Co: Asia Film
Producer/Director/Cameraman/Co-writer: Salar Eshghi
KAMINGAHE SHEITAN
“Hideaway of the Devil”
35mm/B&W/100 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: May 7, 1964
Independent Production
Writer/Director: Nezam Fatemi
KELID
“The Key”
35mm/B&W/110 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: December 6, 1962
Production Co: Miغير مجاز مي باشدhieh Studio
Director: Mahmoud Nowzari
KHESHM VA FARYAD
“Anger and Screaming”
35mm/B&W/110 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: March 13, 1964
Independent Production
Writer/Director: Reza Safaie
KHOON VA SHARAF
“Blood and Honor”
35mm/B&W/100 min
Genre: War
Premiere: December 12, 1955
Production Company: Diana Film
Director: Samuel Khachikian
MAHTABE KHOONIN
“The Bloody Moonlight”
35mm/B&W/100 min
Genre: Drama
Premiere: January 15, 1956
Production Co: Caravan Film
Writer/Director: Moshavegh Sorouri
MAJERAJOOYANE KHASHEN
“The Rough Adventurers”
35mm/B&W/100 min
Genre: Adventure
Premiere: January 25, 1957
Production Co: Cinema Theater Rex Co.
Writer/Director: Mehdi Rais-Firuz
MOOTALAIE SHARE MA
“The Blonde Woman of Our Town”
35mm/B&W/110 min
Genre: Thriller
Premiere: December 16, 1965
Production Co: Iran Film Studio
Writer/Director: Abbas Shabaviz
MORVARID SIAH
“The Black Pearl”
35mm/B&W/95 min
Genre: Thriller
Premiere: August 28, 1961
Production Co: Shahrokh Film
Director: Mehdi Rais-Firuz
NABARDE GHOOLHA
“The War of the Giants”
35mm/B&W/100 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: December 9, 1965
Independent Production
Director: Reza Beik-Imanverdi
PANJEH
“The Claw”
35mm/B&W/95 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: January 8, 1963
Production Co: Asre Talaie Studio
Writer/Director: Amin Amini
PARTGAHE MAKHOUF
“Frightening Canyon”
35mm/B&W/110 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: May 11, 1963
Production Co: Sazmane Cinemaie 555
Writer/Director: Reza Safaie
PESARE DARYA
“Son of the Sea”
35mm/B&W/100 min
Genre: Thriller
Premiere: April 11, 1958
Independent Production
Writer/Director: Shahpoor Yasami
RAHZAN
“The Bandit”
35mm/B&W/100 min
Genre: Adventure
Premiere: March 18, 1955
Production Company: Pars Film Studio
Director: Siamak Yasami
SARKESH
“The Mutineer”
35mm/B&W/110 min
Genre: Thriller
Premiere: February 16, 1965
Production Co: Azar Film
Producer/Writer/Director: Samad Sabahi
SARSAM
“Delirium”
35mm/B&W/120 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: April 21, 1965
Production Co: Miغير مجاز مي باشدhieh Studio
Writer/Director: Samuel Khachikian
SAYE
“Shadow”
35mm/B&W/100 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: June 25, 1959
Production Co: Asre Talaie Studio
Writer/Director: Amin Amini
SAYYADANE NAMAKZAR
“Hunters of the Salt Desert”
35mm/B&W/100 min
Genre: Thriller
Premiere: June 28, 1965
Independent Production
Producer/Writer/Director: Akbar Hashemi
SETAREI CHESHMAK ZAD
“A Star Twinkled”
35mm/B&W/120 min
Genre: Fantasy
Premiere: October 23, 1963
Production Co: October 23, 1963
Producer/Director: Gorji Ebadia
SHABE GHOUZI
“Night of the Hunchback”
35mm/B&W/120 min
Genre: Thriller
Premiere: February 25, 1965
Production Co: Iran Nema Studio
Producer/Director: Farrokh Ghaffari
SHAHINE TOUS
“The Eagle of Tous”
35mmB&W/110 min
Genre: Historical
Year: 1955
Production Company: Pass Film Studio
Director: Hossein Daneshvar
SHEITANE SEFID
“The White Devil”
35mm/B&W/100 min
Genre: Thriller
Premiere: September 16, 1965
Production Co: Mahtab Film
Writer/Director: Ahmad Safaie
SOWDAGARANE MARG
“The Merchants of Death”
35mm/B&W/120 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: April 26, 1962
Production Co: Pars Film Studio
Director: Naser Malek-Motyie
TA’GHIBE KHATARNAK
“The Dangerous Chase”
35mm/B&W/95 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: March 9, 1965
Independent Production
Producer/Writer/Director: Reza Safaie
TALAYE SEFID
“White Gold”
35mm/B&W/120 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: April 11, 1962
Production Co: Sahar Studio
Producer/Director: Jamshid Sheibani
TARE ANKABOUT
“The Cobweb”
35mm/B&W/95 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: September 26, 1963
Production Co: Sazmane Cinemaie Panorama
Director: Mirasamdzadeh
TARS VA TARIKY
“Fear and Darkness”
35mm/B&W/100 min
Genre: ?
Premiere: June 25, 1963
Production Co: Atlas Film Studio
Producer/Writer/Director: Mohammad Motovaselani
TELESME SHEITAN
“The Spell of Satan”
16mm/B&W/100min
Genre: Comedy
Premiere: January 5, 1956
Production Company: Asia Film
Director: Mohsen Farid
Producer/Writer/Cameraman: Salar Eshghi
TOOFAN DAR SHAHRE MA
“Storm in Our Town”
35mm/B&W/100 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: April 13, 1958
Production Co: Ajir Film
Writer/Director: Samuel Khachikian
VAHSHAT
“Horror”
35mm/B&W/100 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: April 16, 1963
Production Co: Miغير مجاز مي باشدhieh Studio
Writer/Director: Siamak Yasami
YA’QUB LAYTH SAFFARI
Proper name – founder of Saffarid dynasty
35mm/B&W/110 min
Genre: Historical
Premiere: May 30, 1957
Production Co: Pars Film Studio
Director: Ali Kasmaie
YEK GHADAM TA MARG
“One Step to Death”
35mm/B&W/100 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: December 6, 1961
Production Co: Ajir Film
Writer/Director: Samuel Khachikian
YEKI BOUD YEKI NABOUD
“Once Upon a Time”
35mm/B&W/95 min
Genre: Thriller
Premiere: March 22, 1959
Production Co: Oranus Film
Producer/Writer/Director: Rahim Rowshanian
ZAMINE TALKH
“The Bitter Earth”
35mm/B&W/100 min
Genre: Thriller
Premiere: March 12, 1963
Production Co: Atlas Film Studio
Writer/Director: Khosrow Parvizi
ZAN VA AROUSAKHAYASH
“The Woman and Her Dolls”
35mm/B&W/110 min
Genre: Thriller
Premiere: September 16, 1965
Independent Production
Producer/Writer/Director: Esmail Riahi
ZARBAT
“The Strike”
35mm/B&W/95 min
Genre: Crime
Premiere: April 23, 1964
Production Co: Ajir Film
Writer/Director: Samuel Khachikian

 


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A Persian Perspective; Documentary Films in Iran

 

Iran is a country where the cultural, social and political landscape has experienced one of the most overwhelming challenges of the last millennium. The history of cinema and documentary in Iran was started in the court of squirarchy.
Aside from the opening of cinema to the public in Iran-in Tabriz in 1900 and Tehran in 1904-the first available document about documentary film coincides with  the first camera purchased by the Qajar king, five years after the invention of the cinematograph, in June 1900. This Gaumont brand cinematograph was ordered by the official photographer of the royal court, Ebrahim Khan Akkasbashi, in August 1900 to make the very first documentary films of Iran.
Naturally, with that start, the first documentaries of Iranian cinema were made by the government to make the royal court happy. Ebrahim Khan filmed the activities and attractions of the court: Islamic religious ceremonies, lions of the royal zoo, the king riding his horse or walking with clowns in animal masks and غير مجاز مي باشدtumes, غير مجاز مي باشدsacks exercising, donkey riders racing down a treed avenue, the flogging of the court dwarf, and the back and forth driving of a streetcar. These films were found in Golestan palace in 1982.
Subsequent to these filmed records, filmmakers such as Khan Baba Moutazedi documented other landmarks in Iranian history: Opening of Iran Constitutional Parliament, Reza Shah's Coronation, Opening of Iran Railroad and Opening of National Bank of Iran were all made in 1925. That same year, American filmmakers Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack traveled to Iran to make Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life, about the painful, annual pasغير مجاز مي باشدe of the Bakhtiyari tribe in search of food and water.
In 1940, Reza Shah, the first Pahlavi king, established the first official censorship organization, Organization for Culture of Public Opinion. But censorship has always impacted Iranian cinema, and it has pushed documentary filmmaking toward a kind of subtlety.
During and after World War II, filmmakers from the Soviet Union and many western countries made many documentaries in Iran. The presence of these filmmakers ushered in the new era for Iranian documentary films, beginning in the early 1950s, through the mid-1970s. Among the highlights of that era was Esmail Kooshan's Dr. Mosadeq in a Trip to America (1951), the first Iranian documentary made in color. Amazingly, documentary films of Iran were internationally appraised and awarded long before Iranian fiction films: Ebrahim Golestan's A Fire 1958, Marlik Hills 1963 and Wave, Coral and Granite screened at film festivals in Venice, San Francisco and Pesaro, Italy, in the 1960s; Forough Farrokhzad, the famous Iranian poetess and the first female documentarist (The House is Black, 1962), earned considerable acclaim; and Mohammad Faroughi premiered his The Dawn of Jedi, 1963 at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1973, A. Zabeti Jahromi was honored at the International Festival of Students of Cinema in New Delhi for Night Journey.
 
Documentary Education
In Iran, learning cinema by means of academic studies started almost at the turn of the 20th century. But in March 1951, US-based Syracuse University, as part of its "Point Four"plan, sent 10 academic filmmakers to Iran. They made some short films for teaching and training purposes. These films were about traditional handicrafts (carpets and rugs), environmental control (drinking water, drying swamps), preventive medicine (trachoma, fungal infections of the scalp) and agriculture (sugar beet and animal husbandry). In this period of time, the first training courses for cinema started in January 1954. The American filmmakers trained some students in seven different branches, some of whom are still working in cinema. Now, there are more than a dozen states and private centers for those who want to study cinema and filmmaking.
In 1963 the Academy of Dramatic Arts was established in Tehran. The academy offered courses in dramatic literature, playwriting and art direction in cinema and theater. Students interested in cinema were trained in fiction film, but the academy also offered a directing course in documentary.
In 1967 the first graduates of cinema continued in TV productions and feature films. (State TV was launched in 1969, two years after private TV station Sabet Pasal made its debut). One of the first graduates from this academy who started documentary filmmaking was M. Asgari Nasab (Sadeh Celebration, 1971).
In 1970 the College of TV & Cinema, a national radio and TV-affiliated institution, began to train students for cinema, and in their last term, students were required to take a course in documentary filmmaking and submit a documentary film for graduation.
All colleges and universities were shut down after the 1979 revolution, including schools of cinema and theater. Some schools eventually re-opened, under different names: The Academy of Dramatic Arts was now Art University of Iran. At that school, documentary education had expanded to two separate special courses-History and Techniques of Documentary Film, and Practical Documentary Filmmaking.
Four years after the revolution, in 1983, College of TV & Cinema changed its name to IRIB (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting; www.irib.com) College. IRIB offered majors in film editing, cinematography and film and TV direction, and 14 years later, added a graduate course in cinema. In February 2005, IRIB will introduce two courses in documentary filmmaking: Direction of Documentary Film, and Documentary Film Production.  
There are some private schools or special training courses for cinema too, such as Tehran Film School. In 1994, The Arts School of Tarbiat Modarres University started an academic course in animation filmmaking. Vladimir Tarasov, a known Russian director of animated films with 35 years of experience in production and teaching animation, collaborated with this department.
Some professional organizations such as Iranian Young Cinema Society (IYCS; www.iycs-ir.com) offer training courses in filmmaking, where students learn camera techniques, scriptwriting, editing and photography.

Organizations for Documentary Film
In general, it takes a long time for many different syndicates, guilds and societies to be established for people involved in filmmaking; some are more than 25 years old.  But societies for documentary film activists are younger. In the past 10 years, two societies have been organized for documentary film exclusively: Society of Documentary Film Directors, in 1997, and the Association of Iranian Documentary Producers (AIDP; www.iranshad.com/irandoc/) in 2000. The mission of the latter is to promote "the business and art of documentary film production in Iran."
IYCS was established in 1974 to "improve cinema culture" of young Iranians and organize an annual international short film festival for further production and distribution of films. Now, there are about 50 IYCS centers in different cities of Iran. Over the past three years alone, about 700 short films (including documentaries) have been produced, in DVcam, Betacam, 16mm and 35mm formats. Some of these films won international awards.
Farabi Cinema Foundation (FCF; www.fcf-ir.com/) was established in 1983, and its activities cover most aspects of cinema and film industry. FCF produces films, gives low-rate loans, supplies raw materials, lends camera equipment, provides post-production facilities, publishes various cinematic literature and sponsors film festivals.
Documentary Film Producers and Distributors
There are two governmental offices that distribute documentary film outside Iran-the International Unit of IRIB and the Farabi Foundation.
Approximately 104 companies are registered as film production companies in Iran, and 45 of these are distributors as well. But only two of the companies-Ima Film Tehran and Ravayat Fath-are officially entitled to support documentary film production.
In addition, some industrial manufacturers are interested in presenting their line of productions in documentary films, but really as tools for advertisement. Historically, some ministries, such as the Ministry of Petroleum, the National Steel Industry and the Iranian Army, have their own unit of documentation. In the past, there was unit in the army called "audiovisual" that was involved in relevant documentations.
According to a study conducted by the Film Museum of Iran (25 Years of Iranian Cinema: A Selection of Documentary Films by P. Kalantari; February 2004 ), a total of 171 documentary films were produced in the 25-year period from 1989 to 2003-an average of six films per year. But this study only monitored official films, not independent ones.

Publications and Broadcast Services
There are books in the Persian (Farsi) language about different aspects of documentary film, but not many. One of the first relevant books is a two-volume book published in 1978 called Documentary Film, edited by Hamid Nafisi. This book is still being used at Azad Free University. Since 1978, about 14 books directly related to documentary films have been published in Iran, either in original Persian, or in translation from other languages.
There are about a total of 32 daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly and quarterly publications about cinema and documentary film in Iran today, some of which have been in existence for 25 years, some for less than one year. But these publications may be ceased at any time, due to internal problems or governmental maters.
The only broadcasting service in Iran is IRIB, which is governmental and gives its services through six major national and local (Sima channels 1 to 6) and one international (Jam Jam) TV channel. Sima 4 is the most active in documentary programs.
 
Film Festivals
Today, there are more than 20 film festivals in Iran, and most of them have a section for documentary films. But International Kish Documentary Film Festival is the most famous one. This festival is held in Kish Island, located in the Persian Gulf. Its audience is practically limited to the number of festival participants (average of 47 audience members in each screening!). Some of the festivals are not held regularly. Themes of the festivals are sometimes limited to special subjects and some welcome all types of documentary film. Recently, the Iranian Society of Documentary Film Makers announced a new documentary film festival from 2005 in Tehran.
In the last two years, some festivals have showcased documentaries from France (2003), Lebanon and Palestine (2003), Holland (2004) and Switzerland (2004), which were well received by interested audiences.


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MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STUDIOS IN IRAN1 1929-1975

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NAME Founder(s) First Production First Production
*Jahan-Nama Studio 1929
Ebrahim Moradi
انتقام برادر A Brother's Revenge (1931)
Pars Film Ohanes Ohanian آبي و رابي Abi and Rabi (1930)
Sherkat Mahdood 1930
Ebrahim Moradi & Partners
بوالهوس Sensual (1933)
*Mitra Film 1947
Esmail Koushan, Esfandiar Yeganegi, Ansari, Ziaie, Sheikh, & Hamzavi
طوفان زندگي Tumultuous Life (1948)
Iran-No Film Ataollah Zahed & Mansour Mobine اشتباه Mistake (1953)
Moradi Studio Ebrahim Moradi كمرشكن Onerous (1953)
Shahrzad Studio A.H. Sheikh & Nasser Tayefi محكوم بي گناه The Convicted Innocent (1953)
*Iran Film Studio 1949
Jalil Ghadiri, Mohsen Badie, & F. Manouchehri
ولگرد Vagrant (1950)
*Pars Film Studio 2 Esmail Koushan & Partners شرمسار Ashamed (1950)
*Diana Film 1950
S. Khachatourian, Farid Zeini, & Baghdan Yeganian
گل نسا Golnesa (1952)
Honar Film 3 M. Besharatian باغي Outlaw (1953)
Madayen Studio Ghodratollah & Seifollah Rashidian خوابهاي طلائي Golden Dreams (1951)
Alborz Studio 1951
Parviz Khatibi & S. Constantin
دستكش سفيد White Gloves (1951)
Asia Film Salar Eshghi ناكام Defeated (1952)
*Asre-Talaie Studio Azizollah Kardavani & Hakimian مشهدي عباد Mashadiebad (1953)
Azar Film Iraj Farahvashi & Mozafar Mizani حاكم يكروزه Governor for a Day (1952)
*Badie (formerly Oqab) Studio Mohsen Badie & F. Maouchehri شكار خانگي Shooting Fish in a Barrel (1952)
Omar Khayyam Studio Hossein Madani جدال با شيطان Fight with the Devil (1952)
Sharq Studio Mohammad Bani-Salam يك نگاه Look (1952)
Golestan Studio 1952
Ebrahim Golestan, Mazaheri, & Partners
خشت و آينه Adobe and Mirror (1966)
Jahan Film Mazaheri & Partners چهره آشنا Familiar Face (1953)
Jahan-Nama Studio Jamshid Bakhtiar سرنوشت در را ميكوبد Destiny Knocking on the Door (1954)
Kaveh Studio Abbas Kaveh تقدير چنين بود This Was Karma (1954)
Kavian Film Saied Mo'ayed & Parviz Shoumer دختر سرراهي Deserted Girl (1953)
Shahryar Film Mohammad Deram-Bakhsh ميهن پرست Nationalist (1953)
*Artesh Studio 4 1953
Imperial Iranian Army
نقلعلي Naql-Ali (1954)
Kakh Studio Khosravi & Partners دستبرد يا بوالهوس Theft (1954)
*Karvan Film  1954
Akbar Dehqan & Shokrollah Rafie
مهتاب خونين Bloody Moonlight (1956)
*Honarha-ye Zibaya Keshvar Studio 5 Ministry of Education جدال در مهتاب Dispute in Moonlight (1963)
Irana Film Jamshid Sheibani براي تو For You (1955)
Oriental Studio Parviz Khatibi كينه The Grudge (1954)
Rey Film Mohammad Shabpareh عروس دجله Bride of Dajleh (1955)
Tolou' Studio Taqavi & Serge Azarian بر باد رفته Gone with the Wind (1954)
Sahra Film 1955
Hossein Amir-Fazli
دزدان معدن Thieves of the Mine (1955)
Venus Film Mehdi Besharatian دماغ سوخته Disappointed (1956)
Zohreh Film Nourbakhsh پنجمين ازدواج Fifth Marriage (1956)
Arya Film 6 1956
Shahla (Riahi)
مرجان Marjan (1956)
*Atlass Film Studio Gorgi Ebadia (Ahmad Fahimi) دشمن زن Woman's Enemy (1959)
Haraz Film Serge Azarian & Partners ماجراي عجيب A Strange Adventure (1956)
*Ajir Film 1957
Joseph Va'ezian, Shahrokh Rafi', & Samuel Khachian
طوفان در شهر ما Storm in Our City (1958)
Iran-Nema Studio Farrokh Ghafari & Farhad Emad جنوب شهر South of the Town (1959)
Nader Film Studio Azizollah Rafie همه گناهكاريم We Are All Guilty (1959)
Diba Film 1958
Hossein Nazemzadeh
افسانه شمال The Fable of the North (1959)
Kasra Film Hossein Amir-Fazli هالو Halou (1959)
Monajem Film Abdollah Monajem جوانان امروزي Today's Youth (1960)
Oranus Film Roubik Sarkisian & Rahim Rowshanian يكي بود يكي نبود Once Upon a Time (1959)
Soufia Film Mehdi Besharatian & Ali-Reza Eslami فرشته وحشي Wild Angel (1959)
*Tehran-Shahrestan Film Babken Avedisian بي ستاره ها Those Without Stars (1959)
*Alvand Film 1959
Asghar Bichareh
پول حلال Clean Money (1960)
Chaharpar Studio Ahmad Afsaneh شد شد ، نشد نشد If It Happens, It Happens, If Not, It Doesn't (1960)
Kuhe-Nur Film Sardar Saker فردا روشن است Brighter Tomorrow (1960)
*Misaqyeh Studio Mehdi Misaqyeh فرياد نيمه شب Midnight Shout (1961)
Oscar Film Mehdi Besharatian ماجراي پروين Parvin's Dispute (1960)
Purya Film Siamak Yasami اول هيكل Muscle Man (1960)
Shahrokh Film Shahrokh Rafie پيمان Pact (1960)
Television Iran7 Habib Sabet    
Darya Film 1960
Manouchehr Tayefeh & Sahabpanah
آخرين گذرگاه The Last Crossing (1962)
Fanous Film Misramadzadeh & Ne'man ماجراي جنگل The Event of the Jungle (1961)
*Khavar-Mianeh Studio Mohammad-Ali Zarandi ستارگان مي درخشند The Stars Are Sparkling (1960)
Soruri Film Movasheq Soruri آقا جبار در پاريس Mr. Jabbar in Paris (1961)
Karun Film 1961
Ahmad Safaie
اشك شوق Eager Tears (1962)
Pateh Film Fari' Halati & Reza Zandi-Nejad پستچي Postman (1962)
Sahar Studio Jamshid Sheibani طلاي سفيد White Gold (1962)
*Shahin Film Studio Vanik Ovadeaian, Shake & Sirus Harajzadeh دختر كوهستان Mountain Girl (1964)
*Ranginkaman Studio 1962 Shahryar Ostovari & Partners در انتهاي ظلمت At the End of Darkness (1963)
Sazmane Cinema-ye 555 Mansour Baqeriean & Reza Safaie پرتگاه مخوف Cliff of Fear (1963)
Sazmane Cinema-ye Panorama Mirsamadzadeh & Iraj Ghadiri تار عنكبوت Spider (1963)
Sira Film Mehdi Mosayebei-Heravi دروازه تقدير Gate of Fate (1965)
*Mahtab Film 1963
Reza Beikimanverdi Akbar Janati-Shirazi & Khalil Oqab
ببر رينگ Tiger of the Ring (1964)
Tehran Film Majid Mohseni پرستوها به لانه برميگردند Swallows Return Home (1964)
Dota Film Studio   جدال در مهتاب Dispute in Moonlight (1964)
Farvardin Film 1964
Mohamad-Ali FArdin
آقاي قرن بيستم Mr. Twentieth Century (1964)
*Naghshe-Jahan Studio 1965
Nosratollah Vahdat & Partners
زبون بسته Mute (1965)
Aryana Film 1967
Abbas Shabavize & Partners
زني بنام شراب A Woman Called Wine (1976)
Filmco Films Narandaz & Azizi من هم گريه كردم I Cried Too (1968)
Peyman Film   سه جوانمرد Three Brave Men (1967)
Negah Studio8 1968
Mahmoud Koushan
گرداب گناه Eddy of Sin (1968)
Rudaki Studio   يوسف و زليخا Joseph & Zolykha (1968)
Os Film Iraj Sadqpur & Abbas Homaioun دختر شاه پريان The Daughter of the Fairy-Godmother (1968)
General Film Mohammad Farzad, Adel Ruhi, Iraj Saberi, & Farhad Mohabat قلبهاي طلائي Golden Hearts (1969)
Rex Cinema-Theater Company   جاده تبهكاران Back Road (1968)
Chehelsotun Studio 1969
Hamid, Majid & Vahi Mojtahedi
قصه دلها The Story of Hearts (1969)
Hesam Film   دنياي آبي Blue World (1969)
Tendis Studio Manuchehr Nozari    
Yazd Film 1970 حسن فرفره Whirligig Hassan (1970)
Hamlet Film 1971 احساس داغ Heat (1971)
Mashal Film   رعد و برق Thunderstorm (1971)
Tina Film   غلام ژاندارم Gholam, the Gendarme (1971)
Diamon Studio 1972
*
يك جو غيرت Zeal (1972)
Helen Film   خوشگله Hey, Good-Looking (1972)
Sazmane Cinema-ye Sepanta   آشوبگر The Rioter (1972)

 

Footnotes --- Appendix

*The asterisk indicates that a studio had motion picture production facilities.

**Date in parentheses are release dates.


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INTRODUCTION

To study the development of cinema and the motion picture industry in Iran it is first necessary to understand certain elements of Iranian history, culture, religion, and social structure, i.e. the major influences bearing on the development of cinema and the motion picture industry in Iran.

"One can not ignore the fascinating and glorious heritage of almost three millennia (of Iran), for that heritage has formed the land and people of today so much so that even modern, economic development by foreigners can hardly succeed without a knowledge by them of the mores and temper of those to be served by that development."1

Being at a crossroads for traders and conquerors throughout history and in a land functioning as a gate between East and West, the Iranians share a strong, subconscious sense of insecurity. Sudden, often violent, changes left a sense of passivity and a feeling that one must hold on to what one can, while one can. This Iranian characteristic of national insecurity has affected the motion picture industry which requires long-term investments in technical facilities and production غير مجاز مي باشدts.

As various sections of the country are walled off from each other by high mountains, deserts, climatic extremes, families are walled off from each other by high mud-brick walls. This, and unique historical developments, has made the Iranians extreme individualists. Despite national traits of charm, friendliness and hospitality, the unspoken law is still basically "Every man for himself." This self-reliance and social paranoia, made group or team work, which is the main requirement for film production activities, difficult.

Historical and Cultural Background of Iran

Archaeological evidence shows that from 100,000 B.C., various ethnic groups with similar cultures lived on the Iranian Plateau.2 But very little has been known about these cultures until the Aryan migration about 90,000 years later. Nonetheless, archaeological discoveries have shown that the people who lived in that area before the Aryans were people of peace-loving, agricultural, and artistic nature.

Airya or Aryans came to Iran about 3,000 B.C. At first they carried their new culture and Indo-European language to north-central Iran. After settling, they called their homeland "Aryana," the Indo-European word for "courageous," "noble," and the name Iran has been derived from Aryana.

There was not a major cultural disruption until 550 B.C. when Cyrus founded the first empire, the Achaemenid Empire, the largest empire the world had known up to that time, from the Mediterranean Sea to India. Cyrus introduced many revolutionary concepts of government and social reform. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Cyrus governed the peoples of his vast territory through their own established institutions while at the same time he honored their local customs and beliefs. He issued a declaration of the rights of man that is very similar to the one that has been adopted by the modern United Nations.

The Achaemenid dynasty ruled over the civilized world of the day until 33 B.C., when Darius III, its last king, was defeated by Alexander the Great in the battle of Gaugamela. At this time Iranians accepted the conquering influence, but they synthesized it and transformed it into their own. As will be seen, Iranians have been ruled by many conquering powers from outside throughout their long history, but there has always been an internal resistance. In a sense, they conquered their conquerors by a process of assimilation.

Iranian culture and traditions, which had weakened under the pressure of Hellenism were restored by the Parthian dynasty, who brought a unique form of government. The country was ruled by local kings, under the supreme leadership of a king of kings, the Shahan-Shah. The official language became the Pahlavi language and the official religion, Zoroastrianism. The Parthian dynasty lasted about 480 years. They maintained independence and cultural heritage for Iranians against the ever-increasing pressures of the invaders from the east and the Romans from the west.

But rebirth of a nationalistic pattern started about 224 when the Parthians were succeeded by the Sassanian dynasty. This regime changed the government from feudal and non-religious to a centralized and religious one. During the 425 years of their dynasty they expanded the boundaries of the country almost to the extent of the Achaemenid period. They established a well-organized administrative system and continued Zoroastrianism as the official religion of the state. During their leadership, the culture and the civilization that was introduced by the Achaemenids reached the highest degree of perfection. "Situated in the center of the three great empires of the time, Constantinople, China, and India, the Sassanian Empire was to be for four centuries the point where the human mind exchanged ideas."3

The Sassanian dynasty established numerous learning centers at which Zoroastrian, Manichean, Christian, and Jewish scholars explored various fields such as medicine, mathematics, astronomy, astrology, and ancient Iranian and Greek philosophy. But most of these accomplishments, along with many great monumental works of art were destroyed by the barbaric nomadic Arabs in the name of their God and Islam. However some of the learning centers remained, and changed their language of instruction from Pahlavi to Arabic, becoming centers of Moslem learning.

During the reign of Khosrow I (531-579) Iran was struggling with internal problems. Corruption in government was at its highest. Active Zoroastrians became an establishment whose main concern was to preserve a formal structure. Thus it was possible for Monism, a more political movement for social and individual liberation and antithetical to Zoroastrianism, to attract many rebellious followers. But before Monism was able to change the shape of social structure in Iran, Khosrow I invited all its followers, somewhere around 200,000, to the capital for the sake of honoring their religion as an official religion. But on the day of the ceremony, Khosrow I ordered his guards to kill every one of Monism's many followers. Mani himself was also executed, his skin filled with chaff and hung in effigy at the city gate, as an illustration of the state's attitude toward personal and social freedom. These internal problems and Khosrow I's faithless armies resulted in the complete defeat of Iran in the war (641) between the Arabs and the huge Iranian army.

Iranians celebrated every opportunity to gain their independence and used every effort to weaken the Islamic government and to free themselves from its control.

"An examination of the religious history of Iran reveals the fact that the Iranians, on the whole, have not followed orthodox Islamic tenets and that in fact for over two centuries, many of them gave their lives to fight Islam by sword, tongue, and pen. When resistance became useless, Iranians took over the new religion and moulded it according to their own political, social, and religious ideas."4

One of these efforts was the invention of the Shi'ite branch of Islam which gradually spread throughout the country. Later, during the Safavid (861) dynasty, it became the state religion.

"They championed the cause of the house of Ali for nationalistic reasons. The Safavids established the Shi'ite sect as the religion of the state for political purposes. All along, Islam has changed; risen, or fallen at the convenience of one political power or another."5

Nevertheless, during the grandeur of the Islamic Empire, Iranian intellectual figures played a central role in areas of religion, philosophy, science, and politics. Some of these scientific and literary figures include Abu Bakr Mohammed Ibn Zakariya Razi, Abu Ali Ibn Sina, Ferdowsi, Nezam al-Molk, Sa'di, and Hafez.

Razi (ca. 860-925), known in the west as Rhazes, was the founder of modern chemistry. Over 200 works dealing with nearly every branch of science are attributed to him. Abu Ali Ibn Sina (980-1037), his great work The Canon, was an encyclopedia of medical knowledge, he is known in the West as Avicenna, the Renaissance man. Ferdowsi (d. 1020), the most celebrated epic poet of Iran, composed Shahnameh (The Book of Kings), which, after a thousand years, remains unsurpassed as the greatest popular writing in Persian literature. The stories of Shahnameh have been used by storytellers and orators in Persian coffee houses as a form of entertainment for the people who have gathered to hear the myths, legends, and historical reminiscences of the Iranian empire (one of the most popular form of mass entertainments before the advent of cinema in Iran). Nezam al-Molk (1019-1092), served Alb-Arsalan and his son Malek Shah as prime minister for thirty years. He was a superb statesman who founded the first university in Islamic world at Baghdad to promote religion and education. Six thousand students were in attendance. Omar Kayyam (d. 123), was a poet, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. He reformed the calendar and made it more accurate than that ordered by Pope Gregory some 500 years later. Sa'di (1184-1292), the greatest humanitarian and ethical poet of Persian literature, wrote famous Gulestan (Flower Garden) a series of philosophical anecdotes mainly in prose, other famous book Bustan (The Garden) entirely in verse. Shams al-Din Mohammad Hafez (1320-1389), universally acclaimed as one of the greatest lyric poets in the world of literature, created a masterpiece called Divan-e Hafez which consists of 693 separate poems deeply immersed in Sufi doctrine. His is the only book revered by Iranians as much as the Koran.

Throughout the turbulent history of Iran then, while various cultures have predominated, Persians have adapted and contributed importantly to the prevailing society of the time. Despite the religious opposition to cinema in Iran, there has been an interest there in film throughout the medium's history. When the leadership and/or intellectuals become involved in the making of films, and when the masses of the people learn to appreciate the cinema of growth vs. the cinema of appeasement, both the desire and the conditions for a truly Iranian cinema will foster the expression of a unique and potent vision.

BRIEF CRITICAL HISTORY OF IRANIAN FEATURE FILM (1896-1975)

The Advent of Cinema in Iran

Iran throughout its history has been a melting pot for other cultures. Repeated introductions of new cultures through conquerors and traders from Aryan civilization until today have developed a kind of social subconscious filtration system which absorbs only the useful aspects of the frequently imposed, ever newer external cultures. This factor made it easier for Iran to adopt the western-originated cinema, in spite of Moslem religious beliefs that opposed it. Yet, although superficially adaptable, deep down a majority of Iranians remain Persian, i.e. self-reliant individualists.

Before the advent of cinema in Iran, entertainment was a luxury afforded by only a small, well-to-do segment of the population while the great majority of the people had no money to spare. Morteza Ravadi, Iranian historian expresses this point very well:

"Class differences, lack of social and economic security and feudalistic wars (in the country) had the life of the people and particularly that of the great majority of the working classes so chaotic and unsure that people wished only for security and equal justice, to be able to make even a substandard living and continue their unbearable lives. Obviously, under such circumstances entertainment and recreation were of secondary importance...and the rich entertained themselves with drinking, love making with pretty girls and handsome boys, gambling, hunting, horseback riding, polo playing, music and singing, attending ceremonial chess and backgammon parties, watching the performances of clowns and comedians, attending dancing and singing parties, and listening to entertaining stories."6

In the West, cinema complemented the existing popular forms of entertainment such as theaters, traveling musical shows and the various kinds of stage productions. But in Iran, cinema virtually replaced most forms of mass entertainment for various political, economical, historical and cultural reasons. When cinema came to Iran it was a diversion for the well-to-do for about ten years or so before it turned into a mass entertainment medium. Since 1905, when the first movie theater opened in Tehran, the Iranian government has made a special point of keeping ticket prices low so that all segments of the population, at any economic level, might have access to this source of recreation. The early history of film making in Iran is far from clear because of a lack of easily accessible data, death of the early motion pictures pioneers and loss of almost all the early footage.

It is claimed that the first film made in Iran was of the coronation of Muzaffar al-Din Shah in 1896 photographed by Rusi Khan. However there is no evidence to substantiate the claim. But it is certain that Shah during his visit to Paris in 1900 saw moving pictures, liked them, ordered his official photographer to purchase motion picture equipment. Thus cinema became a diversion for royal court and well-to-do section of the society when it came to Iran (1900).

The early film making in Iran was often supported by the royalty of the time who were interested only in the entertainment value of the medium. Therefore, most of films of this period are news reels of activities, such as various royal and religious ceremonies which were mostly screened in the royal palace. One could see these newsreels at the homes of dignitaries during weddings, circumcision celebrations and birth ceremonies.

The first pioneer of this film era is Mirza Ebrahim Khan Akasbashi who was the official photographer in the court of Muzzafar-e Din Shah, the fifth Shah of the Qajar dynasty. The second, Mandy Russi Khan, who originally was from Russia, filmed Moharram mourning ceremonies (processed in Russia and not shown in Iran) and Muzzafared-Din Shah's coronation ceremonies.7

By 1900, Ebrahim Khan Sahafbashi a nationalistic antique dealer, on the way back from Europe bought an Edison Kinetoscope film projector and a number of films. He converted the backyard of his antique shop into an open air movie house; the first movie theater in Iran came into being in 1905. The customers were mostly members of upper class families or royalty.

Khan Baba Motazedi, an Iranian electromechanical engineering student, brought home from Paris a 35 mm Gaumont camera, some raw stock, film processing chemicals and projector. At first he experimented with production of 'entertainment films' for private viewing featuring his family members and friends. Later, by order of the Minister of War, he became involved in filming the various ceremonies at the court of Reza Shah, the father of the last Shah of Iran.

1906 in Iran was the year of constitutional revolution, but the establishment of parliamentary democracy did not take place until 1911. Nonetheless the era of democracy did not last long. In 1921, the British government by supporting Reza Khan (later he called himself Reza Shah and established the Pahlavi dynasty) and staging a coup d'etat, overthrew Ahmad Shah, the last member of Qajar dynasty.

Considering that Reza Shah was one of the more progressive monarchs in the recent history of Iran, and since he was fascinated by the means of modernization, it is odd that he could not conceive the role and the importance of the motion picture industry in society. While he patronized the arts, revived ancient arts and crafts, preserving them from extinction, and even encouraged the modern arts, his efforts toward cinema were very small. Besides a few documentary films which were made to record the royal ceremonies and a few newsreels of the events, the rest of the film which were exhibited in theaters were imported from Europe, the United States, and Russia.

The first feature length movie, ABI AND RABI was not made until 1930, when Ovans Ohanian, a young Iranian-American, emigrated back to Iran from Russia where he had spent most of his life and had studied cinema at The Cinema Academy of Moscow. From the very beginning he realized that making movies without a professional cast and crew is something next to impossible. He established a foundation for a film industry—-an acting school to train actors and actresses to be used in films. Since the general attitude of the people was that cinema could not develop into an art form and/or a profession, Parvareshghahe Artistiye Cinema (The Cinema Artist Education center) attracted only sixteen students and two instructors, Ohanian and Sa'id Nafici.

Ohanian, with the help of Motazedi as cinematographer; Sako Elidzeh, producer; two of his students, Zarrabi and Sohrabi as leading actors, wrote and directed the first Persian silent feature movie. ABI AND RABI, a 35 mm, black and white, comedy is the story of the adventures of two men, one tall and one short, and based on a Danish comedy series. It was shown in 1930 in Cinema Mayak, where it was well received. However, no copy of this film is known to exist.

The success of this film at the box office encouraged Ohanian and his crew to produce another comedy entitled HAJI AGHA (1932, the story of a religious man's daughter and her fiance who want to act in a film.

If Ohanian's contribution to Iranian cinema has been considered great, the trend he left behind was not harmless. Imitation of foreign films of mostly comedy and melodrama genres and almost total displacement of any realism in later films were the results of his early influence. At the time Iran was in an awakening stage, when the society was in desperate need of social consciousness and a modern understanding of life, and at a time when the formation of its modern economy was taking place. Entertainment in general and entertainment and escapist film in particular was the last thing that Iran needed at that time for progressive social growth. Spending hours in a movie theater and watching nonsense melodrama, Hollywood-Style and accomplishing nothing, was a luxury that Iranians could not afford.

A student of The Cinema Artist Educational Center in Tehran, Ebrahim Moradi, a 'born and bred' Iranian, began the second feature film. But a series of obstacles, including lack of adequate technical equipment and trained motion picture personnel, government restrictions on importation of cinema equipment, and lack of proper production funds prevented the film from reaching completion. The unfinished THE BROTHER'S REVENGE (1932), a black and white, 35 mm, silent, forty-five minutes in length was written, directed, and photographed by Moradi himself. This unsatisfactory experience motivated Moradi to establish the third Iranian film studio, Iran Film Company, Limited. The first production of this studio was SENSUAL (1934), a critical comparison between the pitfalls of city dwelling and the simple and unspoiled way of life in the village—a comparison of the change in social values in the cities because of westernization of Iran with the traditional way of life in the villages. From about 1925, the challenge of modernization of the big city against the simplicity and purity of the traditional way of life in Iranian society became a theme upon which to build stories that were popular with cinema-goers and safe from governmental censorship.

The first Iranian "talkie" entitled THE LOR GIRL was released (1933) in two Tehran cinemas, Mayak and Sepah. The story of the film was based on a comparison between the state of security in Iran at the end of the Qajar dynasty and during Reza Shah's period. The star and script writer was a poet and a writer, Abdulhossein Sepanta who has been acknowledged as the father of Iranian sound movies.8

This was a period of mostly newsreels. Some of the subjects were the arrival of Reza Shah at the National Constituent Assembly (December 15, 1925), horse races, and Army parades. Also, opening ceremonies of the trans-Iranian railway system, the Pahlavi communication center, the Bank Melli Iran (National Bank of Iran), and the opening of the installations of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in Khuzestan were typical topics. All of these newsreels were shot, processed and printed by Khan Baba Motazedi. Some of these newsreels were shown at the Royal Court but most were shown in the army compounds as well as in the theaters.

There were fifteen theaters at this time and all were located in the northern avenues of Tehran, Iran's capital, where most of their customers were upper class people. Later, with financial aid from the government and with the supervision of Motazedi, the first movie theater was built in the southern part of Tehran where the poor lived. It is called Tammadon and is still operating.9

Following Reza Shah's coronation in 1926, the most controversial period of the contemporary history in Iran began. Those with a leftist point of view, as well as those with a religious point of view were antagonistic to Reza Shah's regime. Those with a more 'moderate' view criticized lack of freedoms, yet they applaud Reza Shah's modernization of Iran.

Overall social and political conditions at this period militated against the growth of the motion picture industry and audience size. For years, the Moslem clergy prejudiced the vast majority of people against anything new. There was social pressure against the showing of films and the establishment of movie theaters. Women were not allowed to go to movie theaters (later one theater created by Ali Vakili in the Zoroastrian school hall in Tehran was devoted to showing films to women only).

The shooting of THE LOR GIRL started in April 1932, took seven months to complete, in a place called Ghamoor on the outs******ts of the city of Bombay, India. The financial success of the film encouraged The Imperial Film Company of Bombay and Sepanta to produce other Iranian films, in India, such as, FERDOWSI (1935), the story of life of the most celebrated epic poet of Iran; SHIRIN AND FARHAD (1935), an Iranian classic love story which is believed to be partly true, takes place during the reign of the Sassanian king, Khosrow I, known as Anushirvan, "The Just" (531-579); BLACK EYES (1935), the story of Nader Shah's invasion of India in 1737, and the effects of the invasion on the relationship of two lovers; and LAILI AND MAJNUN (1937), an eastern love story similar to western story of ROMEO AND JULIET. Upon the completion of the last film, Sepanta returned to Iran, hoping to continue his film-making activities in his home country. But various obstructions and lack of financial support by the government or the private sector, forced him to part with cinema. He started the Sepanta newspaper in 1943 in Esfahan (a central city of Iran), and by the mid-1950's he became the Iranian assistant of the United States Aid program in Esfahan. Throughout his life (1907 Tehran-1969 Esfahan) he wrote or translated eighteen books and made five Iranian feature films which for many years will be remembered because of their themes, quality, and technique. With Sepanta's departure from cinema, the production of Iranian sound movies in India came to an end and no feature films were made in Iran until 1947, when the new Iranian film industry was founded by Esmail Koushan. Koushan was hardly a sincere artist, but rather seemed more interested in the commercial exploitation of cinema.

Experimentation and New Film Industry (1938-1965)

As World War Two ended, the film industry in Iran took a new form. A group of new film-makers experimented with news reels and documentaries and the Iranian and United States governments as well as other organizations in Iran sponsored their efforts. Also, a number of technicians, cinema enthusiasts, and financiers found dubbing of foreign films into Persian (Farsi) an easy and profitable job. The private sector which came to existence after occupation of Iran by the armies of the three big powers (USA, USSR, and England). As American troops entered Iran in October 1941, they used the cross-country railway as well as main roads to send military hardware to Russia—-"The Bridge of Victory". This act, beside many undesirable side-effects for Iranians, created many new jobs, improving the economic condition of a certain segment of the population. As a result, new entertainment centers were opened, and cinemas became more popular. And since dubbing foreign films into Farsi was increasing the number of cinema-goers, all indications were that producing films in the Iranian language (Farsi) would be a successful business to undertake.

From 1937 till 1947 because of the world economic conditions and then the involvement in World War Two, the motion picture industry in Iran did not produce a single film, but the flow of foreign film to Iran did not stop. In 1947, Esmail Koushan, a young Iranian who had received film training in Germany at Universum Film Aktienge-Sellschafe (UFA) returned to Iran. While in Turkey, he had dubbed two foreign films into Farsi, ARCHIN MAL ALAN, a Russian film and THE FIRST RENDEZVOUS, a French film. With the help of some of his colleagues, he established Mitra Films (1947), the first real film company in Tehran, Iran. Through their persistence, local feature film production was born and survived.

The first Mitra Film company production was TUMULTUOUS LIFE (1948), a black and white, 35 mm film which is a critical drama about the pitfalls of arranged marriages, a common practice in Iran. The film was released in Tehran in April 1948, but because it did not have the glamor of Hollywood films the audience was use to, it did poorly at the box office.

Despite the box office failure of the film, Koushan insisted that the company produce another film. Finally he managed to convince his associates to produce his second film, THE PRISONER OF THE PRINCE (1948), a story adopted from "A Thousand and One Nights" folk-tales. This film also did not bring an immediate financial success and Mitra Film closed down. But Koushan continued his efforts and established a new production company in 1949, Pars Film Studio, which developed into the most active studio in Iran, producing cheap formula feature films for the local market. Koushan has been named "the father of the Iranian film industry" by Georges Sadoul.10

After Koushan's Pars Film Studio, many film production companies were formed, and many films produced. The great majority of these films were modeled on silent film genres, melodramas, situation comedies and adventure films. If film-makers produced higher quality films they were blocked from distribution for two reasons, the low expectation and escapist needs of a relatively unsophisticated audience and strict censorship.

The first attempt to challenge the Iranian film industry to produce higher quality films which reflected the social conditions of the time, was in 1958 by Farrokh Gafary, a French-educated film-maker, who studied cinema at Cinematheque Francaise. His first film was SOUTH OF THE TOWN (1958), a take-off of Vittoria Desica's UMBERTO D (1952), but a purely Persian expression of neorealism concerning the poverty-stricken life of the southern district of Tehran. It is a description of the psychological values of the pop culture in its sociological setting. Gafary's intention was to make a kind of "film d'sutre" film with a social comment on the poor district of Tehran. The film was not successful even in poor sections of the country, because the movie-goers were accustomed to seeing movies as a means of entertainment or escape from reality vs. social comment. Subsequently, Gafary made a crime drama, THE NIGHT OF THE HUNCHBACK (1964). At the same time another pioneering Iranian writer-cum-film-maker, Ebrahim Golestan, made ADOBE AND MIRROR (1963), a dramatic film. Both films were met with public apathy and were subjected to censorship.

During the (1938-1965) period, the Iranian film industry's main productions were purely entertaining or escapist. Also at this time, the film and television markets were monopolized through an explosion of investment by foreign countries, particularly the United States. Erik Barnouw's comment in The Image Empire expresses this point to some extent:

Some of the companies marketing television films also sold receivers and transmitters; some sold consultant services, some invested in foreign stations, production companies, dubbing services, animation studios, theaters.11

 

TABLE 1

INDEPENDENTLY PRODUCED FEATURE FILMS VERSUS STUDIO-SPONSORED FEATURE FILMS 1948-196512

 

Year Number of Studio Produced Films Number of Independent Productions
1948 2 0
1949 1 0
1950 2 1
1951 6 1
1952 9 0
1953 18 1
1954 15 1
1955 14 0
1956 18 0
1957 7 3
1958 17 2
1959 20 2
1960 23 4
1961 23 6
1962 22 4
1963 24 6
1964 22 10
1965 26 17

Dubbing and Importation of Foreign Films

The dubbing of foreign films into Farsi was to some extent a catalyst raising the technical and artistic quality of film production in Iran and, consequently, the expectations of the Iranian audience. These improvements were accomplished through years of experimentation with different sound systems such as the interlocks, and raw stock such as 17½ mm tape magnetic sound stripe on 35 mm composite print. Magnetic sound stripe became the standard procedure in Iran's dubbing industry (except for the films with sterophonic sound which were dubbed with a new optical track) with almost perfect lip synchronization. However by the late 1960's some major movie theaters, to satisfy a small number of Iranians and foreigners, were showing films with their original language sound track one night a week.

As early as 1943, a number of technicians and financiers established the first dubbing studio in Tehran, called Iran-No Film. The studio's first dubbed film (1945) was JEN VA PARI (THE GENI AND THE ANGEL). At first the company experienced various technical and managerial difficulties, but by 1947 the studio was reorganized as a production studio as well as a dubbing studio. Meanwhile a group of Iranians in Europe after the war realized that European "B" pictures could be bought and dubbed inexpensively with the technical facilities available in Europe, and would be able to compete with Hollywood films in the Iranian market. The first such effort was DOKHTARE FARARI (ESCAPING GIRL), a French production and DOKHTARE KOWLI (GYPSY GIRL), a Spanish film. Both were dubbed in Turkey by Esmail Koushan. And both films were exhibited in Iran in 1946 with excellent box office success. DOKHTARE FARARI earned twenty millians rials (5,000). DOKHTARE KOWLI earned fifteen millions rials (8,750). Tickets prices in the first class cinemas ranged between fifteen, twelve, and eight rials. At that time, thirty-two rials were equal to one U.S. dollar; now, seventy rials is equal to one U.S. dollar. The financial success of these two films encouraged many Iranians in Europe and in Iran to become more involved in dubbing activities. This led to the establishment of dubbing studios in Tehran. Some of these studios later expanded into film production studios. Dubbing is a more popular form of transliteration or translation, for example, subtitles, which require split concentration. The market that gave rise to the dubbing studios was the mass audience of entertainment and escapist films. Modern dubbing of foreign films into Farsi has emerged from a tradition that encountered and overcame both technical and cultural barriers. After years of experimentation with various raw stocks and machinery the dubbing studios came up with a unique procedure. They cut the part with optical sound from the film and glued a new 35 mm optical track in Farsi over the original soundtrack of the composite print. The Aryana Studio in 1950 was the first studio which dubbed an American film, THE SONG OF SCHEHEREZADE using this system. After continued screenings, however, the added soundtrack began to separate from the visuals and this method was replaced by a more permanent, the binding of magnetic tape onto the composite print, keeping half of the optical track uncovered, (Since part of the optical soundtrack was not covered with magnetic sound stripe the films could also be exhibited in their original language.) This system of magnetic sound stripe, recording mixed Farsi soundtrack on a striped portion of optical track, became the standard procedure in Iran's dubbing industry.

Besides the technical problems which the studios had to overcome in order to dub a foreign film into Farsi, there were cultural and political barriers. Often, the whole concept of the film was changed in fear of censorship, or because of cultural taste. For example, Jerry Lewis's song in the Cops Cafe in the movie PATSY, was replaced with an Indian song because Iranians were much more receptive to Indian music, culturally closer to their own, than American nightclub music. And much of John Wayne's dialogue was changed to the Iranian vernacular, concerning the heroic and the macho. As time went by, dubbers learned to almost flawlessly imitate any foreign actor in Farsi. The translators learned that the originality of the films had to be preserved and that finding Farsi words to achieve a very close lip synchronization was crucial. Obviously the studios with excellent dubbing facilities produced better soundtracks, and the general quality of dubbed films improved. However dubbing foreign films into Farsi in Europe ended by 1961, and almost all the foreign films are now dubbed in Tehran, Iran.

"Dubbing of foreign films into the Farsi language in Tehran has improved to such an extent that the films distributors have discontinued having their films dubbed in Italy, as was the practice in previous years. The reasons for this are lower غير مجاز مي باشدts in Tehran and a large variety of local voices."13


Before 1930, the main sources of feature films which were shown in Iranian cinemas were generally silent movies, and imported from the United States, France, Germany, Russia, and other European countries. However American film dominated the Persian market and kept their number-one place throughout the period of this study. Talkies came to Iran only a few years after their invention in the West, i.e. by the end of 1930. After 1930, importation of all films to Iran started to decline because of the general world economic situation (which lasted until the outbreak of World War Two), and governmental restriction on the sale of foreign money in Iran.

"Film importers, in common with all others dealing in so-called luxury goods, were faced with the greatest difficulty not only in obtaining a permit to purchase exchange but in finding the exchange itself, so that few orders could be placed abroad. In consequence, what appeared to be a promising field for exploitation at the beginning of the year (1930) left acutely the effect of the current economic crisis..."

TABLE 2

NUMBER OF MOTION PICTURE FILMS IMPORTED INTO IRAN, 1928-1930

Country of Origin 1928 1929 1930
United States 133 227 145
France 100 110 94
Germany 30 47 60
Russia 32 57 42
Other Countries 10 19 6
Total 305 460 347

"Nevertheless, in spite of the lack of new films, interest in the cinema on the part of Persians did not wane, and a attendance throughout the country increased steadily."14

If this situation created difficulties in importing new films at that time, it encouraged a number of Iranians to start producing feature films locally between 1929-1937, despite the inadequate technical facilities and adverse social conditions. However, the number of Iranian films produced during this period was not large enough to make any significant difference in the importation of foreign films. And at this time cinema owners were forced to look outside the country in order to fill up their programs. Between 1930-1940 as the American films retained its popularity, German and Russian films surpassed the French films because they were easier to obtain.

"Between March 22, 1940 and March 21, 1941, approximately 60 percent of the films shown (in Iran) were from the United States, 18 percent from Germany, 12 percent from the Soviet Union, and 5 percent from France."15

From 1945 to 1950 European productions, such as French, German, Italian, and British films, reappeared in the Iranian market, as American movies continued their predominance in spite of their higher غير مجاز مي باشدt.

"Between August 15 and November 1, 1948, the commission of theatres granted 93 new permits for showing full-length films. Of this total 63 were United States productions, 13 Russian, 4 French, 4 Indian, 3 British, 2 Egyptian, 2 2 German, and 1 Italian. One was produced in Iran."16

In spite of the development and growth of the local film industry during the 1950's and 1960's, foreign films continued to hold the market. After the American films, the Italian and Indian films replaced German and French films. Italian and Indian films were less expensive to get hold of, also they were easier to dub because of similar cultural values which allowed for more of the original soundtrack to remain. Russian films lost the popularity they had during the war years.

"In 1946-1965, 523 reels of feature films produced abroad were imported by Iran. The biggest film exporter to Iran was the United States, followed by Italy, India, Britain and the Soviet Union. On an average, about 2,000 million rials (,571,430) in foreign exchange is spent each year on the import of foreign films. Foreign film imports continue to increase, keeping pace with the growth in the number of new cinema houses and cinema-goers."17

From the first showing of American movies at the Grand Cinema in Tehran (1925), until the end of this study (1974), the United States has been the biggest exporter of feature films to Iran, and not without influence. The film language established and elaborated in Hollywood has become a standard of expectation in Iran. Most of the films imported from elsewhere are usually attempts to copy the Hollywood style and as a result suffer from their status as bastard sons. Some appeals of American film have been the general technical superiority and the simplicity of content. Also, the scale and grandeur of such films as EL CID and DOCTOR ZHIVAGO have drawn large crowds in Iran. So the Persian attraction for things glorious and luxurious is re-enforced by Hollywood.

Iranian National Film Industry Takes Shape (1966-1976)

In the decade of 1966-1976 of film-making in Iran, various factors provided the production of a large number of feature, documentary, and animated films as well the entrance of many young film-makers into the arena of film-making with fresh, new perceptions and approaches. Some of these factors are the establishment of film schools; National Iranian Television (NIT) in 1969, National Iranian Radio and Television (NIRT) 1972; numerous film festivals; film clubs, such as Kanun Film, Farabi Film Club, the Cinematheque of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts and various film clubs at the universities; film production companies with government assistance, such as Tel Film, Film Industry Development Company of Iran (FIDCI), and the New Film Group; the emergence of foreign trained Iranian film-makers as a collective force which abandoned the traditional film formula, characters and situations; and a new generation of socially conscious writers.

The school of Television and Cinema was established in Tehran in 1969. It was fully financed and supported by the government of Iran through the NIRT (National Iranian Radio and Television). After passing the entrance exam, the students went through a technical training period of two years along with their regular courses of study which related one way or another to film-making. All expenses were paid by the government. Included were the use of film equipment, raw stock, processing, animation materials, and the student's housing and board غير مجاز مي باشدts, plus a stipend of about 0 a month. In return, students were required to work for the government after their graduation for a period of five years as a camera-person, soundperson etc., usually at NIRT in Tehran or its branches in the other cities.

The government established this school to train technicians for the expansion of NIRT. Later, a graduate school was added, The Graduate School of Television and Cinema. Any Bachelors degree was accepted, which meant that the Associate degree undergraduates of The School of Television and Cinema could not be considered for the program. Graduate students of Television and Cinema did not go through the same technical training the undergraduates did. Their curriculum dealt more with theory than practice. After graduation they were employed in government offices and institutions as audio-visual experts and programmers. Most were absorbed by the programming section of NIRT or the Ministry of Education of Iran. These students were treated better financially by the government than the undergraduates both during and after graduation. Most graduate students were married and the number of women was as large as the men, while the undergraduate school was composed of 95% men.

During 1977-1979 (a period in which I taught animation and made a few films there), the Fough-e Diplom (Junior College Section) had 370 students and about 50 teachers, and the Fough-e Lisance (Graduate Section) had 130 students, 10 full-time and 15 part-time teachers. Both sections of the school were located in Tehran (Vozara Ave. and Pahlavi Ave., respectively) about a mile apart and five miles from NIRT. Both sections of the school cooperated with each other but were run independently under the supervision of the NIRT. The undergraduate section was furnished with thirteen Steenbecks, twelve Eclair movie cameras, tape recorders and other equipment, along with photography and graphic departments. All lab work including processing, printing, and special effects were done free of charge by the huge NIRT lab. Computerized Oxberry animation stands were also freely available. All films as a result were expected to meet government approval. Film rights went to the government of Iran but the students could have their personal print, again, free of charge. Despite the foundation of the NIRT primarily as an instrument of propaganda, functioning to justify government actions through direct propaganda on one hand, and occupying the peoples' minds with nonsense entertainment on the other, it had a noticeable impact on the Iranian film industry. In trying to reach the educated beyond the cinema's normal mass audience, NIRT brought in some exceptional programming such as Bergman films, THE ASCENT OF MAN, and the like. By doing this, they inadvertently raised the expectations of the general public which began demanding quality television and quality film. Television also made inroads despite the Moslem opposition to visual media thereby enlarging the film audience as well. And it functioned as a training ground for film-makers and technicians who later worked in the commercial field. Finally, television functioned as a secondary financial source for cinema by showing Iranian films after they ran in the theaters. Overall, the impact of Iranian television has been to raise audience appreciation and to secondarily support the film industry and must be considered an important factor in the development of film-making in Iran after 1960's.

The Tehran International Film Festival (1972) was organized to promote the art of Cinema that expressed humanitarian values and promoted understanding and exchange of ideas between nations. By its third year the festival drew 177 films from 54 countries. The juries were chosen from notable film-makers from Russia, Britain, America, Italy, Poland, Iran, France, India, Brazil, Hungary, and the United Arab Emirates. Also the International Festival of Films of Children and Young Adults was established in 1966 in Tehran to recognize and support films for children under 14. Films dealing with developmental and cross-cultural themes were sought. In its first year twenty-five countries sent in 111 films. Similar was the Education Film Festival (1963) which awarded prizes in three categories: scientific, personal growth, and development, and general knowledge. The main purpose for establishing the Sepass Film Festival (1969) was to honor and encourage the Iranian motion picture industry. In this respect it is similar to the Academy Awards in the United States, however, aside from feature length films, prizes have also been awarded to short films of 8, 16, and 35 mm. And finally, the amateur film field was covered by a major festival established in 1970, the Cinema-ye Azad of Iran Festival (1970). It was organized by the Cinema-ye Azad (Free Cinema of Iran) and the International Festival of Super 8. Judging of competition films is done in collaboration with The School of Television and Cinema. This festival functioned to promote amateur film-making of humanistic and artistic values and encourage understanding and friendship between Iranian amateur film-makers and those of other nationalities.

There was an emergence of a new generation of socially conscious writers, such as Gholam Hossein Saedi (the author of The Mina CycleThe Cow, and many other stories of the life of underprivileged Iranians), Sadegh Chuback, Mohud Dolat Abadi, and Hushang Golshiri, etc, who cooperated with the young film-makers in the development of stories and scripts. These progressive and politically active Iranian writers, were typically anti-government, nationalistic and seekers of social justice. Their lives and their writing displayed a passion for their fellow human beings, especially the oppressed. Most of them had modern educations as well as a more traditional understanding of life. Their writing is powerful, rich in content, and communicable to all people. Most of them, if not all, have been arrested and sometimes tortured by order of the last Shah of Iran (Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi). In the last 80 years poets, painters, musicians, film-makers, intellectuals, educators, writers---any segment of the society which did not function in the direction of the established system, was the object to rejection and destruction. For this segment of Iranian society it was a matter of choice--"to stand dying or to die standing." A careful opposition developed that is discernible in the various media, including film.

These interrelated factors created a mood for some of the most celebrated Persian film-makers to produce movies such as SIAVASH IN PERSEPOLIS (1965), by Rahnema, AHOO'S HUSBAND (1966), by Davood Molapour, GHEYSAR (1966), by Massoud Kimai, THE COW (1968), by Daryoush Mehrjuie, DOWNPOUR (1970), by Bahrain Beizaie, THE POSTMAN (1970), by Mehrjuie, THE SPRING (1970), by Arbi Avanesian, TRANQUILITY IN THE PRESENCE OF OTHERS (1971), by Nasser Taghvaie, BITA (1972), by Hajir Daryoush, SADEGH THE KURD (1972), by Taghvaie, TANGSIR (1973), by Amir Taheri, STILL LIFE (1974), by Sohrab Shahid Saless, THE MINA CYCLE (1974), by Mehrjuie, PRINCE EHTEJAB (1974), by Bahman Farmanara, THE STRANGER AND FOG (1974), by Beizaie, THE CROW (1976), by Bahram Beizaie, and THE REPORT (1976), by Abbas Kiarostami.

But these Iranian films represented only a small fraction of the 480 feature films that were made in Iran between 1966 and 1973. Sixty-two percent were categorized as drama or melodrama, 19.3 percent as comedies, and 12.3 percent as crime and adventure films. Mostly, they were inexpensive and low quality song and dance, or *** and violence, melodramas.

Despite a crisis of creativity, competition from foreign films, government competition with the private sector, strict censorship, and rampant inflation, all of which led to a sharp decline in both the quality and the quantity of films being produced, the Iranian cinema made immense technical and aesthetic progress in this period. Since the new historical era with its rise of social, economic and political consciousness, intellectuals have been getting involved in the making of films.

"The Persians have been ever the artists of the Near East, and world music, painting and architecture all have been enriched by Persian contributions."18

There is promise that Iran will now contribute an even greater share to the expressive arts in the main stream of civilization.

Thus what was introduced in Iran three quarters of a century ago (1900) as a diversion for the rich elite, has become the most important means of mass entertainment in that country.(1975)


TABLE 3PERSIAN TRANSLITERATION

Since transliteration from Persian to English strictly letter by letter is in many instance
ادامه مطلب

امتیاز:
بازدید:
برچسب: ،
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فروردين

ارديبهشت

شهريور

دي

بهمن 

اسفند

فخرالزمان جبار وزيري

مهين شهابي

علي حاتمي

فرهنگ سينما

فيلم هاي سينماي ايران بر اساس حرف الفبا

 جشنواره داخلي سينماي ايران

فرخ غفاري

اولين‌هاي سينماي ايران

قيصر

سينماي غيرمتعارف ايران از آغاز تا موج نو

شخصيت زن در آئينه سينماي ايران

جدول فروش فيلم ها در سالهاي

ستاره ها در آسمان سينماي ايران

تاريخ سينماي ايران

سينما در گذر زمان

تاريخچه عكاسي درايران

مستندسازى از آغاز تا ۱۳۴۵

مضامين اصلي سينماي ايران

بيوگرافي

تاريخچه تلويزيون

تاريخچه راديو در ايران‌

 


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Cinema of Iran

 


Persia movie theater in Shiraz, Iran
No. of screens 438 (2011)
• Per capita 0.6 per 100,000 (2011)
Produced feature films (2017)
Total 200
Number of admissions (2009)
Total 18,354,081
National films 18,332,802 (99.9%)
Gross box office (2011)
Total .9 million

Cinema of Iran

The Cinema of Iran (Persian: سينماي ايران), also known as the Cinema of Persia, refers to the cinema and film industries in Iran which produce a variety of commercial films annually. Iranian art films have garnered international fame and now enjoy a global following. Iranian films are usually written and spoken in the Persian language (Farsi). Iranian cinema has had many ups and downs.

Along with China, Iran has been lauded as one of the best exporters of cinema in the 1990s. Some critics now rank Iran as the world's most important national cinema, artistically, with a significance that invites comparison to Italian neorealism and similar movements in past decades. A range of international film festivals have honored Iranian cinema in the last twenty years. Many film critics from around the world, have praised Iranian cinema as one of the world's most important artistic cinemas.

 

History
Visual arts in Persia

The earliest examples of visual representations in Iranian history may be traced back to the bas-reliefs in Persepolis (c. 500 B. C.). Bas relief is a method of sculpting which entails carving or etching away the surface of a flat piece of stone or metal. Persepolis was the ritual center of the ancient kingdom of Achaemenids and "the figures at Persepolis remain bound by the rules of grammar and syntax of visual language."

Iranian visual arts maybe said to have peaked about a thousand years later during the Sassanian reign. A bas-relief from this period in Taq Bostan (western Iran) depicts a complex hunting scene. Similar works from the period have been found to articulate movements and actions in a highly sophisticated manner. It is even possible to see the progenitor of the cinema close-up: a wounded wild pig escaping from the hunting ground, among these works of art.

After the conversion from Zoroastrianism to Islam; Persian art continued its visual practices. Persian miniatures provide great examples of such continued attempts. The deliberate lack of perspective in Persian miniature enabled the artist to have different plots and sub-plots within the same image space. A very popular form of such art was Pardeh Khani. Another type of art in the same category was Naqqali.

Popular dramatic performance arts in Iran, before the advent of cinema, include Marionette, Saye-bazi (shadow plays), Rouhozi (comical acts), and Ta'zieh.

 

Early Persian cinema

Cinema was only five years old when it came to Persia at the beginning of the 20th century. The first Persian filmmaker was Mirza Ebrahim Khan Akkas Bashi, the official photographer of Muzaffar al-Din Shah, the King of Persia from 1896–1907. After a visit to Paris in July 1900, Akkas Bashi obtained a camera and filmed the Shah's visit to Europe upon the Shah's orders. He is said to have filmed the Shah's private and religious ceremonies, but no copies of such films exist today. A few years after Akkas Bashi started photography, Khan Baba Motazedi, another pioneer in Iranian motion picture photography emerged. He shot a considerable amount of newsreel footage during the reign of Qajar to the Pahlavi dynasty. The first public screening took place in Tehran in 1904, presented by Mirza Ebrahim Khan Sahaf Bashi. He arranged the screening in the back of his antique shop. In 1905, Sahaf Bashi opened the first movie theater in Cheragh Gaz Avenue in the national capital. In 1909, with fall of the Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar heir of Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar and the success of the constitutionalists, Russi Khan lost his support. Consequently, his film theatre and photography studios were destroyed by the public. Soon after, other cinema theatres in Tehran closed down. Movie theatres sprang up again in 1912 with the help of Ardeshir Khan an Armenian -Iranian. In 1904, Mirza Ebrahim Khan Sahhafbashi opened the first movie theater in Tehran. The cinematographic camera was introduced to Iran in 1929, as yet another tool of modernization. After Mirza Ebrahim Khan, several others like Russi Khan, Ardeshir Khan, and Ali Vakili tried to establish new movie theaters in Tehran. Until the early 1930s, there were little more than 15 theatres in Tehran and 11 in other provinces. In 1925, Ovanes Ohanian, decided to establish the first film school in Iran. Within five years he managed to run the first session of the school under the name "Parvareshgahe Artistiye Cinema".

 

1930s and 40s


Roohangiz Saminejad in Lor Girl (1933)

In 1930 the first Iranian silent film was made by Professor Ovanes Ohanian called Abi and Rabi. In 1933 he made his second film titled Haji Agha. Later that year, Abdolhossein Sepanta made the first Iranian sound film, entitled Lor Girl, which was released in 1933 in two Tehran cinemas, Mayak and Sepah. The story of the film was based on a comparison between the state of security in Iran at the end of the Qajar dynasty and during Reza Shah period. Sepanta would go on to direct movies such as Ferdowsi (the life story of the most celebrated epic poet of Iran), Shirin and Farhad (a classic Iranian love story), and Black Eyes (the story of Nader Shah's invasion of India). In 1937, he directed Laili and Majnoon, an Eastern love story similar to the English story of Romeo and Juliet.

The present day Iranian film industry owes much of its progress to two industrious personalities, Esmail Koushan and Farrokh Ghaffari. By establishing the first National Iranian Film Society in 1949 at the Iran Bastan Museum and organizing the first Film Week during which English films were exhibited, Ghaffari laid the foundation for alternative and non-commercial films in Iran.

Early Persian directors like Abdolhossein Sepanta and Esmail Koushan took advantage of the richness of Persian literature and ancient Persian mythology. In their work, they emphasized ethics and humanity.

 

Pre-revolutionary cinema, 1950s-70s

Ezzatollah Entezami in The Cow (1969)

Behrouz Vossoughi & Jamshid Mashayekhi in Qeysar (1969)

The 1960s was a significant decade for Iranian cinema, with 25 commercial films produced annually on average throughout the early ‘60s, increasing to 65 by the end of the decade. The majority of production focused on melodrama and thrillers. From 1937 till 1947 because of the world economic conditions and then the involvement in World War Two, the motion picture industry in Iran did not produce a single film, but the flow of foreign film to Iran did not stop. In 1947, Esmail Koushan, With the help of some of his colleagues, he established Mitra Films (1997), the first real film company in Tehran, Iran. Through their persistence, local feature film production was born and survived. The movie that really boost the economy of Iranian cinema and initiated a new genre was Ganj-e Qarun (Croesus Treasure), made in 1965 by Syamak Yasami. Three years later Davoud Mollapour directed Shohare Ahoo Khanoom (Madam Ahou's Husband), which revolutionized Iranian Cinema by portraying women’s role in the Iranian society at that time. It also showed actresses (Mehri Vadadian and Adile Eshragh) to be the heroes on big screen for the first time. In 1969, Masoud Kimiai made Kaiser. With Kaiser (Qeysar), Kimiai depicted the ethics and morals of the romanticized poor working class of the Ganj-e-Qarun genre through his main protagonist, the titular Qeysar. But Kimiay's film generated another genre in Iranian popular cinema: the tragic action drama.

With the screening of the films Shohare Ahoo Khanoom directed by Davoud Mollapour in 1968, and Kaiser and The Cow, directed by Masoud Kimiai and Darius Mehrjui respectively in 1969, alternative film established their status in the film industry. By 1970 Iranian cinema entered into its mature stage. The College of Dramatic Arts, instituted in 1963, produced its first graduates at the decade’s beginning. Many progressive film co-ops and associations came into existence and there were a few regular film festivals taking place in the country. Attempts to organize a film festival that had begun in 1954 within the framework of the Golrizan Festival, bore fruits in the form of the Sepas Film Festival in 1969. The first Iranian film festival was held in 1970 with Kaiser, The Cow, and Shohare Ahoo Khanoom wining the first, second and third prize for the best pictures respectively. The endeavors of Ali Mortazavi also resulted in the formation of the Tehran International Film Festival in 1973. From 1950 to the mid-1960 the Iranian film industry grew rapidly. Many studios were established as well as others that entered the Cycle of the film industry independently. There were 324 films produced during this period 1950 for 1965. By 1965 there were 72 movie theatres in Tehran and 192 in other Provinces. Ebrahim Golestan in 1965 directed by films of interest Brick and Mirror 1965. Bahram Beyzai is the director of one of the ground-breaking films of the Iranian New wave, 1972 Ragbar (Downpour). Sohrab Shahid-Saless is auteur director who embodied his original style in his 1975 film Still Life. Abbas Kiarostami is now a well-known director of the 1990s who directed one of the last films that screened before the revolution in 1978, Gozaresh (The Report).

 

Post-revolutionary cinema

In the early 1970s, a New Iranian Cinema emerged (cinema motefävet). However, following the Revolution in 1979, a few filmmakers and actors went into exile as Khomeini altered the focus in features. Between 1979 and 1985, about 100 features were released. While Khomeini's censorship remained, the small number of features produced focused on ***ual display and European influence.

In 1982, the annual Fajr Film Festival financed films. The Farabi Cinema Foundation then stepped in to try and reassemble the disorganized cinema. The following year, the government began to provide financial aid. This change in regime encouraged a whole new generation of filmmakers, which included female directors as well. With this, the focus shifted to children overcoming obstacles: true stories, lyrical, mystical drama, real-life problems, documentary footage, etc.

Post-revolutionary Iranian cinema has been celebrated in many international forums and festivals for its distinct style, themes, authors, idea of nationhood, and cultural references. Starting With Viva... by Khosrow Sinai and followed by many excellent Iranian directors who emerged in the last few decades, such as Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi. Kiarostami, who some critics regard as one of the few great directors in the history of cinema, planted Iran firmly on the map of world cinema when he won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Taste of Cherry in 1997.

The continuous presence of Iranian films in prestigious international festivals such as the Cannes Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival, and the Berlin Film Festival attracted world attention to Iranian masterpieces .. In 2006, six Iranian films, of six different styles, represented Iranian cinema at the Berlin Film Festival. Critics considered this a remarkable event in the history of Iranian cinema.

An important step was taken in 1998 when the Iranian government began to fund ethnic cinema. Since then Iranian Kurdistan has seen the rise of numerous filmmakers. In particular, the film industry got momentum in Iranian Kurdistan and the region has seen the emergence of filmmakers such as Bahman Ghobadi, actually the entire Ghobadi family, Ali-Reza Rezai, Khosret Ressoul and many other younger filmmakers.

There is also movie-documentary production, often critical of the society in the name of the Islamic revolution ideal, like the films directed by Mohammedreza Eslamloo.

By the year 2001 the number of features produced in Iran rose to 87 (from 28, which is the number of films that were produced in 1980, after the fall of the Shah). The most popular genres were melodramas and historical pageants which seldom went to festivals. In 1997, the newly elected president, Mohammed Khatemi, would eventually come to play a role in helping filmmakers achieve a certain degree of artistic freedom.
Contemporary Iranian cinema

Today, the Iranian box office is dominated by commercial Iranian films. Western films are occasionally shown in movie theaters. and contemporary Hollywood productions are shown on state television. Iranian art films are often not screened officially, and are viewable via unlicensed DVDs which are available. Some of these acclaimed films were screened in Iran and had box office success. Examples include Rassul Sadr Ameli's "I’m Taraneh, 15", Rakhshan Bani-Etemad's "Under the skin of the City", Bahman Ghobadi's "Marooned in Iraq" and Manijeh Hekmat's "Women's Prison".

 

Commercial cinema in Iran

The internationally award-winning cinema of Iran is quite different from the domestically oriented films. The latter caters to an entirely different audience, which is largely under the age of 25. This commercial Iranian cinema genre is largely unknown in the West, as the films are targeted at local audiences. There are Three categories of this type of film:

 

Mohammad Ali Fardin

 

Films before the revolution.

Lor Girl, A Party in Hell, Qeysar, Dar Emtedade Shab, Amir Arsalan, and Ganj-e Qarun.

Films about the victory of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the ensuing Iran–Iraq war and Action filled with strong religious and national motifs.

Eagles, Barzakhiha, The Viper, Dadshah, Boycott, Duel, Taraj, Ekhrajiha, The Glass Agency, Kani Manga, Ofogh, Bashu, the Little Stranger, Leily Ba Man Ast, M as in Mother and The Night Bus.

Formulaic films starring popular actors. With 130 Iranian films looking for a screening each year, cinema managers tend to prefer crowd-pleasing comedies, romantic melodramas, and family comedies over the other genres. The Lizard, The Blue-Veiled, Ghermez, Leila, Outsiders, Char Changooli, Kolah Ghermezi and Pesar Khaleh, Kolah Ghermezi and Bache Naneh, Actor, Ejareh-Nesheenha, Shokaran, Dayere Zangi, Aquarium, Cease Fire, No Men Allowed, The Changed Man, Charlatan, The Kingdom of Solomon, Guidance Patrol, Killing Mad Dogs, A Separation and Hush! Girls Don't Scream were among the post-revolutionary films that gained the highest box office records.

For many years, the most visible face of Iranian commercial cinema was Mohammad Ali Fardin, who starred in a number of popular successful films. In the more conservative social climate of Iran after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, however, he came to be considered an embarrassment to Iranian national identity and his films — which depicted romance, alcohol, vulgarity, objectification of women, scantily-dressed men and women, nightclubs, and a vulgar lifestyle now condemned by the Islamic government — were banned. Although this would effectively prevent Fardin from making films for the remainder of his life, the ban did little to diminish his broad popularity with Iranian moviegoers: His funeral in Tehran was attended by 20,000 mourners. Before Fardin, one could argue, Iran simply did not have a commercial cinema.

During the war years, crime thrillers such as Senator, The Eagles, Boycott, The Tenants, and Kani Manga occupied the first position on the sales charts.

Officially, the Iranian government disdains American cinema: in 2007 President Ahmadinejad's media adviser told the Fars news agency, "We believe that the American cinema system is devoid of all culture and art and is only used as a device." However, numerous Western commercial films such as Jaws, The Illusionist, Passion of the Christ, House of Sand and Fog, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Sherlock Holmes, Alpha and Omega, Scarface, Casino Royale, The Mechanic, and The Aviator have been screened in Iranian cinemas and Iranian film festivals since the revolution. Despite great pride in the country's more than 100-year film history, Western cinema is enormously popular among Iran's young people, and practically every recent Hollywood film is available on CD, DVD, or video. State television has also broadcast more Western movies—partly because millions of Iranians have been switching to the use of banned satellite television equipment.

 

Iranian New Wave films
Main article: Iranian New Wave

Nasser Taghvaee

Bahram Bayzai, voted the best Persian filmmaker of all time in 2002

Iranian New Wave refers to a new movement in Iranian cinema. According to film critic Eric Henderson, the acclaimed documentary The House Is Black (خانه سياه است) directed by Forough Farrokhzad (famous Iranian poet and director) paved the way for the Iranian New Wave. The movement started in 1964 with Hajir Darioush's second film Serpent's Skin, which was based on D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover featuring Fakhri Khorvash and Jamshid Mashayekhi. Darioush's two important early social documentaries But Problems Arose in 1965, dealing with the cultural alienation of the Iranian youth, and Face 75, a critical look at the westernization of the rural culture, which was a prizewinner at the 1965 Berlin Film Festival, were also contributing significantly to the establishment of the New Wave.

In 1968, after the release of Shohare Ahoo Khanoom directed by Davoud Mollapour, and the 1969 release of The Cow directed by Darius Mehrjui followed by Masoud Kimiai's Qeysar, and Nasser Taqvai's Calm in Front of Others, the New Wave became well established as a prominent cultural, dynamic and intellectual trend. The Iranian viewer became discriminating, encouraging the new trend to prosper and develop. In the 1960s, there were 'New Wave' movements in the cinema of numerous countries. The pioneers of the Iranian New Wave were directors like Forough Farrokhzad, Sohrab Shahid Saless, Bahram Beizai, and Parviz Kimiavi. They made innovative art films with highly political and philosophical tones and poetic language. Subsequent films of this type have become known as the New Iranian cinema to distinguish them from their earlier roots. The most notable figures of the Iranian New Wave are Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, Majid Majidi, Bahram Beizai, Darius Mehrjui, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Khosrow Sinai, Sohrab Shahid-Saless, Parviz Kimiavi, Samira Makhmalbaf, Amir Naderi, and Abolfazl Jalili.

The factors leading to the rise of the New Wave in Iran were, in part, due to the intellectual and political movements of the time. A romantic climate was developing after the 19 August 1953 coup in the sphere of arts. Alongside this, a socially committed literature took shape in the 1950s and reached a peak in the 1960s, which may consider as the golden era of contemporary Persian literature.

Features of New Wave Iranian film, in particular the works of legendary Abbas Kiarostami, can be classified as postmodern.

Iranian New Wave films shared some characteristics with the European art films of the period, in particular Italian Neorealism. However, in her article 'Real Fictions', Rose Issa argues that Iranian films have a distinctively Iranian cinematic language

"that champions the poetry in everyday life and the ordinary person by blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality, feature film with documentary." She also argues that this unique approach has inspired European cinema directors to emulate this style, citing Michael Winterbottom's award winning In This World (2002) as an homage to contemporary Iranian cinema. Issa claims that "This new, humanistic aesthetic language, determined by the film-makers’ individual and national identity, rather than the forces of globalism, has a strong creative dialogue not only on home ground but with audiences around the world."

In his book Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present, Future (2001) Hamid Dabashi describes modern Iranian cinema and the phenomenon of [Iranian] national cinema as a form of cultural modernity. According to Dabashi, "the visual possibility of seeing the historical person (as opposed to the eternal Qur'anic man) on screen is arguably the single most important event allowing Iranians access to modernity."

While Beyzai and Taghvai represent the first generation and Karim-Masihi and Kiarostami represent the second generation of New wave filmmakers, the third generation is represented by Rafi Pitts, Bahman Ghobadi, Maziar Miri, Asghar Farhadi, Mani Haghighi, and Babak Payami, along with newly emerged filmmakers such as Saman Salur and Abdolreza Kahani.

 

Iranian popular art films

Parallel to the Iranian New Wave, with its neorealist and minimalist art cinema, there exists a so-called "popular art cinema" in Iran. Filmmakers who belong to this circle make films with a broader range of audience than the narrow spectrum of highly educated people who admire the New Wave, but believe that their movies are also artistically sound. Filmmakers such as Nasser Taghvaee and Ali Hatami are the best examples of this cinematic movement (some of these filmmakers also make new wave films e.g. Mum's Guest by Darius Mehrjui). The Demon and the Bald Hassan, Adam and Eve, The Fisherman's Story, City of Oranges, and Talisman are some of Hatami's works.

 

Iranian women's cinema

Following the rise of the Iranian New Wave, there are now record numbers of film school graduates in Iran and each year more than 20 new directors make their debut films, many of them women. In the last two decades, there have been a higher percentage of women directors in Iran than in most countries in the West. Samira Makhmalbaf directed her first film, The Apple, when she was only 17 years old and won the Cannes Jury Prize in 2000 for her following film The Blackboard.

The success and hard work of the pioneering Rakhshan Bani-Etemad is an example that many women directors in Iran were following much before Samira Makhmalbaf made the headlines And the current Tahmineh Milani, Niki Karimi. Internationally recognized figures in Iranian women's cinema are:

Marjane Satrapi in 2008 Nominated Oscar Best Animated Feature Film of the Year Award. In 2006, became a member of the Cannes Film festival Jury. She is an Iranian contemporary graphic novelist, illustrator and author of the best selling "Persepolis". In 2007 she won the Cannes jury prize and won Best first Film César Award 2008 in and Audience Award Rotterdam International Film Festival 2008.
Samira Makhmalbaf in 1998 won Sutherland Trophy BFI London Film Festival and International Critics prize Locarno Film Festival 1998, that Federico Fellini Medal UNESCO Paris 2000 and The Special Jury Prize in San Sebastián International Film Festival 2008, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury 2003, Giffoni Film Festival 2000 and 2000 Cannes Film Festival.
Tahmineh Milani in 2001 won Best Artistic Contribution Cairo International Film Festival and three awards Best film, Best director, Best screenplay in Asia Pacific Film Festival 2006 and Best film award in Los Angeles Film Festival for The Unwanted Woman Movie 2005.

Rakhshan Bani Etemad

Rakhshan Bani-Etemad in 1995 a winner Bronze Leopard Award for her film The Blue-Veiled at the Locarno Film Festival and winner Prince Claus Awards in 1998. Her 2001 film Under the Skin of the City was entered into the 23rd Moscow International Film Festival where it won the Special Golden St.George. The following year she was a member of the jury at the 24th Moscow International Film Festival, He the two major awards Netpac Award Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and Holden Award for the Best Script - Special Mention, Audience Award, CinemAvvenire Award Torino Film Festival. He was an extraordinary year Her upcoming film Tales has been selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 71st Venice International Film Festival 2014.
Manijeh Hekmat in 2003 for film Zendane zanan won Amnesty International DOEN Award Rotterdam International Film Festival and other he awards Ecumenical Jury Award Fribourg International Film Festival 2002. Hekmat in 2002 year it was nominated Gold hugo Chicago International Film Festival.
Pouran Derakhshandeh in 2013 winner Best film award in London Iranian Film Festival and Crystal Simorgh Audience award Best film Farj Festival. in 1986 received Special Jury Award Giffoni Film Festival.
Niki Karimi in 2006 Script won the International Film Festival Rotterdam Hubert Bals Fund and three awards at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema.
Marzieh Meshkini in 2000 won many awards, Silver Hugo Chicago International Film Festival and received FIPRESCI Prize Films from the South at Continuation winner New Currents Award Busan International Film Festival also won Best director Award in Thessaloniki Film Festival. Her following the success of their in Venice Film Festival received Open Prize also UNESCO Award and also Nominated Golden Lion.
Hana Makhmalbaf in 2008 won two great Award Crystal Bear and Peace Film Award Berlin International Film Festival for film Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame. in 2003 Makhmalbaf It was winner Lina Mangiacapre Award Special Mention Venice Film Festival and Won two Special Jury Prize San Sebastián International Film Festival, Tokyo Filmex. Paolo Ungari UNICEF Prize Rome Film Festival is other big her award.
Massy Tadjedin in 2010 won Golden Marc'Aurelio Award Rome Film Festival.

Besides women involved in screenwriting and filmmaking, numerous award-winning Iranian actresses with uniques styles and talents attract critic. The first Iranian actress who won an award for acting in a major film festival was Mary Apick. The most notable Iranian actresses are:

Niki Karimi, Best Actor Award, Nantes Film Festival and San Sebastián International Film Festival 1999, Best Actress in Cairo Film Festival 2001, Crystal Simorgh for Best Actor Fajr International Film Festival 2003, Best Actress Taormina International Film Festival 1999 and Bastone Bianco Award Torino Film Festival 2005
Leila Hatami Best Actor Award Locarno International Film Festival 2012, Montreal World Film Festival 2002 and Silver Berlin Bear 2011
Fatemeh Motamed-Arya, Crystal Simorgh for the Best Actress, the 7th, 10th, 11th, and 12th Fajr International Film Festival Best Actress Vesoul Asian Film Festival 2010 and Best Actress Montreal World Film Festival 2011

 

Shohreh Aghdashloo is the only Iranian to be nominated for an academy award in acting

Shohreh Aghdashloo, First Iranian woman to be nominated for an Academy Award and Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture 2009 and Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female 2003
Pegah Ahangarani, Best Actress Award Cairo International Film Festival 1999 and Crystal Simorgh for Best Supporting Actor from Fajr International Film Festival 2013
Taraneh Alidousti, Best Actor Award, Locarno International Film Festival 2002, Best Actress Osian's Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema 2012 Best Actress Vesoul Asian Film Festival 2013 and Crystal Simorgh for best actress from Fajr International Film Festival 2002
Mary Apick, Best Actress Award Moscow International Film Festival 1977
Hedieh Tehrani, Crystal Simorgh for best Actress from Fajr International Film Festival 1998, 2006 and Best actress Pyongyang International Film Festival 2002
Golshifteh Farahani, Best Actor from International Section of Fajr International Film Festival 1997 and Best Actress award from Nantes Three Continents Film Festival 2004
Fereshteh Sadre Orafaee, Crystal Simorgh for Best Actor from Fajr International Film Festival 2005 and Best Actress Pasinetti Award Venice Film Festival 2000
Bita Farrahi, Best Actress from Pyongyang International Film Festival 2009
Soraya Ghasemi, Crystal Simorgh for Best Actor from Fajr International Film Festival 2001
Mahtab Keramati, Crystal Simorgh for Best Supporting Actor from Fajr International Film Festival 2009 and for best actress from Batumi Art-House Film Festival 2013
Susan Taslimi, Best Actor award, International Academy of Film Sweden 2000
Farimah Farjami, Crystal Simorgh for Best Actor from Fajr International Film Festival 1991
Azita Hajian, Crystal Simorgh for Best Actor from Fajr International Film Festival 1999
Roya Teymourian, Crystal Simorgh for Best Supporting Actor from Fajr International Film Festival 2000
Katayoun Riahi, Best Actress Cairo International Film Festival 2002
Roya Nonahali, Best Actress from Amiens International Film Festival 1977 and Crystal Simorgh for Best Actor from Fajr International Film Festival 1989
Mitra Hajjar, Crystal Simorgh for Best Actor from Fajr International Film Festival 2000
Mahnaz Afshar, Crystal Simorgh for Best Supporting Actor from Fajr International Film Festival 2011
Baran غير مجاز مي باشدari, Crystal Simorgh for Best Actor from Fajr International Film Festival 2007
Hanieh Tavassoli, Crystal Simorgh for Best Actor from Fajr International Film Festival 2013
Negar Javaherian, Best Acterss, UNESCO Award from Asia Pacific Screen Awards 2013 and Crystal Simorgh for Best Actor from Fajr International Film Festival 2010
Pantea Bahram, Best Actress from Mumbai International Film Festival 2011
Hengameh Ghaziani, Crystal Simorgh for Best Actor from Fajr International Film Festival 2008, 2012 and Best Actress Love Is Folly International Film Festival 2012

 

Iranian war films

Ebrahim Hatamikia

War cinema in Iran was born simultaneously with the beginning of Iran–Iraq War. However, it took many years until it found its way and identity by defining characteristics of Iranian war cinema. Shows the most poematic view on the Iran Iraq war and still after years, is one of the leading films about this historical event from a humanistic aspect, although unlike other Iranian war cinema which are fully supported by the Iranian government this film was made with numerous difficulties. In the past decades, the Iranian film industry has produced many war films. In the Iranian war film genre, war has often been portrayed as glorious and "holy", bringing out the good in the protagonist and pandering to nationalist sentiments with propagandistic mesغير مجاز مي باشدing. Tears of Cold and Duel were two films that have gone beyond the traditional view of war. Many renowned directors were involved in developing Iranian war cinema:

Morteza Avini (Famous TV Documentary: Ravayat-e Fath)
Shahriar Bahrani (Famous film: The Attack on H3)
Mohammad Bozorgnia (Famous film: Jang-e naftkesh-ha)
Ahmad Reza Darvish (Famous film: Duel)
Seifollah Dad (Famous film: Kani Manga)
Samuel Khachikian (Famous film: Eagles)
Ebrahim Hatamikia (Famous films: Mohajer, Az Karkheh ta Rhein, Booy-E Pirahan-E Yusef, The Glass Agency and Che (2014 film))

Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Famous film: The Marriage of the Blessed)
Rasoul Mollagholipour (Famous films: Safar be Chazabeh & Mim Mesle Madar)
Ali Shah Hatami (Famous film: Akharin Shenasaee)
Kamal Tabrizi (Famous films: Dar Maslakh-e Eshgh & Leily Ba Man Ast)
Kiumars Pourahmad (Famous film: The Night Bus)
Behzad Behzadpour (Famous film: Khodahafez Rafigh)

Other films famous and popular Iran Iraq War: Goodbye Life directed by Ensieh Shah-Hosseini, Heeva, Mazrae-ye pedari and Safar be Chazabeh directed by Rasoul Mollagholipour, ******kuk Operation, Hoor on Fire and Kani Manga directed by Seifollah Dad. Che, Az Karkheh ta Rhein, Mohajer and The Red Ribbon directed by Ebrahim Hatamikia. Big Drum Under Left Foot directed by Kazem Masoumi. Gilaneh directed by Rakhshan Bani-E'temad. The Day Third directed by Mohammad Hossein Latifi. The Reward of Silence directed by Maziar Miri. Sizdah 59 directed by Saman Salur. The Queen directed by Mohammad Ali Bashe Ahangar. Mardi shabih-e baran directed by Saeed Soheili. Bashu, the Little Stranger directed by Bahram Beyzai. Snake Fang directed by Masoud Kimiai and Hoor dar Atash directed by Azizollah Hamidnezhad.
Iranian animations
See also: History of Iranian animation

There exist some evidences suggesting that Ancient Iranians made animations. An animated piece on an earthen goblet made 5000 years ago was found in Burnt City in Sistan-Baluchistan province, southeastern Iran. The artist has portrayed a goat that jumps toward a tree and eats its leaves.

The first Tehran International Animation Festival was held in 1999, four decades after the time the production of first animation films in Iran. The Second Tehran International Animation Festival was held in February 2001. Apart from Iranian films, animations from 35 foreign countries participated in the festival.

The following are among the notable filmmakers of

Iranian animated films:

Noureddin Zarrin-Kelk
Bahram Azimi
Ali Akbar Sadeghi

 

Timeline of Iranian films
Main article: List of Iranian films

Pre 1960
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s

 

Influence of Iranians on Other's New Wave

Amongst the pioneers of French New Wave were François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol and Eric Rohmer or Barbet Schroeder (born in Tehran, Iran in 1941 where his German geologist Father was on assignment).

During the first half of the 20th century, France was the major destination for Iranian students who wished to study abroad. Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations Fereydoun Hoveyda was one of them. Fereydoun Hoveyda played a major role in French cultural scene and especially in the field of Cinema, for he was the protégé of François Truffaut whom he befriended and with whom he helped create the well-known film magazine Les Cahiers du Cinéma that spearheaded the French Nouvelle Vague or New Wave Cinema. He also worked closely with Italian film director Roberto Rossellini on several film scripts during that period. Fereydoun Hoveyda was not the only Iranian of his generation to play an active role in promoting the French Cinéma d'Auteur. Youssef Ishaghpour is another example.

Another Iranian figure in French New Wave was Shusha Guppy a singer, writer and filmmaker who was Jacques Prévert's girlfriend. However, the most important contribution to the French New Wave cinema is that of Serge Rezvani an Iranian poet born in Tehran in 1928. He played a major role as music composer of both François Truffaut Jules et Jim and Jean-Luc Godard Pierrot le Fou, considered as landmarks of French New Wave Cinema. Farah Diba studied at the Beaux Arts and became the focus of attention and the French press was to see her as the new Persian Cinderella. Farah Diba was one of the rare foreign dignitaries to become a permanent member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts.

Iranian Robert Hossein (son of legendary musician Aminollah Hossein) started his acting career with his French Armenian friend Chahnour Varinag Aznavourian (known as the famed crooner Charles Aznavour) in the mid fifties essentially type cast as "Mr. Tough Guy". However he got international acclaim in the early Sixties particularly in Europe, Russia and Asia as the mysterious "Jeoffrey, Comte de Peyrac" lover of the lovely Michèle Mercier in the soft erotic-adventure film series of Angélique Marquise des Anges. In the seventies and eighties he was to play opposite Jean-Paul Belmondo in police thrillers like The Professional. Hossein became known for being a talented theater director and his taste for popular historical vehicles involving large sets and numerous actors.

After the resignation of French President Charles de Gaulle, Iranian Anicée Shahmanesh became known under the screen name Anicée Alvina, playing a French girl in a British film hit called Friends, the music score of which propelled British pop star Elton John. She was also to take on a courageous lesbian role in the screen adaptation of Françoise Mallet-Joris' novel Le Rempart des Béguines.

Two major documentaries were produced in these years by respectively Agnès Varda and the duo Claude Lelouch-Claude Pinoteau.

Agnès Varda, first to be discovered to young actor Gérard Depardieu in her 1970 film Nausicaa, directed a love story set in Isfahan (1976) between a French woman (Valérie Mairesse) visiting Iran as a tourist and her guide an Iranian Man (Ali Raffi). The film was entitled Plaisir D'Amour en Iran. The romantic film was shot on location in The Masjed Shah.

Claude Pinoteau and Claude Lelouch on the other hand shot their documentary just after the Persepolis Celebrations in 1971. They decided to address the urban transformations and cultural emancipation that the country was subject to by the early seventies.

Several Iranian expats such as Philippe Khorsand or Persian play writer/actor Yasmina Reza have also gained notice in recent years. The latter is particularly known for her highly intellectual introspections in such plays like Art (Sean Connery bought the film rights advised by his French wife).

 

Music in Iranian cinema

Although Iranian composers usually have their own special style and music structure, they all share one thing: melodic, lively rhythms. That might be because they often begin with folkloric songs and shift to film music. In the past few decades, a few composers have emerged in the Iranian cinema with highly appraised works. Composers like Hormoz Farhat, Morteza Hannaneh, Fariborz Lachini, Ahmad Pejman, Majid Entezami, Babak Bayat, Karen Homayounfar, Naser Cheshmazar and Hossein Alizadeh were some of the most successful score composers for Iranian films in the past decades.
Iranian international film festivals

Film festivals have a rather long history in Iran that goes back to the 1950s. The first Tehran International Film Festival opened in April 1973. Although the festival never reached the level of Cannes and Venice, however, it managed to become well known as a class A festival. It was a highly reputable festival and many well-known filmmakers took part in it with their films. Great filmmakers such as Francesco Rosi, Michelangelo Antonioni Grigori Kozintsev, Elizabeth Taylor, Pietro Germi, Nikita Mikhalkov, Krzysztof Zanussi, Martin Ritt won the festival's awards.

 

Fajr Film Festival
Main article: Fajr International Film Festival

The Fajr International Film Festival has taken place since 1983. It was intended to be as magnificent and spectacular as possible from its very onset. It had a background as powerful as that of the Tehran International Film Festival and wanted to remain on the same track. Although the Fajr Film Festival is not yet classed among the top film festivals, it has been successful in making policies and setting examples for the future of Iranian cinema. In its early years it had a competition section for professional as well as amateur film (8 mm, 16 mm). Since 1990, there has been an international along with the national competition. The festival also features a competition for advertisement items like posters, stills and trailers. In 2005, the festival added competitions for Asian as well as spiritual films. The top prize is called Crystal Simorgh.
NAM Filmmakers' Meeting

Iran is the current President of the Non-Aligned Movement and hosted the 16th NAM summit between 26 and 31 August 2012, after which the presidency was handed to Ahmadinejad on 1 September. The latest move by the NAM Chairman has been to organise a NAM filmmakers' meeting in order to discuss the establishment of a NAM filmmakers' union. The meeting is to be held in February 2013, concurrently with the 31st Fajr International Film Festival in Tehran.
International Children Film Festival

This International Film Festival of Children and Young Adults has taken place since 1985. In its first three years, it was part of the Fajr Film Festival. From 1988 to 1989, it was located in Tehran and in 1996, it was held in Kerman. The festival features international and national film and video competitions. The top prize is called Golden Butterfly.

 

House of Cinema Ceremony
Main article: House of Cinema Ceremony

On September 12, the national day of Iranian cinema, a celebration is held annually by the House of Cinema. In the 2006 event, A******a Kurosawa was honored.
Noor Iranian Film Festival

Founded in 2007, the Noor Iranian Film Festival is held annually in Los Angeles, California.
Iranian Film Festival - San Francisco

Iranian Film Festival - San Francisco (IFF), the first independent Iranian film festival outside of Iran, launched in 2008, is an annual event showcasing independent feature and short films made by or about Iranians from around the world. Website.
London Iranian Film Festival

is an annual, independent film festival held in London, United Kingdom. It is now entering its fourth year. It is the only festival in the UK that is dedicated to Iranian independent cinema, with this year's event taking place from the 1st to the 9th of November.

Roshd International Film Festival
Main article: Roshd International Film Festival

Roshd International Film Festival was first staged in 1963 by the Bureau of Audio-visual Activities of the Ministry of Education of Iran. It is centered on the films with educational and pedagogical themes and is staged every year by the Supplying Educational Media Center, a sub-branch of the Ministry of Education of the I.R.Iran. The Festival seeks the main objectives of identifying and selecting the best educational and pedagogical films in order to introduce them to the educational systems.
Persian International Film Festival

Persian International Film Festival is an independent cultural film event, that brings together screen stories of diverse global Persian communities. Founded in 2012, it is Located in Sydney, Australia.
Iranian Film Festival Zurich

Iranian Film Festival of Zürich (IFFZ), is being organized to fulfill the cultural gap between Iranians and Swiss along with the foreigners living in Switzerland. The festival also wishes to contribute to the host country by bringing every year the best feature, documentary and short films from all generation of the Iranian filmmakers to Zürich. The IFFZ wishes that this becomes a platform for presenting the Iranian culture and tradition and build a bridge in such an exceptional city of Zürich among many nations present by the universal language of art and specifically the 7th art, cinema. iranianfilmfestival.ch
Festival of Iranian Films in Prague

The main goal of the festival is to provide a vivid image of Iranian cinema for a wide range of international audiences in the Prague, Czech Republic.
Iranian Film Festival Cologne

Iranian film Festival is programmed to be held in the city of Cologne in Germany to represent the country Cinema industry. House of Cinema in collaboration with Cologne Municipality paved the way for holding the festival.
The Festival Cinema of Iran

Iranian film festival (Cinéma D'Iran) is scheduled to kick off on June 26 and will run until July 2, 2013 in Paris.
Houston Iranian Film Festival

The Houston Iranian Film Festival showcases the best in new cinema from Iran. Iranian film varied by jury is, In Houston, America will be held.
Tehran International Animation Festival

International Animation Festival in Iran Held in Tehran.
Other Festival

Other valid festival like: Iran International Documentary Film Festival, Moqavemat International Film Festival, International Film Festival 100, International Urban Film Festival, International Parvin Etesami Film Festival, Jasmine International Film Festival (TJIFF), Celebration of Iran Cinematic Critics and Writers, Rouyesh Religious Short Film Festival, Iranian Youth Cinema Society, Edinburgh Iranian Festival, Iranian Film Festival (IFF), Iranian Film Festival Chandigarh, Film Festival, Varesh Short Film Festival, Tehran International Video Film Festival, International Festival of Independent Filmmakers, and Canada's Iranian Film Festival.
International recognition of Iranian cinema

Here is a list of Grand prizes awarded to Iranian cinema by the most prestigious film festivals:Iranian serials are very popular in the region

Cannes


Abbas Kiarostami, the only Iranian director who has won Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival

First presence of Iranian cinema in Cannes dates back to 1991 when in the alleys of love by Khosrow Sinai and then 1992 when Life and nothing more won Palme d'Or by Abbas Kiarostami represented Iran in the festival.

1995: Caméra d'Or (Golden Camera): Jafar Panahi
1997: Palme d'Or (Golden Palm): Abbas Kiarostami
2000: Caméra d'Or (Golden Camera): Hassan Yektapanah , Bahman Ghobadi
2000: Prix du Jury (Jury Prize): Samira Makhmalbaf
2001: Prize of the Ecumenical Jury: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
2003: Prix du Jury (Jury prize): Samira Makhmalbaf
2003: Prix Un Certain Regard: Jafar Panahi
2003: Prize of the Ecumenical Jury: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
2004: Caméra d'Or (Golden Camera): Mohsen Ami
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