Cinema of Iran
Encyclopedia
The cinema of Iran is a flourishing film industry with a long history. Many popular commercial films are annually made in Iran, and Iranian art film
s win praise around the world.
Film festivals that honor Iranian films are held annually around the globe. 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. World-renowned Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke
and German filmmaker Werner Herzog
, along with many film critics from around the world, have praised Iranian cinema as one of the world's most important artistic cinemas.
(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."
This style and complexity 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. In these visual representations, movements and actions are articulated in a sophisticated manner. It is even possible to see the progenitor of the cinema close-up: a wounded wild pig escaping from the hunting ground.
After the 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 image space. A very popular form of such art was Pardeh-Khani. Another type of art in the same category was Naqqali.
Other than-popular dramatic performance arts, before the advent of cinema in Iran, are Khaymeshab-bazi (puppet show), Saye-bazi (shadow plays), Rouhozi (comical acts), and Ta'zieh
.
, the official photographer of Muzaffar al-Din Shah, the Shah 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
.
In 1904, Mirza Ebrahim Khan Sahhafbashi
opened the first movie theater in Tehran
. 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, an Armenian-Iranian cinematographer, 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" (The Cinema Artist Educational Centre).
made the first Iranian sound film
, entitled Lor Girl
. Later, in 1935, he directed movies such as Ferdowsi
(the life story of the most celebrated epic poet of Iran), Shirin and Farhaad (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 a lot 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
.
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. Four years later Masud Kimiaie made Kaiser
. With Kaiser (Qeysar), Kimiaie 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 Kimiaie's film generated another genre in Iranian popular cinema: the tragic action drama.
With the screening of the films Kaiser
and The Cow, directed by Masoud Kimiay and Darius Mehrjui
respectively in 1969, alternative films established their status in the film industry. Attempts to organize a film festival that had begun in 1954 within the framework of the Golrizan Festival, called for the boring of fruits with the Sepas Festival in 1969 and the endeavors of Ali Mortazavi, which resulted in the formation of the Tehran World Festival in 1973.
Pre-revolutionary Iranian cinema produced notable movies such as:
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 Cannes, the Venice Film Festival
, and Berlin Film Festival attracted world attention to Iranian masterpieces ., as Iranian films have repeatedly been nominated for or won prestigious prizes at those festivals. In 2006, six Iranian films, with six different styles, represented Iranian cinema at the Berlin Film Festival, and 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
.
We must mention here "Tranquility in the Presence of Others" (Aramesh dar Hozur Deegaran, 1973) directed by Nasser Taghvai and rated by some critics as the best Iranian film of all times.
For many years, the most visible face of Iran
ian 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, scantily-dressed women, night-clubs, and a 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 (1983), The Eagles (1984), Boycott (1985), The Tenants (1986), and Kani Manga (1987) 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 Edison
, The Illusionist, Passion of the Christ, House of Sand and Fog, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
, The Others
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. Conservative-controlled state television has also broadcast more Western movies—partly because millions of Iranians have been switching to the use of banned satellite television equipment.
There is no particular love of Arab cinema but Indian cinema is relatively popular among the Iranian masses – but in the last eight years, there has not been a single film from these countries screened in Iran. 6 to 8 Hollywood films make it to Iranian movie theaters each year.
, Khosrow Sinai
, 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
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 Kiarostami
and Panahi
represent the first and second generations of New wave filmmakers respectively, 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 Kiarash Anvari
, Maziar Bahari
, Sadaf Foroughi
, Saman Saloor
, and Mona Zandi-Haqiqi.
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. Ardeshir Fardin
Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, writer and director is probably Iran's best-known and certainly most prolific female filmmaker. She has established herself as the elder stateswoman of Iranian cinema with documentaries and films dealing with social pathology
. 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. Internationally recognized figures in Persian women's cinema
are:
Besides women involved in screenwriting and filmmaking, numerous award winning Iranian actresses with uniques styles and talents attract critic. The most notable Iranian actresses are:
In 2006, Marjane Satrapi
, 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.
In the Alleys of Love
(1990), by Khosrow Sinai
, 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 messaging
. 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:
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:
made Time of Love
. The film's dialogues are both in Turkish and Persian language.
made "Dance of Dust" in Kurdish and English. The film won Silver Leopard at Locarno Film Festival and FIPRESCI Prize at London Film Festival. In 1999, The Wind Will Carry Us
, by Abbas Kiarostami
, was partly shot in Iran's Kurdistan province. It was presented at both the Venice Film Festival
and the Cannes Film Festival
.
Kurdish cinema came to international prominence in 2000 with the screening of two Kurdish language
movies simultaneously at the Cannes Film Festival, namely, The Blackboard by Samira Makhmalbaf
(entirely in Kurdish) and A Time for Drunken Horses
by Bahman Ghobadi
(in Kurdish and Persian).
In 2000, Farhad Mehranfar made "The Legend of Love" which tells the story of Khazara, a young female medical student who wanders courageously among nomadic Kurdish tribes looking for her fiancé, who has set off to tend the wounded in a town besieged by Iraqi attacks. The film won Special Jury Award in Santa Barbara International Film Festival (2001).
In 2002, Songs from my Motherland (aka Marooned in Iraq
), another movie by Bahman Ghobadi
in Kurdish and Persian, was presented at Cannes. The movie won prizes at several other international festivals.
In 2005, Iranian director Jamil Rostami
won the Fajr Festival
's Simorgh for Best Director in Asia and Middle East for his Kurdish language movie Requiem of Snow
written by Sholeh Shariati. In 2006, Ghobadi's Half Moon (in Kurdish and Persian) won the Golden Seashell at the San Sebastian Film Festival. The film was shot in Iranian Kurdistan and Iran's renowned actors Golshifteh Farahani
, Hassan Poorshirazi and Hedyeh Tehrani
(also executive and assistant director) acted in this movie. The music in the movie was made by Iran's world-class musician Hossein Alizadeh
.
Among other advocates of folk cinema is Iranian director Reza Allamehzadeh
who trained and supported many young Kurdish directors.
attracted world attention to Afghanistan by his celebrated movie, Kandahar. It was an attempt to tell the world about a forgotten country. The film brought cinema of Afghanistan to Cannes film festival for the first time in history. Later on, Yassamin Maleknasr
, Abolfazl Jalili
, Samira Makhmalbaf
, and Siddiq Barmak
did significant contribution to Persian cinema in Afghanistan. Barmak's first Persian film Osama
(2003) won several awards in Cannes and London film festivals. Siddiq Barmak is also director of the Afghan Children Education Movement (ACEM), an association that promotes literacy, culture and the arts, founded by Iranian film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf
. The school trains actors and directors for the emerging cinema of Afghanistan.
The situation of Afghan
immigrants has been also addressed extensively by Iranian cinematographers. The first step in this field was taken by Mohsen Makhmalbaf in Bicycle ran in 1998. Other examples in this line are Jafar Panahi's White Balloon in 1994, Abbas Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry in 1997, Majid Majidi's Rain
and Bahram Beizaei's Killing Mad Dogs.
In 2000, Djomeh made by one of Abbas Kiarostami
's assistants, Hassan Yektapanah
; the story focuses on the plight of one of the two million young Afghan refugees in Iran
without legal status. When the non-professional Afghan actor, used in this film, was invited to the Hamburg Film Festival, and then denied re-entry to Iran, his story became another film, Heaven's Path in 2002, by the architect-actor-film-maker Mahmoud Behraznia, who lives in Germany. In 2008, Mithaq Kazimi
made 16 Days in Afghanistan
which was shown in many television stations around the world.
, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the internationally known Iranian movie director, is playing the same role as he played in the reconstruction of the cinema of post-Taliban Afghanistan. The first Didar Film Festival, the first film festival to be held in Tajikistan, took place in 2004. The festival and the House of Cinema of Makhmalbaf (in Iran) allocated grants for the creation of short-feature film by young and gifted filmmakers Mirzob Nugmanov, Aloviddin Abdullaev, Denis Mechetov, Shahruyor Nazari, and grant to Bakhtiyor Kakhorov for the creation of a cartoon.
In 2002, Jamshid Usmonov won FIPRESCI Prize at London film festival for his Persian language comedy, Angel on the Right.
In 2003, Iran's Film Week was held in Dushanbe
, Tajikistan. Several Iranian films including My Eyes for You, Last Supper, Bride, Avicenna, and Passion, went on screen at the Vatan Cinema in Dushanbe.
Tajikistan's Filmmakers Guild which is an affiliate of Moscow Filmmakers Guild, in a ceremony on August 26, 2005 held in Dushanbe's House of Cinema, presented the Guild's honorary membership to Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Makhmalbaf made two of his 18 feature films in Tajikistan: "Silence" in Persian and "Sex and Philosophy" in Russian are the titles.
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).
, Fariborz Lachini
, Ahmad Pejman, Majid Entezami, Babak Bayat, Naser Cheshmazar and Hossein Alizadeh
were some of the most successful score composers for Iranian films in the past decades.
, Grigori Kozintsev
, Alain Tanner, Pietro Germi
, Nikita Mikhalkov
, Krzysztof Zanussi
, Martin Ritt
won the festival's awards.
was honored.
by Khosrow Sinai
and then 1992 when Life and nothing more by Abbas Kiarostami represented Iran in the festival.
1 The Deer
(1974) Masoud Kimiai
2 Bashu, the Little Stranger
(1989) Bahram Beizai
3 Desiderium (1978) Ali Hatami
4 About Elly
(2009) Asghar Farhadi
5 Hamoun (1990) Dariush Mehrjui
6 Strait
(1973) Amir Naderi
7 The Cow
(1969) Dariush Mehrjui
8 Captain Khorshid
(1987) Naser Taghvai
9 Once Upon a Time, Cinema (1992) Mohsen Makhmalbaf
10 Tranquility in the Presence of Others (1973) Naser Taghvai
10 Kandu
(1975) Fereydun Gole
(The Cow, 1969) is now considered a pioneering work of the Iranian New Wave. The film was sponsored by the state, but they promptly banned it upon completion because its vision of rural life clashed with the progressive image of Iran that the Shah wished to project, while its prominence at international film festivals annoyed the regime.
After the Iranian revolution
, filmmakers experienced even more restrictions. Several films now regarded as the seeds of a renaissance in Iranian art film
s, such as Bahram Beizai's Cherikeh-ye Tara (Ballad of Tara, 1980) and Marg-e Yazd-e Gerd (Death of Yazd-e Gerd, 1982), and Amir Naderi
's Jostoju (Search, 1982), were banned in Iran.
Since the mid 1980s, Iran's policy on film censorship has been changed in order to promote domestic film production: the strict censorship eased a little after December 1987. Old directors resurfaced and new ones emerged. However, the application of the rules is often inconsistent. Several films have been refused release inside Iran, but have been given export permits to enter international film festivals. Even here, the censorship is inconsistent: May Lady by Rakhshan Bani-Etemad (1998) got through but her contribution to Stories of Kish (1999) did not.
All of Jafar Panahi
's films, including his recent film about female football fans, Offside
(2006), have been banned from public theaters in Iran. Offside was relegated to "a guest slot" at the International Fajr Film Festival. "It was not shown as an important film", says Panahi. "They didn't give any value to it."
Several of Mohsen Makhmalbaf
's films are also banned in Iran. For example, Time of Love
and The night of Zaiandeh-rood were banned for dealing with physical love and for raising doubts about the revolution.
In 2001, feminist filmmaker Tahmineh Milani
made The Hidden Half, which was accused of presenting the anti-revolutionary forces in a positive light. Milani was jailed and her belongings stolen. Many Iranian and international artists and filmmakers protested and demanded her release. Eventually President Khatami and the Minister of Culture were able to secure her release. Of a subsequent film, Two Women, Milani has said "[it] was banned for seven months and before I could even start on it my script was banned for seven years. It was eventually released and was a box office hit in Iran.
Among Iran's censorship rules is a ban on the depiction of women without headscarves. Joy of Madness, a documentary about the process of casting At Five in the Afternoon, was banned when Samira Makhmalbaf
's own headscarf was deemed "insufficiently modest". Tahmineh Milani's Kakadu, which was about the environment, was banned and still cannot be seen in Iran because it depicts a beautiful eight-year-old girl who is not wearing a headscarf.
In Nargess, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad who is a pioneer of Iranian cinema, pushes censorship codes to the limits, questioning the mores of society, showing desperate people overwhelmed by social conditions and a couple living together without being married.
Abbas Kiarostami has had significant acclaim in Europe over several of his films, the Iranian government has refused to permit the showing of his films in his native Iran. Kiarostami's films have been banned in his country for more than 10 years. They are only accessible there through pirate DVDs and underground screenings. Kiarostami is uncertain what the government dislikes about his films, saying "I think they don't understand my films and so prevent them being shown just in case there is a message they don't want to get out."http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,1653441,00.html. Despite this, Kiarostami has displayed an extraordinarily benign perspective, at least in recorded interviews: "The government is not in my way, but it is not assisting me either. We lead our separate lives." Despite the censorship, Kiarostami insists on working in Iran, saying "I think I really produce my best work in Iran." He believes that throughout the ages and all over the world censorship has existed in one form or another and artists have managed to live with this, saying "Today, the most important thing is that, although there is censorship, Iranian filmmakers are doing their job and they surpass the difficulties of censorship showing and discussing many things. So why ask me about what's not in the films? It has happened many times that a filmmaker hides a weakness under the excuse of censorship but difficulties have always existed in our lifestyle and our role is to surpass them."
to attend the New York Film Festival
, Ohio University
and Harvard University
in 2002, in the wake of the September 11 attacks
. Festival director Richard Pena
, who had invited him, said: "It's a terrible sign of what's happening in my country today that no one seems to realize or care about the kind of negative signal this sends out to the entire Muslim world". Finnish
film director Aki Kaurismäki
boycotted the festival in protest. Similarly, Bahman Ghobadi
, winner of the Golden Plaque at the Chicago International Film Festival
, refused to accept the prize in protest of the U.S. government's refusal to issue him a visa. In 2007, Ahmed Issawi, the abashed Arab director of the New York South Asian Film Festival admitted that a conscious decision was made not to invite any Iranian filmmakers, saying "That's a territory I no longer want to tread [...] It's over. Given the whole thing with Iran—I refuse to approach it."
Several other Iranian film makers have experienced hostilities from other countries. In November 2001 in Afghanistan
, Taliban officials, who banned movies and most filmmaking, arrested three of Majid Majidi
's crew members who were helping him secretly shoot Barefoot to Herat
, a documentary on the country's internal refugees. Samira Makhmalbaf
also survived a kidnapping in Afghanistan.
In March 2007, a bomb explosion severely injuring several actors and crew members halted production in Afghanistan of Two Legged Horse, the film by Iranian helmer Samira Makhmalbaf
. Mohsen Makhmalbaf was the target of two unsuccessful murder attempts when he shot Kandahar in Iran near the Afghan border in 2000, and his daughter Hana was twice the victim of a failed abduction attempt during the shooting of Samira's last film At Five in the Afternoon in the Afghan capital Kabul in 2002.
Shokof announced in his first press conference in Berlin on June 6, 2010 that he not only would continue to show the film(s) but that he would place the film Iran Zendan
"on line" on global net for the whole world to be able to see the reality of the true face of the Islamic Republic of Iran. he delivered the promise as the entire film Iran Zendan
is now on line and free of charge to be viewed world wide and under :www.stopthebomb.net or under Iran Zendan
.
:Category:Iranian actors
:Category:Iranian films
:Category:Iranian film directors
Videos
Art film
An art film is the result of filmmaking which is typically a serious, independent film aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience...
s win praise around the world.
Film festivals that honor Iranian films are held annually around the globe. 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
Italian neorealism
Italian neorealism is a style of film characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors...
and similar movements in past decades. World-renowned Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke
Michael Haneke
Michael Haneke is a German born Austrian filmmaker and writer best known for his bleak and disturbing style. His films often document problems and failures in modern society. Haneke has worked in television‚ theatre and cinema. He is also known for raising social issues in his work...
and German filmmaker Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog Stipetić , known as Werner Herzog, is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and opera director.He is often considered as one of the greatest figures of the New German Cinema, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner...
, along with many film critics from around the world, have praised Iranian cinema as one of the world's most important artistic cinemas.
Visual arts in Persia
One of the earliest examples in visual representations in Iranian history can be traced to the bas-reliefs in PersepolisPersepolis
Perspolis was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire . Persepolis is situated northeast of the modern city of Shiraz in the Fars Province of modern Iran. In contemporary Persian, the site is known as Takht-e Jamshid...
(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."
This style and complexity 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. In these visual representations, movements and actions are articulated in a sophisticated manner. It is even possible to see the progenitor of the cinema close-up: a wounded wild pig escaping from the hunting ground.
After the conversion from Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of prophet Zoroaster and was formerly among the world's largest religions. It was probably founded some time before the 6th century BCE in Greater Iran.In Zoroastrianism, the Creator Ahura Mazda is all good, and no evil...
to Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
— 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 image space. A very popular form of such art was Pardeh-Khani. Another type of art in the same category was Naqqali.
Other than-popular dramatic performance arts, before the advent of cinema in Iran, are Khaymeshab-bazi (puppet show), Saye-bazi (shadow plays), Rouhozi (comical acts), and Ta'zieh
Ta'zieh
Ta'zieh means Condolence Theater and Naqqali are traditional Persian theatrical genres in which the drama is conveyed wholly or predominantly through music and singing...
.
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 BashiMirza Ebrahim Khan Akkas Bashi
Mirza Ebrahim Khan Akkas Bashi was the royal photographer of Mozzafar al-Din Shah Qajar, the King of Persia. He brought photography to Persia.-External links:...
, the official photographer of Muzaffar al-Din Shah, the Shah of Persia
Qajar dynasty
The Qajar dynasty was an Iranian royal family of Turkic descent who ruled Persia from 1785 to 1925....
from 1896–1907. After a visit to Paris in July 1900, Akkas Bashi obtained a camera and filmed the Shah
Shah
Shāh is the title of the ruler of certain Southwest Asian and Central Asian countries, especially Persia , and derives from the Persian word shah, meaning "king".-History:...
'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
Khan Baba Motazedi
Khan Baba Motazedi was a pioneer in Iranian motion picture photography.-See also:*Persian cinema...
, 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
Pahlavi dynasty
The Pahlavi dynasty consisted of two Iranian/Persian monarchs, father and son Reza Shah Pahlavi and Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi The Pahlavi dynasty consisted of two Iranian/Persian monarchs, father and son Reza Shah Pahlavi (reg. 1925–1941) and Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi The Pahlavi dynasty ...
.
In 1904, Mirza Ebrahim Khan Sahhafbashi
Mirza Ebrahim Khan Sahhafbashi
Mirza Ebrahim Khan Sahhafbashi was a poineering Persian photographer and cinematographer.In 1904, Mirza Ebrahim Khan Sahhafbashi opened the first movie theater in Tehran.-See also:*Persian cinema...
opened the first movie theater in Tehran
Tehran
Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...
. 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, an Armenian-Iranian cinematographer, Ovanes Ohanian
Ovanes Ohanian
Ovanes Ohanian was an Armenian-Iranian father of Helen Ohaniance, Orod Ohanians and Paul Ohanians. Grandfather of Jasmine Facchetti. Was a filmmaker, inventor, founder, doctor, scientist with PHD in medicine, film, science and languages. He established the first film school in the history of Iran...
, 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" (The Cinema Artist Educational Centre).
1930s and 40s
In 1930 the first Iranian silent Film was made by Professor Ovanes Ohanian called Haji Agha, Later in early 1932 he made his second film titeled Abi Rubi .later In 1932, Abdolhossein SepantaAbdolhossein Sepanta
Abdolhossein Sepanta was a noted Iranian film director and producer. He was born in Tehran, Persia, and died of a heart attack in Esfahan, Iran.-Early years:...
made the first Iranian sound film
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
, entitled Lor Girl
Lor Girl
Lor Girl was the first sound film ever to be produced in the Persian language. In 1932, it was produced by Ardeshir Irani and Abdolhossein Sepanta under the Imperial Film Company in Bombay....
. Later, in 1935, he directed movies such as Ferdowsi
Ferdowsi
Ferdowsi was a highly revered Persian poet. He was the author of the Shahnameh, the national epic of Iran and related societies.The Shahnameh was originally composed by Ferdowsi for the princes of the Samanid dynasty, who were responsible for a revival of Persian cultural traditions after the...
(the life story of the most celebrated epic poet of Iran), Shirin and Farhaad (a classic Iranian love story), and Black Eyes (the story of Nader Shah
Nader Shah
Nāder Shāh Afshār ruled as Shah of Iran and was the founder of the Afsharid dynasty. Because of his military genius, some historians have described him as the Napoleon of Persia or the Second Alexander...
's invasion of India). In 1937, he directed Laili and Majnoon
Leyli o Majnun (1936 film)
Leyli o Majnun or Leyli va Majnun is a 1936 Iranian film produced in 1936 by Abdolhossein Sepanta by the East India Film Studios....
, an Eastern love story similar to the English story of Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
.
The present day Iranian film industry owes a lot of its progress to two industrious personalities, Esmail Koushan
Esmail Koushan
Esmail Koushan or Kooshan is a one of the pioneering figures of Persian cinema. He has been called "the father of the Iranian film industry" by Georges Sadoul....
and Farrokh Ghaffari
Farrokh Ghaffari
Farrokh Ghaffari was an Iranian film director, actor, critic and author. Along with Ebrahim Golestan and Fereydoun Rahnema he was one of the founders of Iran's New Wave film movement...
. 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
Abdolhossein Sepanta
Abdolhossein Sepanta was a noted Iranian film director and producer. He was born in Tehran, Persia, and died of a heart attack in Esfahan, Iran.-Early years:...
and Esmail Koushan
Esmail Koushan
Esmail Koushan or Kooshan is a one of the pioneering figures of Persian cinema. He has been called "the father of the Iranian film industry" by Georges Sadoul....
took advantage of the richness of Persian literature
Persian literature
Persian literature spans two-and-a-half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic material has been lost. Its sources have been within historical Persia including present-day Iran as well as regions of Central Asia where the Persian language has historically been the national language...
and ancient Persian mythology
Persian mythology
Persian mythology are traditional tales and stories of ancient origin, some involving extraordinary or supernatural beings. Drawn from the legendary past of the Iranian cultural continent which especially consists of the state of Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Central Asia, they reflect the...
. In their work, they emphasized ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
and humanity
Compassion
Compassion is a virtue — one in which the emotional capacities of empathy and sympathy are regarded as a part of love itself, and a cornerstone of greater social interconnection and humanism — foundational to the highest principles in philosophy, society, and personhood.There is an aspect of...
.
Pre-revolutionary cinema, 1950s-70s
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.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. Four years later Masud Kimiaie made Kaiser
Qeysar (film)
Qeysar ,also written as Gheisar, Kaiser and Gheysar, is a 1969 film by acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Masoud Kimiai. The film was considered a turning point in Iranian cinema and brought out a new trend...
. With Kaiser (Qeysar), Kimiaie 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 Kimiaie's film generated another genre in Iranian popular cinema: the tragic action drama.
With the screening of the films Kaiser
Qeysar (film)
Qeysar ,also written as Gheisar, Kaiser and Gheysar, is a 1969 film by acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Masoud Kimiai. The film was considered a turning point in Iranian cinema and brought out a new trend...
and The Cow, directed by Masoud Kimiay and Darius Mehrjui
Darius Mehrjui
Dariush Mehrju'i , also spelled as Mehrjui, Mehrjoui, and Mehrjuyi, is an Iranian director, screenwriter, producer, and film editor....
respectively in 1969, alternative films established their status in the film industry. Attempts to organize a film festival that had begun in 1954 within the framework of the Golrizan Festival, called for the boring of fruits with the Sepas Festival in 1969 and the endeavors of Ali Mortazavi, which resulted in the formation of the Tehran World Festival in 1973.
Pre-revolutionary Iranian cinema produced notable movies such as:
- The Bride of the Sea, by the late Arman (1965)
- Siavash at Persepolis, by the late Ferreydun Rahnama (1967)
- The Brick and The Mirror, by Ebrahim GolestanEbrahim GolestanEbrahim Golestan is an Iranian filmmaker and literary figure with a career spanning half a century...
(1967) - The House of God, by Jalal Moghaddam (1966)
- The Husband of Ahoo Khanom, by Davood Mollapour (1968)
Post-revolutionary cinema
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 SinaiKhosrow Sinai
Khosrow Sinai is an Iranian film director. His works are usually based on social documentations. He was the first Iranian film director to win an international prize after the Islamic revolution in Iran...
and followed by many excellent Iranian directors who emerged in the last few decades, such as Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer. An active filmmaker since 1970, Kiarostami has been involved in over forty films, including shorts and documentaries...
and Jafar Panahi
Jafar Panahi
Jafar Panahi is an Iranian filmmaker and is one of the most influential filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave movement. He has gained recognition from film theorists and critics worldwide and received numerous awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Silver Bear at the...
. 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
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
for Taste of Cherry
Taste of Cherry
Taste of Cherry is a 1997 film by the Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami. It is a minimalist film about a man who drives through a city suburb looking for someone who can carry out the task to bury him after he has died.-Plot:...
in 1997.
The continuous presence of Iranian films in prestigious international festivals such as Cannes, the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
, and Berlin Film Festival attracted world attention to Iranian masterpieces ., as Iranian films have repeatedly been nominated for or won prestigious prizes at those festivals. In 2006, six Iranian films, with six different styles, represented Iranian cinema at the Berlin Film Festival, and 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
Iranian Kurdistan
Iranian Kurdistan is an unofficial name for the parts of Iran inhabited by Kurds and has borders with Iraq and Turkey. It includes Kurdistan Province, Kermanshah Province, Ilam Province and parts of West Azerbaijan province....
has seen the rise of numerous filmmakers. In particular the film industry got momentum in Iranian Kurdistan
Iranian Kurdistan
Iranian Kurdistan is an unofficial name for the parts of Iran inhabited by Kurds and has borders with Iraq and Turkey. It includes Kurdistan Province, Kermanshah Province, Ilam Province and parts of West Azerbaijan province....
and the region has seen the emergence of filmmakers such as Bahman Ghobadi
Bahman Ghobadi
Bahman Ghobadi is an Iranian film director of Kurdish ethnicity. He was born on February 1, 1969 in Baneh, Kurdistan Province. Ghobadi belongs to the so called "new wave" of Iranian cinema.-Biography:...
, 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
Mohammedreza Eslamloo
Born in 1947 in Shiraz, Mohammedreza Eslamloo graduated in Television and Film from the College of Communications of the University of Texas. He worked for the construction jihad unit and Islamic combatants department at IRIB and at Art Institute...
.
We must mention here "Tranquility in the Presence of Others" (Aramesh dar Hozur Deegaran, 1973) directed by Nasser Taghvai and rated by some critics as the best Iranian film of all times.
Contemporary Iranian cinema
Today, the Iranian box office is dominated by commercial Iranian films. Foreign films are not commonly shown in movie theaters as part of a ban on films originating from the West. But heavily censored versions of classic and contemporary Hollywood productions are shown on state television. Uncensored versions are easily available in black markets. Iranian art films are often not screened officially, and are viewable via illegal DVDs which are easily available. Nevertheless, 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 two categories of this type of film:- Films about the victory of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the ensuing Iran–Iraq war, filled with strong religious and national motifs.
- 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, Outsiders, Aquarium, Ceasefire, M like Mother, Glass Agency, Charlatan and Killing Mad Dogs were among the post-revolutionary films that gained the highest box office records. These films have similarities with Indian popular cinema and with Hollywood (but also have distinct differences). They are chaste, in that the hero and his love interest do not so much kiss but rather walk off into the metaphorical sunset as the end credits roll. The appeal of these films is the escapism offered by their "western" attributes and their "non-Iranian" identity.
For many years, the most visible face of Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian commercial cinema was Mohammad Ali Fardin
Mohammad Ali Fardin
Mohammad Ali Fardin was an Iranian wrestler and actor.-Life:Fardin was a popular leading man in scores of movies and was given the title, King of Hearts after his lead role in an Iranian film of the same title. He was a former wrestler who came to fame in the 1960s...
, who starred in a number of popular successful films. In the more conservative social climate of Iran after the Iranian Revolution
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
of 1979, however, he came to be considered an embarrassment to Iranian national identity and his films — which depicted romance, alcohol, scantily-dressed women, night-clubs, and a lifestyle now condemned by the Islamic government — were banned
Ban (law)
A ban is, generally, any decree that prohibits something.Bans are formed for the prohibition of activities within a certain political territory. Some see this as a negative act and others see it as maintaining the "status quo"...
. 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
Tehran
Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...
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 (1983), The Eagles (1984), Boycott (1985), The Tenants (1986), and Kani Manga (1987) 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 Edison
Edison (film)
Edison , is a 2005 American thriller film written and directed by David J. Burke, starring Morgan Freeman, LL Cool J, Justin Timberlake, and Kevin Spacey....
, The Illusionist, Passion of the Christ, House of Sand and Fog, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a 2004 American pulp adventure science-fiction film written and directed by Kerry Conran in his directorial debut. The film is set in an alternative 1939 and follows the adventures of Polly Perkins , a newspaper reporter, and Harry Joseph "Joe" Sullivan ,...
, The Others
The Others (1974 film)
The Others is a 1974 French drama film directed by Hugo Santiago. It was entered into the 1974 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Maurice Born - Durtain* Noëlle Chatelet - Valérie* Patrice Dally - Roger Spinoza* Pierrette Destanque - Agnès...
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. Conservative-controlled state television has also broadcast more Western movies—partly because millions of Iranians have been switching to the use of banned satellite television equipment.
There is no particular love of Arab cinema but Indian cinema is relatively popular among the Iranian masses – but in the last eight years, there has not been a single film from these countries screened in Iran. 6 to 8 Hollywood films make it to Iranian movie theaters each year.
Iranian New Wave films
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 FarrokhzadForough Farrokhzad
Forugh Farrokhzād was an Iranian poet and film director. Forugh Farrokhzad is arguably one of Iran's most influential female poets of the twentieth century...
, Khosrow Sinai
Khosrow Sinai
Khosrow Sinai is an Iranian film director. His works are usually based on social documentations. He was the first Iranian film director to win an international prize after the Islamic revolution in Iran...
, Sohrab Shahid Saless, Bahram Beizai, and Parviz Kimiavi
Parviz Kimiavi
Parviz Kimiavi is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, editor and one of the most prominent figures of Persian cinema of the 20th century....
. 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
Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer. An active filmmaker since 1970, Kiarostami has been involved in over forty films, including shorts and documentaries...
, Jafar Panahi
Jafar Panahi
Jafar Panahi is an Iranian filmmaker and is one of the most influential filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave movement. He has gained recognition from film theorists and critics worldwide and received numerous awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Silver Bear at the...
, Majid Majidi
Majid Majidi
Majid Majidi is an internationally and critically acclaimed Iranian film director, film producer, and screenwriter. Majidi's films have touched on many themes and genres and he has won many international awards.-Biography:...
, Bahram Beizai, Darius Mehrjui
Darius Mehrjui
Dariush Mehrju'i , also spelled as Mehrjui, Mehrjoui, and Mehrjuyi, is an Iranian director, screenwriter, producer, and film editor....
, Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Mohsen Makhmalbaf is an Iranian film director, writer, editor, and producer. During 2007 he was the president of Asian Film Academy.Makhmalbaf's films have been widely presented in international film festivals in the past ten years. The multi-award-winning director, belongs to the new wave...
, Khosrow Sinai
Khosrow Sinai
Khosrow Sinai is an Iranian film director. His works are usually based on social documentations. He was the first Iranian film director to win an international prize after the Islamic revolution in Iran...
, Sohrab Shahid-Saless
Sohrab Shahid-Saless
Sohrab Shahid-Saless 28 June 1944, Tehran – 2 July 1998, Chicago, Illinois) was an Iranian film director and screenwriter and one of the most celebrated figures in Iranian cinema in the 20th century...
, Parviz Kimiavi
Parviz Kimiavi
Parviz Kimiavi is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, editor and one of the most prominent figures of Persian cinema of the 20th century....
, Samira Makhmalbaf
Samira Makhmalbaf
Samira Makhmalbaf is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and script writer. She is the daughter of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the film director and writer. Samira Makhmalbaf belongs to the New Wave movement within Iranian cinema...
, Amir Naderi
Amir Naderi
Amir Naderi is a notable Iranian film director, screenwriter and one of the most influential figures of 20th-century Persian cinema. Mr Naderi is currently in Japan working on CUT, his new feature film, starring Hidetoshi Nishijima and Takako Tokiwa, due to be released in 2011.Naderi developed his...
, and Abolfazl Jalili
Abolfazl Jalili
Abolfazl Jalili is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director. He belongs to Iranian new wave movement.Jalili studied directing at the Iranian College of Dramatic Arts, then worked for national television where he produced several children's films. His 'Det' Means Girl won prizes in...
.
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
Persian literature
Persian literature spans two-and-a-half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic material has been lost. Its sources have been within historical Persia including present-day Iran as well as regions of Central Asia where the Persian language has historically been the national language...
.
Features of New Wave Iranian film, in particular the works of legendary Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer. An active filmmaker since 1970, Kiarostami has been involved in over forty films, including shorts and documentaries...
, can be classified as postmodern.
Iranian New Wave films shared some characteristics with the European art films of the period, in particular Italian Neorealism
Italian neorealism
Italian neorealism is a style of film characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors...
. 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 fictionFictionFiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
and reality, feature film with documentary." She also argues that this unique approach has inspired European cinema directors to emulate this style, citing Michael WinterbottomMichael WinterbottomMichael Winterbottom is a prolific English filmmaker who has directed seventeen feature films in the past fifteen years. He began his career working in British television before moving into features...
's award winning In This WorldIn This WorldIn This World is a 2002 British docudrama directed by Michael Winterbottom. The film follows two young Afghan refugees, Jamal Udin Torabi and Enayatullah, as they leave a refugee camp in Pakistan for a better life in London. Since their journey is illegal, it is fraught with danger, and they must...
(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 Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer. An active filmmaker since 1970, Kiarostami has been involved in over forty films, including shorts and documentaries...
and Panahi
Jafar Panahi
Jafar Panahi is an Iranian filmmaker and is one of the most influential filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave movement. He has gained recognition from film theorists and critics worldwide and received numerous awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Silver Bear at the...
represent the first and second generations of New wave filmmakers respectively, the third generation is represented by Rafi Pitts
Rafi Pitts
Rafi Pitts is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director.Rafi spent his childhood in Tehran, where he lived in a basement flat underneath a post-production studio. He describes himself as having been a 'very bad' child actor, starting in films at the age of eight. He came to England in...
, Bahman Ghobadi
Bahman Ghobadi
Bahman Ghobadi is an Iranian film director of Kurdish ethnicity. He was born on February 1, 1969 in Baneh, Kurdistan Province. Ghobadi belongs to the so called "new wave" of Iranian cinema.-Biography:...
, Maziar Miri
Maziar Miri
Maziar Miri is a renowned Iranian filmmaker.Maziar Miri graduated in editing, and started his career with making documentaries about Iran. He made his first short film in 1996, and worked for several years in the editing department of Iranian TV, channel 2. He made his debut feature film in 2000...
, Asghar Farhadi
Asghar Farhadi
-Career:Asghar Farhadi is a graduate of Theatre, with a BA in Dramatic Arts and MA in Stage Direction from Tehran University and Tarbiat Modarres University. Farhadi made short 8mm and 16mm films in Isfahan branch of Iranian Young Cinema Society before moving on to writing plays and screenplays for...
, Mani Haghighi
Mani Haghighi
Mani Haghighi is an Iranian filmmaker, screen writer and actor. He is the grandson of the writer and filmmaker Ebrahim Golestan.-Education:...
, and Babak Payami
Babak Payami
-Biography:Born in Tehran in 1966, Baback Payami studied cinema at the University of Toronto during the early 90's. In 1998, he returned to Iran after an almost two decade to produce and direct his debut "One More Day" or “Secret Ballot”. This flim describes what happens on election day when an...
, along with newly emerged filmmakers such as Kiarash Anvari
Kiarash Anvari
Kiarash Anvari is an Iranian film maker, video artist and script writer.Anvari received his BA in film making from Sooreh Higher Education Institute in Tehran. In 1998 he got a role in Eugene O'Neill's play, The Hairy Ape, which was the beginning of his experiences as an actor...
, Maziar Bahari
Maziar Bahari
Maziar Bahari Maziar Bahari Maziar Bahari (مازیار بهاری, (born 1967) is an Iranian Canadian journalist, film maker and human rights activist. He was a reporter for Newsweek from 1998 to 2011...
, Sadaf Foroughi
Sadaf Foroughi
Sadaf Foroughi is an Iranian film maker, video artist and film editor.Foroughi has a bachelor degree in French literature. After receiving her master degree in film studies from University of Provence in Aix-en-Provence, France, she continued her studies on PHD in film philosophy. She also...
, Saman Saloor
Saman Saloor
Saman Saloor is an award winning Iranian filmmaker and screen writer.His first long movie, Residents of Silent Land won award in Kyiv International Film Festival, Ukraine....
, and Mona Zandi-Haqiqi.
Iranian popular art films
Parallel to the Iranian New Wave, with its neorealistNeorealism (art)
In art, neorealism was established by the ex-Camden Town Group painters Charles Ginner and Harold Gilman at the beginning of World War I. They set out to explore the spirit of their age through the shapes and colours of daily life...
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
Nasser Taghvaee
Nāsser Taghvāí is an Iranian film director and screenwriter.Born in Abadan, Iran, he graduated from the Faculty of Literature in Tehran University. After early experiences as a storywriter, he began filming documentaries in 1967....
and Ali Hatami
Ali Hatami
Ali Hatami was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, art Director and costume designer.-Background:Graduated in cinema from Faculty of Dramatic Arts, his debut was Hasan Kachal , the first Iranian musical film...
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
Darius Mehrjui
Dariush Mehrju'i , also spelled as Mehrjui, Mehrjoui, and Mehrjuyi, is an Iranian director, screenwriter, producer, and film editor....
). The Demon and the Bald Hassan, Adam and Eve, The Fisherman's Story, City of Oranges, and Talisman are some of Hatami's works. Ardeshir Fardin
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.Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, writer and director is probably Iran's best-known and certainly most prolific female filmmaker. She has established herself as the elder stateswoman of Iranian cinema with documentaries and films dealing with social pathology
Pathology
Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....
. Samira Makhmalbaf directed her first film, The Apple, when she was only 17 years old and won the Cannes
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
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
Samira Makhmalbaf
Samira Makhmalbaf is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and script writer. She is the daughter of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the film director and writer. Samira Makhmalbaf belongs to the New Wave movement within Iranian cinema...
made the headlines. Internationally recognized figures in Persian women's cinema
Women's cinema
The term women's cinema usually refers to films made by women. Above all, it designates the work of women film directors and, to a lesser degree, the work of other women behind the camera such as cinematographers and screenwriters...
are:
- Samira MakhmalbafSamira MakhmalbafSamira Makhmalbaf is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and script writer. She is the daughter of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the film director and writer. Samira Makhmalbaf belongs to the New Wave movement within Iranian cinema...
- Rakhshan Bani-Etemad
- Pouran DerakhshandehPouran DerakhshandehPourān Derakh'shandeh is an Iranian film director, producer, screen writer, and researcher.Pourān Derakh'shandeh graduated in film directing in 1975 from Advanced School of Television and Cinema in Tehran...
- Zahra DowlatabadiZahra DowlatabadiZahra Dowlatabadi is an Iranian filmmaker. She received her Masters degree at USC in Film Studies in 1986. She has been tapped by ASIFA-Hollywood to produce the 39th Annie Awards which will be taking place at UCLA’s Royce Hall on Feb...
- Niki KarimiNiki KarimiNiki Karimi , born 10 November 1971 in Tehran, is a multi-award–winning Iranian actress and movie director.- Biography :Niki Karimi was born and raised in Tehran. She participated in theatrical work while she was in elementary school. Her hobby of reading and watching movies from an early age...
- Mahin OskoueiMahin OskoueiMahin Oskouei was an Iranian theater director and instructor and Iran's pioneering female theater arts figure.Born in Tehran, she was Iran's first female theater director and first woman to appear on stage...
- Pari SaberiPari SaberiPari Saberi is an Iranian drama and theatre director and winner of the French Literature and Art Cavalier Badge by French President Jacques Chirac....
- Tahmineh MilaniTahmineh MilaniTahmineh Milāni is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, and producer.-Early life:Milani was born 1960 in Tabriz, Iran. Of Azeri descent, she is the wife of the Iranian actor and producer Mohammad Nikbin.- Early career :...
- Sepideh FarsiSepideh FarsiSepideh Farsi is an Iranian film director, born in Tehran in 1965.-Early years:Farsi left Iran in 1980 and went to Paris in 1984 to study mathematics. However, eventually she was drawn to the visual arts and initially experimented in photography before making her first short films. A main theme of...
- Maryam KeshavarzMaryam KeshavarzMaryam Keshavarz is Iranian-American filmmaker.Keshavarz studied Persian literature at the University of Shiraz before turning to filmmaking. She has a B.A...
- Mania AkbariMania AkbariMania Akbari is an Iranian film director. Akbari began her artistic career as a painter in 1991. She entered the world of cinema as a director of photography and later as an assistant director of documentaries. In 2002, she starred in Abbas Kiarostami’s Ten and in 2003 co-directed the documentary...
- Yassamin MaleknasrYassamin MaleknasrYassamin Maleknasr is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and actress.-Career:...
- Sara Rastegar
- Granaz MoussaviGranaz MoussaviGranaz Moussavi , is an Iranian-Australian contemporary poet, film director and screen writer. She is primarily renowned for her avant-garde poetry in the 90's...
- Marzieh MeshkiniMarzieh MeshkiniMarzieh Meshkini is an Iranian cinematographer, film director and writer. She is married to film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf who wrote the script for her début film The Day I Became a Woman.-Honors and awards:...
- Hana MakhmalbafHana MakhmalbafHana Makhmalbaf is an Iranian filmmaker. She is the younger sister of filmmaker Samira Makhmalbaf and daughter of filmmakers Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Marzieh Makhmalbaf.-Career:...
- Mona Zandi-Haqiqi
- Parisa BakhtavarParisa BakhtavarParisa Bakhtavar is an Iranian film and television director. She is married to another Iranian film director, Asghar Farhadi. She is famous for her television series, Posht-e Konkooriha, which followed the lives of high school seniors studying for their college entrance exams. Her first film,...
Besides women involved in screenwriting and filmmaking, numerous award winning Iranian actresses with uniques styles and talents attract critic. The most notable Iranian actresses are:
- Fatemeh Motamed Aria, Crystal Simorgh for the Best Actress, the 7th, 10th, 11th, and 12th Fajr International Film Festival
- GoogooshGoogooshFaegheh Atashin also known by her stage name Googoosh is an Iranian singer and actress. She is known for her contributions to Iranian pop music, but also starred in a variety of movies from the 1950s to the 1970s. She achieved the pinnacle of her fame and success towards the end of the 1970s...
- Shohreh AghdashlooShohreh AghdashlooShohreh Aghdashloo is an Iranian American actress.After establishing a theatre and film career in Iran, Aghdashloo moved to England during the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and subsequently became a citizen of the United States...
, First Iranian woman to be nominated for an Academy Award - Pegah AhangaraniPegah AhangaraniPegah Ahangarani is an Iranian actress. She is the daughter of actress and director Manijeh Hekmat and movie director Jamshid Ahangarani. She has acted in 11 Iranian feature films since 2001 and made at least one documentary.- Filmography:...
, Best Actress Award, the 23rd Cairo International Film Festival - Taraneh Alidousti, Best actress award, Locarno International Film Festival (2002) and Crystal Simorgh for best actress from Fajr International Film Festival
- Mary ApickMary ApickMary Apick is an award-winning Iranian actress, writer, and producer.Apick was the first Iranian actress in the history of Iranian cinema to win the Best Actress Award from the Moscow International Film Festival. She won the award for her 1977 performance in Dead End, written and directed by Parviz...
, Best Actress Award from Moscow International Film Festival 1977 - Golshifteh FarahaniGolshifteh FarahaniGolshifteh Farahani is a Crystal-Simorgh winning Iranian actress and pianist.- Early life :Golshifteh Farahani was born on 10 July 1983 in Tehran, the daughter of actor/theater director Behzad Farahani and his spouse, Fahime Rahiminia and sister of actress Shaghayegh Farahani. She started studying...
, First Iranian star to play in a Hollywood film Body of LiesBody of Lies (film)Body of Lies is a 2008 American spy film directed by Ridley Scott. Set in the Middle East, it follows the attempts of the CIA and Jordanian Intelligence to catch "al-Saleem", a fictional jihadist terrorist...
Best Actress award from Nantes Three Continents Film Festival 2004 and Simorgh award for Best Actress from Fajr Int. Film Festival 1998. - Azita HajianAzita Hajian-Early life:She was born on 10 January 1958 in Narmak, Tehran. She Graduated in theatre acting and directing from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Tehran, Azita Hajian started stage acting in 1975 and film acting in 1989 with Thief of Dolls . Due to her theatrical background in the field of children...
, Crystal Simorgh for the Best Actress, the 17th Fajr International Film Festival - Leila HatamiLeila HatamiLeila Hatami is an award-winning Iranian actress. She is the daughter of director Ali Hatami and actress Zari Khoshkam, and is married to actor Ali Mosaffa.- Biography :...
Best actress award, Locarno International Film FestivalLocarno International Film FestivalThe Film Festival Locarno is an international film festival held annually in the city of Locarno, Switzerland since 1946. After Cannes and Venice and together with Karlovy Vary, Locarno is the Film Festival with the longest history...
and Montreal World Film Festival(2002) - Niki KarimiNiki KarimiNiki Karimi , born 10 November 1971 in Tehran, is a multi-award–winning Iranian actress and movie director.- Biography :Niki Karimi was born and raised in Tehran. She participated in theatrical work while she was in elementary school. Her hobby of reading and watching movies from an early age...
, Best actress award, Nantes Film Festival - Ladan MostofiLadan MostofiLadan Mostofi is an award winning Mazandaran - Iranian actress.She won the Best Actress Award at the third Eurasia International Film Festival in 2006.- References :...
, Best Actress Award at the third Eurasia International Film Festival in 2006 - Hedyeh TehraniHedyeh TehraniHedieh Tehrāni is a Crystal-Simorgh winning Iranian actress. She is most noted for willingness to play mysterious, stony-faced and cold-hearted women. She began her acting career with Masoud Kimiai's Soltan...
, Crystal Simorgh for best actress from Fajr International Film Festival
In 2006, Marjane Satrapi
Marjane Satrapi
Marjane Satrapi is an Iranian-born French contemporary graphic novelist, illustrator, animated film director, and children's book author...
, 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.
Iranian war films
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.In the Alleys of Love
In the Alleys of Love
In the Alleys of Love is an Iranian war film about Khorramshahr shortly after the Iran–Iraq War. Shot in colour on 35mm film it lasts 83 minutes.Khosrow Sinai wrote, directed, and produced the film and composed the music.-Film festivals:...
(1990), by Khosrow Sinai
Khosrow Sinai
Khosrow Sinai is an Iranian film director. His works are usually based on social documentations. He was the first Iranian film director to win an international prize after the Islamic revolution in Iran...
, 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 messaging
Propaganda film
The term propaganda can be defined as the ability to produce and spread fertile messages that, once sown, will germinate in large human cultures.” However, in the 20th century, a “new” propaganda emerged, which revolved around political organizations and their need to communicate messages that...
. 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 AviniMorteza AviniSayyed Morteza Avini was an Iranian photographer of the Iran-Iraq war.Avini was born in 1947 in Rey, south of Tehran...
- Shahriar BahraniShahriar BahraniIranian film director, Shahriar Bahrani -Selected filmography:* 2009: The Kingdom of Solomon* 2000: Saint Mary* 1997: Inverted world* 1993: The Attack to H-3* 1989: Not to mud water!...-References:...
- Mohammad Bozorgnia
- Ahmad Reza Darvish
- Azizollah Hamidnejad
- Ebrahim HatamikiaEbrahim Hatamikia-Biography:Ebrahim Hatamikia, who is internationally renowned for his role in the cinema of Iran in the 1990s, was born in 1961 in Tehran, Iran. He left the Art University where he studied script writing. He began his directing career with the film "The Identity" in 1986 and some short films and...
- Mohsen MakhmalbafMohsen MakhmalbafMohsen Makhmalbaf is an Iranian film director, writer, editor, and producer. During 2007 he was the president of Asian Film Academy.Makhmalbaf's films have been widely presented in international film festivals in the past ten years. The multi-award-winning director, belongs to the new wave...
- Rasoul Molla-Gholipour
- Mojtaba Raei
- Jamal Shourjeh
- Kamal TabriziKamal TabriziKamal Tabrizi is an Iranian film director. He was born in Tehran . A newly released picture shows that he was as a photographer & reporter among the 1979 hostage takers at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.- Filmography as a director :-External links:...
Iranian animations
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:
- Farshid MesghaliFarshid MesghaliFarshid Mesghali is an Iranian graphic designer, illustrator, animator and author.- Biography :Studying painting at Tehran University, he began his professional career as a graphic designer and illustrator in 1964. After his graduation, he joined the Institute for the Intellectual Development for...
- Morteza MomayezMorteza MomayezMorteza Momayez was an Iranian graphic designer. He was one of the founders of Iranian Graphic Design Society and held a membership to Alliance Graphique Internationale...
- Ali Akbar SadeghiAli Akbar SadeghiAli Akbar Sadeghi a graduate of the College of Art, University of Tehran, is one of the most prolific and successful Iranian painters and artists....
- Noureddin Zarrin-Kelk
Timeline of Iranian films
- Pre 1960
- 1960s
- 1970s
- 1980s
- 1990s
- 2000s
Iranian Azeri Cinema
In 2002, Iranian director, Mehdi Parizad, shot a documentary on Azeri filmmaking. On January 10, 2005, The Azeri cinema event "Prospects of Azeri Cinema" opened at Tehran's Contemporary Arts Museum. In 1990, Mohsen MakhmalbafMohsen Makhmalbaf
Mohsen Makhmalbaf is an Iranian film director, writer, editor, and producer. During 2007 he was the president of Asian Film Academy.Makhmalbaf's films have been widely presented in international film festivals in the past ten years. The multi-award-winning director, belongs to the new wave...
made Time of Love
Time of Love
Time of Love is a 1990 film by Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, based on a story written by Makhmalbaf himself. The film consists of three episodes, all with relatively similar plots. Although categorized as an Iranian film, Time of Love was mostly shot in Istanbul, Turkey and the dialogues are...
. The film's dialogues are both in Turkish and Persian language.
Iranian Kurdish cinema
In 1998, Abolfazl JaliliAbolfazl Jalili
Abolfazl Jalili is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director. He belongs to Iranian new wave movement.Jalili studied directing at the Iranian College of Dramatic Arts, then worked for national television where he produced several children's films. His 'Det' Means Girl won prizes in...
made "Dance of Dust" in Kurdish and English. The film won Silver Leopard at Locarno Film Festival and FIPRESCI Prize at London Film Festival. In 1999, The Wind Will Carry Us
The Wind Will Carry Us
The Wind Will Carry Us is a 1999 Iranian film by Abbas Kiarostami. The title is a reference to a poem written by the famous modern Iranian woman poet Forough Farrokhzad. In 1999, the movie was nominated for Golden Lion of Venice Film Festival. It won Grand Special Jury Prize , FIPRESCI Prize and...
, by Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer. An active filmmaker since 1970, Kiarostami has been involved in over forty films, including shorts and documentaries...
, was partly shot in Iran's Kurdistan province. It was presented at both the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
and the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
.
Kurdish cinema came to international prominence in 2000 with the screening of two Kurdish language
Kurdish language
Kurdish is a dialect continuum spoken by the Kurds in western Asia. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages....
movies simultaneously at the Cannes Film Festival, namely, The Blackboard by Samira Makhmalbaf
Samira Makhmalbaf
Samira Makhmalbaf is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and script writer. She is the daughter of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the film director and writer. Samira Makhmalbaf belongs to the New Wave movement within Iranian cinema...
(entirely in Kurdish) and A Time for Drunken Horses
A Time for Drunken Horses
A Time for Drunken Horses is a 2000 Iranian film directed by Bahman Ghobadi and produced in Iran. It was a co-winner of the Caméra d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000 .- Plot :An Iranian Kurdish family is trying to survive after the death of its parents...
by Bahman Ghobadi
Bahman Ghobadi
Bahman Ghobadi is an Iranian film director of Kurdish ethnicity. He was born on February 1, 1969 in Baneh, Kurdistan Province. Ghobadi belongs to the so called "new wave" of Iranian cinema.-Biography:...
(in Kurdish and Persian).
In 2000, Farhad Mehranfar made "The Legend of Love" which tells the story of Khazara, a young female medical student who wanders courageously among nomadic Kurdish tribes looking for her fiancé, who has set off to tend the wounded in a town besieged by Iraqi attacks. The film won Special Jury Award in Santa Barbara International Film Festival (2001).
In 2002, Songs from my Motherland (aka Marooned in Iraq
Marooned in Iraq
Marooned in Iraq is a 2002 Iranian film directed by Bahman Ghobadi and produced in Iran. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.-Plot:...
), another movie by Bahman Ghobadi
Bahman Ghobadi
Bahman Ghobadi is an Iranian film director of Kurdish ethnicity. He was born on February 1, 1969 in Baneh, Kurdistan Province. Ghobadi belongs to the so called "new wave" of Iranian cinema.-Biography:...
in Kurdish and Persian, was presented at Cannes. The movie won prizes at several other international festivals.
In 2005, Iranian director Jamil Rostami
Jamil Rostami
Jamil Rostami born 1971 in Sanandaj, Kurdistan Province, Iran) is an Iranian film director of Kurdish origin.In 2002 he made his first short film titled The Trouble of Being a Boy in Kurdish, which was screened in 24 domestic and international Festivals and was awarded several prizes.He made his...
won the Fajr Festival
Fajr International Film Festival
The Fajr Film Festival or Fajr International Film Festival is Iran's annual film festival, held every February in Tehran.The festival, started in 1982, is under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture in Iran...
's Simorgh for Best Director in Asia and Middle East for his Kurdish language movie Requiem of Snow
Requiem of Snow
Requiem of Snow is a 2005 film written by Iranian screenwriter Sholeh Shariati and directed by the Kurdish-Iranian director Jamil Rostami. It is a joint production of Iran and Iraq and also the first film to represent Iraq in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Oscars.-Plot:In a village...
written by Sholeh Shariati. In 2006, Ghobadi's Half Moon (in Kurdish and Persian) won the Golden Seashell at the San Sebastian Film Festival. The film was shot in Iranian Kurdistan and Iran's renowned actors Golshifteh Farahani
Golshifteh Farahani
Golshifteh Farahani is a Crystal-Simorgh winning Iranian actress and pianist.- Early life :Golshifteh Farahani was born on 10 July 1983 in Tehran, the daughter of actor/theater director Behzad Farahani and his spouse, Fahime Rahiminia and sister of actress Shaghayegh Farahani. She started studying...
, Hassan Poorshirazi and Hedyeh Tehrani
Hedyeh Tehrani
Hedieh Tehrāni is a Crystal-Simorgh winning Iranian actress. She is most noted for willingness to play mysterious, stony-faced and cold-hearted women. She began her acting career with Masoud Kimiai's Soltan...
(also executive and assistant director) acted in this movie. The music in the movie was made by Iran's world-class musician Hossein Alizadeh
Hossein Alizadeh
Hossein Alizadeh , is an Iranian composer, radif-preserver, researcher, teacher, and tar and setar instrumentalist and improviser, described by Allmusic as a leading Iranian classical composer and musician....
.
Among other advocates of folk cinema is Iranian director Reza Allamehzadeh
Reza Allamehzadeh
Reza Allamehzadeh is a Persian-born Dutch film-maker, film critic and writer who lives in the Netherlands. He is mostly famous because of his films about refugees, such as The Guests of Hotel Astoria , and the documentary Holy Crime , which is about the murder of opposition figures in Europe by...
who trained and supported many young Kurdish directors.
Afghanistan
Cinema of Afghanistan is slowly rising after a long period of silence. Before the September 11th attacks, Iranian director Mohsen MakhmalbafMohsen Makhmalbaf
Mohsen Makhmalbaf is an Iranian film director, writer, editor, and producer. During 2007 he was the president of Asian Film Academy.Makhmalbaf's films have been widely presented in international film festivals in the past ten years. The multi-award-winning director, belongs to the new wave...
attracted world attention to Afghanistan by his celebrated movie, Kandahar. It was an attempt to tell the world about a forgotten country. The film brought cinema of Afghanistan to Cannes film festival for the first time in history. Later on, Yassamin Maleknasr
Yassamin Maleknasr
Yassamin Maleknasr is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and actress.-Career:...
, Abolfazl Jalili
Abolfazl Jalili
Abolfazl Jalili is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director. He belongs to Iranian new wave movement.Jalili studied directing at the Iranian College of Dramatic Arts, then worked for national television where he produced several children's films. His 'Det' Means Girl won prizes in...
, Samira Makhmalbaf
Samira Makhmalbaf
Samira Makhmalbaf is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and script writer. She is the daughter of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the film director and writer. Samira Makhmalbaf belongs to the New Wave movement within Iranian cinema...
, and Siddiq Barmak
Siddiq Barmak
Siddiq Barmak in Panjshir, Afghanistan, is a film director and producer. He received an M.A degree in cinema direction from the Moscow Film Institute in 1987.He has written a few screenplays and has made a few short films...
did significant contribution to Persian cinema in Afghanistan. Barmak's first Persian film Osama
Osama (film)
Osama is a 2003 film made in Afghanistan by Siddiq Barmak. It is about a girl living in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime who disguises herself as a boy, Osama, to support her family. It was the first film to be shot entirely in Afghanistan since 1996, when the Taliban régime banned the...
(2003) won several awards in Cannes and London film festivals. Siddiq Barmak is also director of the Afghan Children Education Movement (ACEM), an association that promotes literacy, culture and the arts, founded by Iranian film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Mohsen Makhmalbaf is an Iranian film director, writer, editor, and producer. During 2007 he was the president of Asian Film Academy.Makhmalbaf's films have been widely presented in international film festivals in the past ten years. The multi-award-winning director, belongs to the new wave...
. The school trains actors and directors for the emerging cinema of Afghanistan.
The situation of Afghan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
immigrants has been also addressed extensively by Iranian cinematographers. The first step in this field was taken by Mohsen Makhmalbaf in Bicycle ran in 1998. Other examples in this line are Jafar Panahi's White Balloon in 1994, Abbas Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry in 1997, Majid Majidi's Rain
Baran (film)
Baran is a 2001 Iranian film directed by Majid Majidi, based on an original script by Majid Majidi. The movie is set during recent times in which there are a large number of Afghan refugees living on the outskirts of Tehran...
and Bahram Beizaei's Killing Mad Dogs.
In 2000, Djomeh made by one of Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer. An active filmmaker since 1970, Kiarostami has been involved in over forty films, including shorts and documentaries...
's assistants, Hassan Yektapanah
Hassan Yektapanah
Hassan Yektapanah is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and screen writer.He started his career as an assistant director, first with Jafar Panahi on “The Mirror” and then on Abbas Kiarostami’s award-winning film “The Taste of Cherry” .He made his own debut as a director with Djomeh,...
; the story focuses on the plight of one of the two million young Afghan refugees in Iran
Afghans in Iran
Afghans in Iran are mostly refugees who fled Afghanistan during the 1980s Soviet war as well as diplomats, traders, businesspersons, workers, exchange students, tourists and other visitors. As of March 2009, nearly 1 million Afghan nationals were reported to be living in Iran...
without legal status. When the non-professional Afghan actor, used in this film, was invited to the Hamburg Film Festival, and then denied re-entry to Iran, his story became another film, Heaven's Path in 2002, by the architect-actor-film-maker Mahmoud Behraznia, who lives in Germany. In 2008, Mithaq Kazimi
Mithaq Kazimi
Mithaq Kazimi is a film director and producer, mostly known for his documentary film 16 Days in Afghanistan and founding member of Dawn Breakers International Film Festival...
made 16 Days in Afghanistan
16 Days in Afghanistan
16 Days in Afghanistan is a groundbreaking documentary about the journey of Afghan-American Anwar Hajher traveling to his homeland Afghanistan after 25 years to rediscover his country. The film is produced by Mithaq Kazimi and is the first documentary since the fall of Taliban to be shot in those...
which was shown in many television stations around the world.
Tajikistan
In TajikistanTajikistan
Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....
, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the internationally known Iranian movie director, is playing the same role as he played in the reconstruction of the cinema of post-Taliban Afghanistan. The first Didar Film Festival, the first film festival to be held in Tajikistan, took place in 2004. The festival and the House of Cinema of Makhmalbaf (in Iran) allocated grants for the creation of short-feature film by young and gifted filmmakers Mirzob Nugmanov, Aloviddin Abdullaev, Denis Mechetov, Shahruyor Nazari, and grant to Bakhtiyor Kakhorov for the creation of a cartoon.
In 2002, Jamshid Usmonov won FIPRESCI Prize at London film festival for his Persian language comedy, Angel on the Right.
In 2003, Iran's Film Week was held in Dushanbe
Dushanbe
-Economy:Coal, lead, and arsenic are mined nearby in the cities of Nurek and Kulob allowing for the industrialization of Dushanbe. The Nurek Dam, the world's highest as of 2008, generates 95% of Tajikistan's electricity, and another dam, the Roghun Dam, is planned on the Vakhsh River...
, Tajikistan. Several Iranian films including My Eyes for You, Last Supper, Bride, Avicenna, and Passion, went on screen at the Vatan Cinema in Dushanbe.
Tajikistan's Filmmakers Guild which is an affiliate of Moscow Filmmakers Guild, in a ceremony on August 26, 2005 held in Dushanbe's House of Cinema, presented the Guild's honorary membership to Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Makhmalbaf made two of his 18 feature films in Tajikistan: "Silence" in Persian and "Sex and Philosophy" in Russian are the titles.
Influence of Iranians on French New Wave
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
were François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
, Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
, Claude Chabrol
Claude Chabrol
Claude Chabrol was a French film director, a member of the French New Wave group of filmmakers who first came to prominence at the end of the 1950s...
and Eric Rohmer
Éric Rohmer
Éric Rohmer was a French film director, film critic, journalist, novelist, screenwriter and teacher. A figure in the post-war New Wave cinema, he was a former editor of Cahiers du cinéma....
or Barbet Schroeder
Barbet Schroeder
Barbet Schroeder is a Franco-Swiss movie director and producer who started his career in French cinema in the 1960s, working together with directors such as Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette.-Life and career:...
(born in Tehran
Tehran
Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...
, 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
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
Fereydoun Hoveyda
Fereydoun Hoveyda
Fereydoon Hoveyda was an influential Iranian diplomat, writer and thinker. He was the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations from 1971 until 1979...
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
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
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
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
Cinema. He also worked closely with Italian film director Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Rossellini was one of the directors of the Italian neorealist cinema, contributing films such as Roma città aperta to the movement.-Early life:Born in Rome, Roberto Rossellini lived on the Via Ludovisi, where Benito Mussolini had...
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
Jacques Prévert
Jacques Prévert was a French poet and screenwriter. His poems became and remain very popular in the French-speaking world, particularly in schools. Some of the movies he wrote are extremely well regarded, with Les Enfants du Paradis considered one of the greatest films of all time.-Life and...
'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
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
Jules et Jim and Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
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
Académie des beaux-arts
The Académie des Beaux-Arts is a French learned society. It is one of the five academies of the Institut de France.It was created in 1795 as the merger of the:* Académie de peinture et de sculpture...
.
Iranian Robert Hossein
Robert Hossein
Robert Hossein is a French film actor of Azeri origin, director and writer. He directed the 1982 adaption of Les Misérables, and appeared in Vice and Virtue, Le Casse, Les Uns et les Autres and Venus Beauty Institute...
(son of legendary musician Aminollah Hossein
Aminollah Hossein
André Hossein, born Aminoullah Husseinoff was a celebrated Iranian composer of Neo-Romantic music and a tar soloist residing in France....
) started his acting career with his French Armenian friend Chahnour Varinag Aznavourian (known as the famed crooner Charles Aznavour
Charles Aznavour
Charles Aznavour, OC is an Armenian-French singer, songwriter, actor, public activist and diplomat. Besides being one of France's most popular and enduring singers, he is also one of the best-known singers in the world...
) 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
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
, 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
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
. She was also to take on a courageous lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
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
Agnès Varda
Agnès Varda is a French film director and professor at the European Graduate School. Her movies, photographs, and art installations focus on documentary realism, feminist issues, and social commentary — with a distinct experimental style....
and the duo Claude Lelouch-Claude Pinoteau.
Agnès Varda
Agnès Varda
Agnès Varda is a French film director and professor at the European Graduate School. Her movies, photographs, and art installations focus on documentary realism, feminist issues, and social commentary — with a distinct experimental style....
, first to be discovered to young actor Gérard Depardieu
Gérard Depardieu
Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu is a French actor and filmmaker. He is a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite and has twice won the César Award for Best Actor...
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
Claude Pinoteau
Claude Pinoteau is a French film director and scriptwriter. Born in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts de Seine, Île-de-France, France.- Filmography :* 1971 : It Only Happens to Others...
and Claude Lelouch on the other hand shot their documentary just after the Persepolis
Persepolis
Perspolis was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire . Persepolis is situated northeast of the modern city of Shiraz in the Fars Province of modern Iran. In contemporary Persian, the site is known as Takht-e Jamshid...
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
Philippe Khorsand
Philippe Khorsand was a French actor. His father was Iranian and his mother was French. He first appeared in a number of small roles in the 1970s. One of his most memorable roles as husband and father in Tableau d'honneur .Khorsand died of a hemorrhage at the age of 59 in Paris.-External links:* *...
or Persian play writer/actor Yasmina Reza
Yasmina Reza
Yasmina Reza is a French playwright, actress, novelist and screenwriter. Her parents were both of Jewish origin, her father Iranian, her mother Hungarian.-Career:...
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 Morteza HannanehMorteza Hannaneh
Morteza Hannaneh was a well-known Persian composer and horn player.- Musical career :...
, Fariborz Lachini
Fariborz Lachini
Fariborz Lachini is a film score composer originally from Iran based in Canada.-Career:He started his career in Iran writing music for children, creating "Avaz Faslha va Rangha" at the age of 18 which caught the attention of royal family of the time. The title of national Iranian TV's children...
, Ahmad Pejman, Majid Entezami, Babak Bayat, Naser Cheshmazar and Hossein Alizadeh
Hossein Alizadeh
Hossein Alizadeh , is an Iranian composer, radif-preserver, researcher, teacher, and tar and setar instrumentalist and improviser, described by Allmusic as a leading Iranian classical composer and musician....
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 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 RosiFrancesco Rosi
Francesco Rosi is an Italian film director. He is the father of actress Carolina Rosi.-Biography:After studying Law, but hoping to study film, Rosi entered the industry as an assistant to Luchino Visconti on La Terra trema...
, Grigori Kozintsev
Grigori Kozintsev
Grigori Mikhaylovich Kozintsev was a Jewish Ukrainian, Soviet Russian theatre and film director. He was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1964.He studied in the Imperial Academy of Arts...
, Alain Tanner, Pietro Germi
Pietro Germi
Pietro Germi was an Italian actor, screenwriter, and director. Germi was born in Genoa, Liguria, to a lower-middle class family. He was a messenger and briefly attended nautical school before deciding on a career in acting.He studied acting and directing at Rome's Centro Sperimentale di...
, Nikita Mikhalkov
Nikita Mikhalkov
Nikita Sergeyevich Mikhalkov is a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, actor, and head of the Russian Cinematographers' Union.Mikhalkov was born in Moscow into the distinguished, artistic Mikhalkov family. His great grandfather was the imperial governor of Yaroslavl, whose mother was a Galitzine princess...
, Krzysztof Zanussi
Krzysztof Zanussi
Krzysztof Zanussi, is a Polish producer and film director.He is a professor of European film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland where he conducts a summer workshop...
, Martin Ritt
Martin Ritt
Martin Ritt was an American director, actor, and playwright who worked in both film and theater. He was born in New York City.-Early career and influences:...
won the festival's awards.
Fajr Film Festival
The Fajr 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.Isfahan International Festival of Films for Children & Young Adults
This festival 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.Iran Cinema Celebration Awards
On September 12, the national day of Iranian cinema, a celebration is held annually by the House of Cinema. In the 2006 event, Akira KurosawaAkira Kurosawa
was a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. Regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, Kurosawa directed 30 filmsIn 1946, Kurosawa co-directed, with Hideo Sekigawa and Kajiro Yamamoto, the feature Those Who Make Tomorrow ;...
was honored.
- 2006 Best film: Crossroad directed by Abolhassan Davudi.
- 2005 Best film: So Close, So Far directed and produced by Reza Mir-Karimi.
International recognition of Iranian cinema
Here is a list of Grand prizes awarded to Iranian cinema by the most prestigious film festivals:Cannes
First presence of Iranian cinema in Cannes dates back to 1991 when in the alleys of loveIn the Alleys of Love
In the Alleys of Love is an Iranian war film about Khorramshahr shortly after the Iran–Iraq War. Shot in colour on 35mm film it lasts 83 minutes.Khosrow Sinai wrote, directed, and produced the film and composed the music.-Film festivals:...
by Khosrow Sinai
Khosrow Sinai
Khosrow Sinai is an Iranian film director. His works are usually based on social documentations. He was the first Iranian film director to win an international prize after the Islamic revolution in Iran...
and then 1992 when Life and nothing more by Abbas Kiarostami represented Iran in the festival.
- Golden Palm: Abbas KiarostamiAbbas KiarostamiAbbas Kiarostami is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer. An active filmmaker since 1970, Kiarostami has been involved in over forty films, including shorts and documentaries...
(1997) - Jury prize: Marjane SatrapiMarjane SatrapiMarjane Satrapi is an Iranian-born French contemporary graphic novelist, illustrator, animated film director, and children's book author...
(2007) - Jury prize: Samira MakhmalbafSamira MakhmalbafSamira Makhmalbaf is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and script writer. She is the daughter of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the film director and writer. Samira Makhmalbaf belongs to the New Wave movement within Iranian cinema...
(2000 & 2003) - Golden Camera: Mohsen AmiryoussefiMohsen AmiryoussefiMohsen Amiryoussefi is a critically acclaimed Iranian film director and screenwriter.He belongs to the third generation of Iranian "New wave".-Notes:...
(2004), Hassan YektapanahHassan YektapanahHassan Yektapanah is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and screen writer.He started his career as an assistant director, first with Jafar Panahi on “The Mirror” and then on Abbas Kiarostami’s award-winning film “The Taste of Cherry” .He made his own debut as a director with Djomeh,...
(2000), Bahman GhobadiBahman GhobadiBahman Ghobadi is an Iranian film director of Kurdish ethnicity. He was born on February 1, 1969 in Baneh, Kurdistan Province. Ghobadi belongs to the so called "new wave" of Iranian cinema.-Biography:...
(2000), Jafar PanahiJafar PanahiJafar Panahi is an Iranian filmmaker and is one of the most influential filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave movement. He has gained recognition from film theorists and critics worldwide and received numerous awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Silver Bear at the...
(1995)
Venice
- Golden Lion: Jafar PanahiJafar PanahiJafar Panahi is an Iranian filmmaker and is one of the most influential filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave movement. He has gained recognition from film theorists and critics worldwide and received numerous awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Silver Bear at the...
(2000) - Silver Lion: Abolfazl JaliliAbolfazl JaliliAbolfazl Jalili is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director. He belongs to Iranian new wave movement.Jalili studied directing at the Iranian College of Dramatic Arts, then worked for national television where he produced several children's films. His 'Det' Means Girl won prizes in...
(for best direction-1995), Abbas KiarostamiAbbas KiarostamiAbbas Kiarostami is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer. An active filmmaker since 1970, Kiarostami has been involved in over forty films, including shorts and documentaries...
(Grand Jury Prize 1999), Babak PayamiBabak Payami-Biography:Born in Tehran in 1966, Baback Payami studied cinema at the University of Toronto during the early 90's. In 1998, he returned to Iran after an almost two decade to produce and direct his debut "One More Day" or “Secret Ballot”. This flim describes what happens on election day when an...
(Best Director-2001)
Berlinale
- Golden Bear: Asghar FarhadiAsghar Farhadi-Career:Asghar Farhadi is a graduate of Theatre, with a BA in Dramatic Arts and MA in Stage Direction from Tehran University and Tarbiat Modarres University. Farhadi made short 8mm and 16mm films in Isfahan branch of Iranian Young Cinema Society before moving on to writing plays and screenplays for...
(2011) - Silver Bear: Reza NajiReza NajiReza Naji is an Iranian actor and an iconic figure of Iranian cinema.Naji started his career in theater when he was a teenager. While serving in the Iranian army, he continued to perform in different roles. His first role in a film goes back to 1997 in Children of Heaven, which proved to be a...
(2008), Jafar PanahiJafar PanahiJafar Panahi is an Iranian filmmaker and is one of the most influential filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave movement. He has gained recognition from film theorists and critics worldwide and received numerous awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Silver Bear at the...
(2006), Parviz KimiaviParviz KimiaviParviz Kimiavi is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, editor and one of the most prominent figures of Persian cinema of the 20th century....
(1976), Sohrab Shahid Saless (1974), Asghar FarhadiAsghar Farhadi-Career:Asghar Farhadi is a graduate of Theatre, with a BA in Dramatic Arts and MA in Stage Direction from Tehran University and Tarbiat Modarres University. Farhadi made short 8mm and 16mm films in Isfahan branch of Iranian Young Cinema Society before moving on to writing plays and screenplays for...
(2009) [Shirin Neshat] (2009)
Locarno
The first film from Iranian cinema that won a prize in Locarno festival was khaneie doost kojast directed by Abbas Kiarostami (1989).- Golden Leopard: Saman Salvar (2006), Abbas KiarostamiAbbas KiarostamiAbbas Kiarostami is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer. An active filmmaker since 1970, Kiarostami has been involved in over forty films, including shorts and documentaries...
(2005), Jafar PanahiJafar PanahiJafar Panahi is an Iranian filmmaker and is one of the most influential filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave movement. He has gained recognition from film theorists and critics worldwide and received numerous awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Silver Bear at the...
(1997). - Silver Leopard: Hassan YektapanahHassan YektapanahHassan Yektapanah is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and screen writer.He started his career as an assistant director, first with Jafar Panahi on “The Mirror” and then on Abbas Kiarostami’s award-winning film “The Taste of Cherry” .He made his own debut as a director with Djomeh,...
(2004), Abolfazl JaliliAbolfazl JaliliAbolfazl Jalili is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director. He belongs to Iranian new wave movement.Jalili studied directing at the Iranian College of Dramatic Arts, then worked for national television where he produced several children's films. His 'Det' Means Girl won prizes in...
(1998)
London
- Sutherland Trophy: Marjane SatrapiMarjane SatrapiMarjane Satrapi is an Iranian-born French contemporary graphic novelist, illustrator, animated film director, and children's book author...
(2007), Siddiq BarmakSiddiq BarmakSiddiq Barmak in Panjshir, Afghanistan, is a film director and producer. He received an M.A degree in cinema direction from the Moscow Film Institute in 1987.He has written a few screenplays and has made a few short films...
(2003), Samira MakhmalbafSamira MakhmalbafSamira Makhmalbaf is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and script writer. She is the daughter of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the film director and writer. Samira Makhmalbaf belongs to the New Wave movement within Iranian cinema...
(1998)
San Sebastian
- Golden Shell: Bahman GhobadiBahman GhobadiBahman Ghobadi is an Iranian film director of Kurdish ethnicity. He was born on February 1, 1969 in Baneh, Kurdistan Province. Ghobadi belongs to the so called "new wave" of Iranian cinema.-Biography:...
(2004 & 2006) - Silver Shell: Niki KarimiNiki KarimiNiki Karimi , born 10 November 1971 in Tehran, is a multi-award–winning Iranian actress and movie director.- Biography :Niki Karimi was born and raised in Tehran. She participated in theatrical work while she was in elementary school. Her hobby of reading and watching movies from an early age...
(1993)
FIPRESCI
- Grand Prize: Jafar PanahiJafar PanahiJafar Panahi is an Iranian filmmaker and is one of the most influential filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave movement. He has gained recognition from film theorists and critics worldwide and received numerous awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Silver Bear at the...
(2001) - FIPRESCIFIPRESCIThe International Federation of Film Critics is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world for "the promotion and development of film culture and for the safeguarding of professional interests." It was founded in June 1930 in...
prize: Rakhshan Bani-Etemad (1995 & 1998), Abbas KiarostamiAbbas KiarostamiAbbas Kiarostami is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer. An active filmmaker since 1970, Kiarostami has been involved in over forty films, including shorts and documentaries...
(1999), Marzieh MeshkiniMarzieh MeshkiniMarzieh Meshkini is an Iranian cinematographer, film director and writer. She is married to film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf who wrote the script for her début film The Day I Became a Woman.-Honors and awards:...
(2000), Mohsen MakhmalbafMohsen MakhmalbafMohsen Makhmalbaf is an Iranian film director, writer, editor, and producer. During 2007 he was the president of Asian Film Academy.Makhmalbaf's films have been widely presented in international film festivals in the past ten years. The multi-award-winning director, belongs to the new wave...
(2001), Jamshid Usmonov (2002), Atiq Rahimi & Kambuzia PartoviKambuzia PartoviKambuzia Partovi is an Iranian filmmaker and scriptwriter.Partovi's latest movie, Café Transit, was nominated for the Oscars at 2007 to represent Iranian cinema in the competition for the best foreign language films. He has also written screenplays for other directors, most notably The Circle by...
(2004), Ramin BahraniRamin BahraniRamin Bahrani is an American director and screenwriter. Film critic Roger Ebert listed Bahrani's film Chop Shop as the 6th best film of the decade and hailed Bahrani as "the director of the decade." Bahrani was the recipient of the prestigious 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship, and was the subject of...
(2005), Kambuzia PartoviKambuzia PartoviKambuzia Partovi is an Iranian filmmaker and scriptwriter.Partovi's latest movie, Café Transit, was nominated for the Oscars at 2007 to represent Iranian cinema in the competition for the best foreign language films. He has also written screenplays for other directors, most notably The Circle by...
(2006), Bahman GhobadiBahman GhobadiBahman Ghobadi is an Iranian film director of Kurdish ethnicity. He was born on February 1, 1969 in Baneh, Kurdistan Province. Ghobadi belongs to the so called "new wave" of Iranian cinema.-Biography:...
(2000 & 2006).
Lifelong achievement awards
- Abbas Kiarostami: Prix Roberto RosselliniRoberto RosselliniRoberto Rossellini was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Rossellini was one of the directors of the Italian neorealist cinema, contributing films such as Roma città aperta to the movement.-Early life:Born in Rome, Roberto Rossellini lived on the Via Ludovisi, where Benito Mussolini had...
, Cannes Festival (1992) - Abbas Kiarostami: François Truffaut AwardFrançois TruffautFrançois Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
(1992) - Abbas Kiarostami: Honorary doctorate, École Normale SupérieureÉcole Normale SupérieureThe École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...
(2003) - Abbas Kiarostami: Federico FelliniFederico FelliniFederico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
Gold Medal, UNESCO (1997) - Behrouz GharibpourBehrouz GharibpourBehrouz Gharibpour is a renowned Iranian theatre director and pioneer of traditional Persian puppet theatre.He studied theatre at Tehran University and at Dramatic Arts Academy in Rome . He founded Tehran and Esfahan puppet theatre centres and changed the Tehran’s slaughterhouse into the greatest...
: The Hans Christian AndersenHans Christian AndersenHans Christian Andersen was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."...
Award (2002) - Abbas Kiarostami: Prix Henri LangloisHenri LangloisHenri Langlois was a French film archivist and cinephile. A pioneer of film preservation, Langlois was an influential figure in the history of cinema...
Prize (2006) - Mohsen MakhmalbafMohsen MakhmalbafMohsen Makhmalbaf is an Iranian film director, writer, editor, and producer. During 2007 he was the president of Asian Film Academy.Makhmalbaf's films have been widely presented in international film festivals in the past ten years. The multi-award-winning director, belongs to the new wave...
: Parajanov Award for outstanding Artistic contribution to the world cinema (2006) - Mohsen Makhmalbaf: Federico FelliniFederico FelliniFederico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
Gold Medal, UNESCO (2001) - Rakhshan Bani-Etemad: Prince Claus AwardsPrince Claus AwardsThe Prince Claus Fund was inaugurated in 1996, named in honor of Prince Claus of The Netherlands. It receives an annual subsidy from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs....
(1998) - Ezatolah EntezamiEzatolah Entezami-Career:Graduated from theatre and cinema school in Hanover, Germany in 1958, Entezami started his career on stage in 1941. He has been acting in movies since 1969. His debut performance in Darius Mehrjui’s admired classic film, The Cow, received the Golden Hugo in Chicago International Film...
: UNESCOUNESCOThe United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
award (2006) - Farroukh QasimFarroukh QasimFarroukh Qasim is a Tajik actor and Persian theatre director from Tajikistan. In 2004, he was a laureate of the international Prince Claus Awards for having "brought renewal to theatre in Tajikistan through his approach to the creative reworking of an eclectic repertoire".-Overview:Farroukh Qasim...
: Prince Claus AwardsPrince Claus AwardsThe Prince Claus Fund was inaugurated in 1996, named in honor of Prince Claus of The Netherlands. It receives an annual subsidy from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs....
(2004) - Behrooz Vossoughi, San Francisco International Film Festival "The Unvanquished" honoree (2006)
- Jafar PanahiJafar PanahiJafar Panahi is an Iranian filmmaker and is one of the most influential filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave movement. He has gained recognition from film theorists and critics worldwide and received numerous awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Silver Bear at the...
: Podo Award, at Valdivia Film Festival (2007)
The Annual Academy Awards (Oscar)
- 1997: Habib Zargarpour (Best Visual Effects Nominations for; Twister)
- 1997: Darius KhondjiDarius KhondjiDarius Khondji A.S.C. is an Iranian-French cinematographer. He has worked with such well-known directors as Jean-Pierre Jeunet, David Fincher, Bernardo Bertolucci, Alan Parker, Roman Polanski, Sydney Pollack, Woody Allen, and Wong Kar-wai.-Biography:...
(Best Cinematography Nomination for; EvitaEvita (film)Evita is the 1996 film adaptation of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical of the same name based on the life of Eva Perón. It was directed by Alan Parker and written by Parker and Oliver Stone. It starred Madonna, Antonio Banderas, and Jonathan Pryce...
) - 1997: Hossein AminiHossein AminiHossein Amini is an Iranian screenwriter who has been working since the 1990s. He was nominated numerous awards for the 1997 film The Wings of the Dove, including an Academy Award for Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay....
(Nomination) for The Wings of the Dove - 1998: Zahra Dowlatabadi (Nomination)
- 1999: Majid MajidiMajid MajidiMajid Majidi is an internationally and critically acclaimed Iranian film director, film producer, and screenwriter. Majidi's films have touched on many themes and genres and he has won many international awards.-Biography:...
(Best Foreign Film Nomination, Children of HeavenChildren of HeavenChildren of Heaven is a 1997 Iranian adventure comedy-drama film written and directed by Majid Majidi. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998...
) - 2001: Habib Zargarpour (Best Visual Effects for; The Perfect StormThe Perfect Storm (film)The Perfect Storm is a 2000 dramatic disaster film directed by Wolfgang Petersen. It is an adaptation of the 1997 non-fiction book of the same title by Sebastian Junger about the crew of the Andrea Gail that got caught in the Perfect Storm of 1991. The film stars George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg,...
) - 2004: Shohreh AghdashlooShohreh AghdashlooShohreh Aghdashloo is an Iranian American actress.After establishing a theatre and film career in Iran, Aghdashloo moved to England during the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and subsequently became a citizen of the United States...
(Best Supporting ActressAcademy Award for Best Supporting ActressPerformance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
Nomination, House of Sand and Fog) - 2007: Kami AsgarKami AsgarKami Asgar is an Iranian-American Supervising Sound Editor. Asgar is an industry professional and has over 60 credits as sound producer/editor in both film and television....
, (Nomination) Best Sound Editing on Mel GibsonMel GibsonMel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
's ApocalyptoApocalyptoApocalypto is a 2006 American epic action-adventure film directed by Mel Gibson. Set in Yucatan, Mexico, during the declining period of the Maya civilization, Apocalypto depicts the journey of a Mesoamerican tribesman who must escape human sacrifice and rescue his family after the capture and...
. - 2008: Marjane SatrapiMarjane SatrapiMarjane Satrapi is an Iranian-born French contemporary graphic novelist, illustrator, animated film director, and children's book author...
(Nomination) for her animation, PersepolisPersepolis (film)Persepolis is a 2007 French animated film based on Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel of the same name. The film was written and directed by Satrapi with Vincent Paronnaud. The story follows a young girl as she comes of age against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution. The story...
.
Best films of Iranian cinema
Since 1988 Iranian leading film journal, Film, has conducted a poll for selecting best films in the history of Iranian cinema (and world cinema as well). The last poll was held in September 2009 and 93 leading Iranian film critics selected their all time favorites. According to this poll, best films of Iranian cinema are:1 The Deer
Gavaznha
Gavaznha is a 1974 Iranian film directed by Masoud Kimiai.Dilip Hiro, author of Iran Under the Ayatollahs, said that the film, "passed the censors with considerable difficulty." The film was shown at the Cinema Rex; during one showing the cinema caught fire....
(1974) Masoud Kimiai
Masoud Kimiai
Masoud Kimiai is an Iranian director, screenwriter and producer. He was born in 1941 in Tehran, Iran.- Biography :Kimiai started his career as an assistant director and made his debut, Come Stranger, in 1968. With his second film, Kaiser , he and Dariush Mehrjui with The film Cow, caused a...
2 Bashu, the Little Stranger
Bashu, the Little Stranger
Bashu, the Little Stranger , is a 1986 Iranian drama film directed by Bahram Beizai. The film was produced in 1986, and was released in 1989. This multi-ethnic film was the first Iranian film to make use of the northern dialect of Persian, Gilaki, in a serious context rather than comic relief...
(1989) Bahram Beizai
3 Desiderium (1978) Ali Hatami
4 About Elly
About Elly
About Elly is a 2009 Iranian film directed by Asghar Farhadi. It is the fourth film by Farhadi. The film is about the relationship among some middle class families in Iran....
(2009) Asghar Farhadi
5 Hamoun (1990) Dariush Mehrjui
6 Strait
Strait
A strait or straits is a narrow, typically navigable channel of water that connects two larger, navigable bodies of water. It most commonly refers to a channel of water that lies between two land masses, but it may also refer to a navigable channel through a body of water that is otherwise not...
(1973) Amir Naderi
7 The Cow
The Cow
The Cow may refer to* The Cow , the second chapter of the Qur'an* "The Cow " , a 1969 Iranian film...
(1969) Dariush Mehrjui
8 Captain Khorshid
Captain Khorshid
Captain Khorshid , is a 1987 Iranian film written and directed by Nasser Taghvai. It is based on Ernest Hemingway's 1937 novel To Have and Have Not, but it moves the setting from Cuba to the south of Iran and the shores of the Persian Gulf, all the events of the film are nationalized.It is...
(1987) Naser Taghvai
9 Once Upon a Time, Cinema (1992) Mohsen Makhmalbaf
10 Tranquility in the Presence of Others (1973) Naser Taghvai
10 Kandu
Kandu
The Kandu are a Hindu caste in India, Bangladesh and Nepal. They traditionally provided parched grains and are one of the Bania castes in the Vaishya Varna. In Bihar, Kandu often use Gupta as a surname. Kandu living in Nepal are also called Kanu...
(1975) Fereydun Gole
Fereydun Gole
Fereydun Gole was an Iranian screenwriter, film director, and film editor. He was active in producing urban drama films throughout the 1970s, dealing with such issues as the social stratification of Tehran. His most famous film was Beehive...
Censorship
Although the Iranian film industry is flourishing, its filmmakers have operated under severe censorship rules, both before and after the revolution. Some Iranian films that have been internationally acclaimed are banned in Iran itself. Conversely, some Iranian filmmakers have faced hostility in other countries.Censorship within Iran
Dariush Mehrjui's seminal film GaavGaav
The Cow is a 1969 Iranian film directed by Dariush Mehrjui, written by Gholam-Hossein Saedi based on his own play and novel, and starring Ezatolah Entezami as Masht Hassan. Some believe that "New Wave" of Persian cinema emerged after this film.-Plot:...
(The Cow, 1969) is now considered a pioneering work of the Iranian New Wave. The film was sponsored by the state, but they promptly banned it upon completion because its vision of rural life clashed with the progressive image of Iran that the Shah wished to project, while its prominence at international film festivals annoyed the regime.
After the Iranian revolution
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
, filmmakers experienced even more restrictions. Several films now regarded as the seeds of a renaissance in Iranian art film
Art film
An art film is the result of filmmaking which is typically a serious, independent film aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience...
s, such as Bahram Beizai's Cherikeh-ye Tara (Ballad of Tara, 1980) and Marg-e Yazd-e Gerd (Death of Yazd-e Gerd, 1982), and Amir Naderi
Amir Naderi
Amir Naderi is a notable Iranian film director, screenwriter and one of the most influential figures of 20th-century Persian cinema. Mr Naderi is currently in Japan working on CUT, his new feature film, starring Hidetoshi Nishijima and Takako Tokiwa, due to be released in 2011.Naderi developed his...
's Jostoju (Search, 1982), were banned in Iran.
Since the mid 1980s, Iran's policy on film censorship has been changed in order to promote domestic film production: the strict censorship eased a little after December 1987. Old directors resurfaced and new ones emerged. However, the application of the rules is often inconsistent. Several films have been refused release inside Iran, but have been given export permits to enter international film festivals. Even here, the censorship is inconsistent: May Lady by Rakhshan Bani-Etemad (1998) got through but her contribution to Stories of Kish (1999) did not.
All of Jafar Panahi
Jafar Panahi
Jafar Panahi is an Iranian filmmaker and is one of the most influential filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave movement. He has gained recognition from film theorists and critics worldwide and received numerous awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Silver Bear at the...
's films, including his recent film about female football fans, Offside
Offside (film)
Offside is a 2006 Iranian film directed by Jafar Panahi, about girls who try to watch a World Cup qualifying match but are forbidden by law because of their sex. Female fans are not allowed to enter football stadiums in Iran on the grounds that there will be a high risk of violence or verbal abuse...
(2006), have been banned from public theaters in Iran. Offside was relegated to "a guest slot" at the International Fajr Film Festival. "It was not shown as an important film", says Panahi. "They didn't give any value to it."
Several of Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Mohsen Makhmalbaf is an Iranian film director, writer, editor, and producer. During 2007 he was the president of Asian Film Academy.Makhmalbaf's films have been widely presented in international film festivals in the past ten years. The multi-award-winning director, belongs to the new wave...
's films are also banned in Iran. For example, Time of Love
Time of Love
Time of Love is a 1990 film by Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, based on a story written by Makhmalbaf himself. The film consists of three episodes, all with relatively similar plots. Although categorized as an Iranian film, Time of Love was mostly shot in Istanbul, Turkey and the dialogues are...
and The night of Zaiandeh-rood were banned for dealing with physical love and for raising doubts about the revolution.
In 2001, feminist filmmaker Tahmineh Milani
Tahmineh Milani
Tahmineh Milāni is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, and producer.-Early life:Milani was born 1960 in Tabriz, Iran. Of Azeri descent, she is the wife of the Iranian actor and producer Mohammad Nikbin.- Early career :...
made The Hidden Half, which was accused of presenting the anti-revolutionary forces in a positive light. Milani was jailed and her belongings stolen. Many Iranian and international artists and filmmakers protested and demanded her release. Eventually President Khatami and the Minister of Culture were able to secure her release. Of a subsequent film, Two Women, Milani has said "[it] was banned for seven months and before I could even start on it my script was banned for seven years. It was eventually released and was a box office hit in Iran.
Among Iran's censorship rules is a ban on the depiction of women without headscarves. Joy of Madness, a documentary about the process of casting At Five in the Afternoon, was banned when Samira Makhmalbaf
Samira Makhmalbaf
Samira Makhmalbaf is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and script writer. She is the daughter of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the film director and writer. Samira Makhmalbaf belongs to the New Wave movement within Iranian cinema...
's own headscarf was deemed "insufficiently modest". Tahmineh Milani's Kakadu, which was about the environment, was banned and still cannot be seen in Iran because it depicts a beautiful eight-year-old girl who is not wearing a headscarf.
In Nargess, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad who is a pioneer of Iranian cinema, pushes censorship codes to the limits, questioning the mores of society, showing desperate people overwhelmed by social conditions and a couple living together without being married.
Abbas Kiarostami has had significant acclaim in Europe over several of his films, the Iranian government has refused to permit the showing of his films in his native Iran. Kiarostami's films have been banned in his country for more than 10 years. They are only accessible there through pirate DVDs and underground screenings. Kiarostami is uncertain what the government dislikes about his films, saying "I think they don't understand my films and so prevent them being shown just in case there is a message they don't want to get out."http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,1653441,00.html. Despite this, Kiarostami has displayed an extraordinarily benign perspective, at least in recorded interviews: "The government is not in my way, but it is not assisting me either. We lead our separate lives." Despite the censorship, Kiarostami insists on working in Iran, saying "I think I really produce my best work in Iran." He believes that throughout the ages and all over the world censorship has existed in one form or another and artists have managed to live with this, saying "Today, the most important thing is that, although there is censorship, Iranian filmmakers are doing their job and they surpass the difficulties of censorship showing and discussing many things. So why ask me about what's not in the films? It has happened many times that a filmmaker hides a weakness under the excuse of censorship but difficulties have always existed in our lifestyle and our role is to surpass them."
Hostility outside Iran
Given the tense relationship between Iran and the United States, Iranian filmmakers have faced hostility there, even if they have also been banned in their own country. Abbas Kiarostami was refused a visaVisa (document)
A visa is a document showing that a person is authorized to enter the territory for which it was issued, subject to permission of an immigration official at the time of actual entry. The authorization may be a document, but more commonly it is a stamp endorsed in the applicant's passport...
to attend the New York Film Festival
New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival has been a major film festival since it began in 1963 in New York. The films are selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center...
, Ohio University
Ohio University
Ohio University is a public university located in the Midwestern United States in Athens, Ohio, situated on an campus...
and Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in 2002, in the wake of the September 11 attacks
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
. Festival director Richard Pena
Richard Peña
Richard Peña is the American film program director of the prestigious Film Society of Lincoln Center noted for his organization of the New York Film Festival, New Directors/New Films series and Scanners .-Early life:Interested in film at a very young age, when Richard was just 12 years old, he was...
, who had invited him, said: "It's a terrible sign of what's happening in my country today that no one seems to realize or care about the kind of negative signal this sends out to the entire Muslim world". Finnish
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
film director Aki Kaurismäki
Aki Kaurismäki
-Career:After studying Media Studies at the University of Tampere, Aki Kaurismäki started his career as a co-director in the films of his elder brother Mika Kaurismäki. His debut as an independent director was Crime and Punishment , Dostoyevsky's famous crime story set in modern-day Helsinki...
boycotted the festival in protest. Similarly, Bahman Ghobadi
Bahman Ghobadi
Bahman Ghobadi is an Iranian film director of Kurdish ethnicity. He was born on February 1, 1969 in Baneh, Kurdistan Province. Ghobadi belongs to the so called "new wave" of Iranian cinema.-Biography:...
, winner of the Golden Plaque at the Chicago International Film Festival
Chicago International Film Festival
The Chicago International Film Festival is an annual film festival held every fall. Founded in 1964, it is the longest-running competitive film festival in North America....
, refused to accept the prize in protest of the U.S. government's refusal to issue him a visa. In 2007, Ahmed Issawi, the abashed Arab director of the New York South Asian Film Festival admitted that a conscious decision was made not to invite any Iranian filmmakers, saying "That's a territory I no longer want to tread [...] It's over. Given the whole thing with Iran—I refuse to approach it."
Several other Iranian film makers have experienced hostilities from other countries. In November 2001 in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, Taliban officials, who banned movies and most filmmaking, arrested three of Majid Majidi
Majid Majidi
Majid Majidi is an internationally and critically acclaimed Iranian film director, film producer, and screenwriter. Majidi's films have touched on many themes and genres and he has won many international awards.-Biography:...
's crew members who were helping him secretly shoot Barefoot to Herat
Barefoot to Herat (film)
Barefoot to Herat is a 2002 Iranian film by Majid Majidi. It is a documentary about the plight of Afghani refugees just after the 2001 military offensive against the Taliban.- Background:...
, a documentary on the country's internal refugees. Samira Makhmalbaf
Samira Makhmalbaf
Samira Makhmalbaf is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and script writer. She is the daughter of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the film director and writer. Samira Makhmalbaf belongs to the New Wave movement within Iranian cinema...
also survived a kidnapping in Afghanistan.
In March 2007, a bomb explosion severely injuring several actors and crew members halted production in Afghanistan of Two Legged Horse, the film by Iranian helmer Samira Makhmalbaf
Samira Makhmalbaf
Samira Makhmalbaf is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and script writer. She is the daughter of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the film director and writer. Samira Makhmalbaf belongs to the New Wave movement within Iranian cinema...
. Mohsen Makhmalbaf was the target of two unsuccessful murder attempts when he shot Kandahar in Iran near the Afghan border in 2000, and his daughter Hana was twice the victim of a failed abduction attempt during the shooting of Samira's last film At Five in the Afternoon in the Afghan capital Kabul in 2002.
-
-
- In May 2010 Daryush ShokofDaryush ShokofDaryush Shokof is an Iranian artist, film director, philosopher, writer, art director, and film producer, and singer...
was kidnapped by 4 terrorists in CologneCologneCologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. the world was shocked by this incident and more so for even after he was released he said to the press that has been told by his captors to stop releasing his two latest movies Iran ZendanIran ZendanIran Zendan is a feature film by Daryush Shokof about the situations of political prisoners currently in Iran. The film is a semi-documentary picture with images taken from the actual events during the mass protests of the 2009 Iranian presidential election and what happens to some of protesters...
and Hitler's Grave, or Heaven's TaxiHeaven's TaxiHitler's Grave, also known as Heavens Taxi, is a film by Daryush Shokof. The film is about an Iranian girl played by Taies Farzan who leaves Iran in order to fulfill two promises she makes to her dying brother just moments before he dies...
or else he would be killed. Iran ZendanIran ZendanIran Zendan is a feature film by Daryush Shokof about the situations of political prisoners currently in Iran. The film is a semi-documentary picture with images taken from the actual events during the mass protests of the 2009 Iranian presidential election and what happens to some of protesters...
was the first film ever to have portrayed the terrible situations of political prisoners in Iran's Prisons under the Islamic Republic of Iran in the last 30 years.
- In May 2010 Daryush Shokof
-
Shokof announced in his first press conference in Berlin on June 6, 2010 that he not only would continue to show the film(s) but that he would place the film Iran Zendan
Iran Zendan
Iran Zendan is a feature film by Daryush Shokof about the situations of political prisoners currently in Iran. The film is a semi-documentary picture with images taken from the actual events during the mass protests of the 2009 Iranian presidential election and what happens to some of protesters...
"on line" on global net for the whole world to be able to see the reality of the true face of the Islamic Republic of Iran. he delivered the promise as the entire film Iran Zendan
Iran Zendan
Iran Zendan is a feature film by Daryush Shokof about the situations of political prisoners currently in Iran. The film is a semi-documentary picture with images taken from the actual events during the mass protests of the 2009 Iranian presidential election and what happens to some of protesters...
is now on line and free of charge to be viewed world wide and under :www.stopthebomb.net or under Iran Zendan
Iran Zendan
Iran Zendan is a feature film by Daryush Shokof about the situations of political prisoners currently in Iran. The film is a semi-documentary picture with images taken from the actual events during the mass protests of the 2009 Iranian presidential election and what happens to some of protesters...
.
Iranian film critics
- Houshang GolmakaniHoushang GolmakaniHoushang Golmakani is an iranian journalist, film critic and director. He was born in Gorgan on March 23, 1954. Houshang Golmakani started his professional career in 1972 as a journalist and film critic for Tehran Economist...
- Hamid Dabashi author of Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present, Future.
- Bahman MaghsoudlouBahman MaghsoudlouBahman Maghsoudlou is a film scholar and critic,- Career :Bahman Maghsoudlou claims that he is the recipient of Iran's Forough Farrokhzad literary award for writing and editing a series of books about cinema and theater , including Iranian Cinema .Maghsoudlou wrote, directed and...
, author of “Iranian Cinema”, published in 1987 by New York University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies - Hamid Reza SadrHamid Reza SadrHamid Reza Sadr حمیدرضا صدر born 19 March 1956, is an Iranian film critic. He is well known for his columns in Film Magazine and Haft Magazine on cinema....
author of Iranian Cinema: A Political History. - Ehsan KhoshbakhtEhsan KhoshbakhtEhsan Khoshbakht is an Iranian film critic, jazz scholar and architect, though most of his writing are on western cinema. He writes for Film Monthly, Iranian International Film Quarterly, 24 Monthly, Auteurs [Mubi's notebook], Noir City Sentinel, and other online film journals.His online writings...
author of Celluloid Architecture.
See also
- Media in Iran
- Cinema of the world
- World cinemaWorld cinemaWorld cinema is a term used primarily in English language speaking countries to refer to the films and film industries of non-English speaking countries. It is therefore often used interchangeably with the term foreign film...
- Asian cinemaAsian cinemaAsian cinema refers to the film industries and films produced in the continent of Asia, and is also sometimes known as Eastern cinema. More commonly however, it is used to refer to the cinema of Eastern, Southeastern and Southern Asia. West Asian cinema is sometimes classified as part of Middle...
- Persian theatrePersian theatreTheater background in Persia goes back to antiquity . The first initiation of theater and phenomena of acting in people of the land could be traced in ceremonial theaters to glorify legendary and national heroes and humiliate the enemy like "Soug Sivash" or "Mogh Koshi" , and also dances and...
- List of Iranian films
- List of Iranian cinematographers
- List of Iranian film directors
:Category:Iranian actors
:Category:Iranian films
:Category:Iranian film directors
- International Fajr Film Festival
- Iranian film festivalIranian Film FestivalThe Iranian Film Festival is a film festival held annually in the Netherlands. Until now, the festival has taken place in Utrecht , Rotterdam , and in 2009 the festival will take place in filmtheatre De Fabriek in Zaandam....
in the Netherlands - Intellectual Movements in IranIntellectual movements in IranIntellectual movements in Iran involve the Iranian experience of modernity and its associated art, science, literature, poetry, and political structures that have been changing since the 19th century.- History of Iranian modernity :...
- Iran and copyright issuesIran and copyright issuesAccording to Circular 38a of the U.S. Copyright Office, Iran has no official copyright relations whatsoever with the United States.Published works originating in Iran thus are not copyrighted in the United States, regardless of the local copyright laws of these countries. See 17 U.S.C. § 104,...
- Bāgh-e FerdowsBagh-e FerdowsBāgh-e Ferdows , also known as Emārat-e Bāgh-e Ferdows and The Mohammadieh Palace, is a historical palace in Tajrish, Shemiran, North Tehran, between Zafaraniyeh and Jafar Ābād. It is part of a palace complex consisting of two castles, the North Castle and the South Castle, of which the former has...
, Film Museum of Iran - International rankings of Iran
- Propaganda filmPropaganda filmThe term propaganda can be defined as the ability to produce and spread fertile messages that, once sown, will germinate in large human cultures.” However, in the 20th century, a “new” propaganda emerged, which revolved around political organizations and their need to communicate messages that...
Further reading
- Umid, Jamal, Tarikh-i sinima-yi Iran : 1279-1357 / Jamal Umid = [The history of Iranian cinema] : [1900-1978] / [Jamal Omid] 1175 pages. Illustrated. Press:Teheran Rawzanah. Year:1374[1995]. Language:Persian.
- Displaced Allegories: Post-Revolutionary Iranian Cinema (Duke University Press, 2008). ISBN 978-0-8223-4275-5
- Hamid DabashiHamid DabashiHamid Dabashi born 1951 in Ahvaz is an Iranian-American Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York City.He is the author of over twenty books...
, Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present, and Future, 320 p. (Verso, London, 2001). ISBN 1-85984-332-8 - Hamid Dabashi, Masters & Masterpieces of Iranian Cinema, 451 p. (Mage Publishers, Washington, D.C., 2007) ISBN 0-934211-85-X
- Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Cinemas of the Other, Intellect (April, 2006) ISBN 978-1-84150-143-7
- Hamid Reza SadrHamid Reza SadrHamid Reza Sadr حمیدرضا صدر born 19 March 1956, is an Iranian film critic. He is well known for his columns in Film Magazine and Haft Magazine on cinema....
, Iranian Cinema: A Political History, I.B.Tauris (2006). ISBN 139781845111465 - Najmeh Khalili Mahani, Women of Iranian Popular Cinema: Projection of Progress, Offscreen, Vol. 10, Issue 7, July 31, 2006, http://www.offscreen.com/biblio/phile/essays/women_of_iran/.
External links
- mooweex : Iranian Online Cinema
- Iranian film industry thriving, Hollywood learns - CNNCNNCable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
- Encyclopedia of Iranian cinema (in Persian)
- Iranian Cinema: Before the Revolution
- Iranian New Wave (Post-1997 Cinema)
- Iranian Cinema in Western eye
- The history of Iranian cinema: Time for intellectuals
- Iranian cinema & performance arts
- Iran Film
- Iranian OSCAR: Annual Celebration of Iranian Cinema
- Kiarostami and Makhmalbaf among The world's 40 best directors
- Women of Iranian Popular Cinema
- Nantes festival director calls Iranian cinema one of world’s best
- Firouzan Films - Iranian Movie Reviews, News, Information and Trailers
- History of Cinema in Tajikistan: The Iranian influence (in Persian)
- A factual analysis of Iranian Comedies
- Review on Starting of Iranian Documentary Films
- Film: Death of Yazdgerd (Regicide) Part I
- Film: Death of Yazdgerd (Regicide) Part II
- Watch Iranian CINEMA DOCUMENTARY. The history of Iranian Cinema DOCUMENTARY
- Reza Talachian, 1984, A Brief Critical History of Iranian Feature Film (1896–1975), Iran Chamber Society.
- Film International, Iranian Film Quarterly http://www.film-international.com/faces/?showall=1
- Farabi Cinema Foundation
- Tehran International Short Film Festival
Videos
- Iran's film industry (2011 PressTV video)