cinema2020

Iran

CINEMATOGRAPHY

The first examples of cinema arrived at the beginning of the twentieth century, introduced by the official photographers of the royal house, who were commissioned by the shāh to document the activity of the sovereigns and religious rites and then project the short films to the court dignitaries, in occasion of official ceremonies. If the first film shot in I. (but developed and screened only years later in Russia) is due to Mehdi Rusi Khan, a photographer of Russian origin who in 1896 filmed the coronation of Mozzafer al-Din Shah, the first Iranian to use a camera was Mirza Ebrahim Khan 'Akkas-Bashi, who, following the shāh Mozzaffer during a trip to Europe, shot some images at the Ostend flower market on 18 August 1900. This film, believed to be lost, was instead found in the Golestan palace in Tehran, and used by Mohsen Makhmalbaf in his Gozide-ye tasāvir-e dorān-e Qājār (1992, Selected images of the Qajar era). Instead, the antiquarian Ebrahim Khan Sahhaf Bashi was responsible for opening the first public cinema hall in 1902, an arena set up in the courtyard of his shop mainly for the use of high society in Tehran, which was only inaugurated in 1905, by the same antique dealer, a real cinema, intended for the projection of films purchased in the West.

These were the beginnings of the Iranian film industry which, thanks to the considerable favor of the public, developed into a series of increasingly better equipped cinemas and which slowly began to spread from the capital to the provinces as well. An industrial sketch which, moreover, had to face both the opposition of the Islamic religious hierarchy and the social and cultural backwardness of the country. In this context, the first Iranian to shoot, albeit for private use, fiction films using family and friends was Khan Bab Khan Mo'tazedi, an engineer trained in Paris who had worked for Gaumont and was appointed official photographer of Reza Khan, the new shāh d'I. that in 1921, with a coup,

Aside from Mo'tazedi's attempts, Iranian production continued to be documentary in nature, making most of the films shown in Tehran's theaters import US and European. It was however thanks to the collaboration of Mo'tazedi as a photographer that in 1930 the first Iranian film was made, silent and in black and white, Avani Ohanian's Ābi va Rābi (Abi and Rabi), an Armenian who, arrived in Tehran after having studied at the Moscow Film Academy, he founded the first Iranian film school. The film, the film of which is not preserved, was shot by Ohanian with his students, and consisted of a series of skits centered around two comic characters, one tall and thin, the other short and fat. The extraordinary success obtained pushed the director to shoot a second film in 1932, Hāji Āqā, aktor-e sinemā (Haji Aqa, film actor), in which, through the story of a severe and reactionary father grappling with his daughter who studies secretly acting, the contempt for cinema nourished in Iranian religious circles is stigmatized. This film, however, did not meet the favor of the public and Ohanian left the country to move to India. The success of the attempt to promote an Iranian production made by Ebrahim Moradi which, in addition to seeing his first film fail, due to technical difficulties, namely Enteqām-e barādar (1932, Revenge of his brother), which was filming on the Caspian Sea, he had to face the failure of Bolhavas (1933, The sensual man), in which,

These were still silent productions, which suffered from the comparison with foreign films, already sound, of which, in the meantime, the Iranian public had learned to appreciate the qualities. The structural limitations of the small Iranian film industry did not allow for further efforts; in fact when in 1933 the first sound film in Farsi language was titled Dokhtar-e Lor (The Lor girl) by Ardeshir Irani, it was actually produced in Bombay and written by the Iranian poet who emigrated to India, 'Abdol-Hosein Sepanta, who he was also its interpreter. The success of the film - a melodramatic adventure that pits a government agent against a bandit, both interested in a beautiful waitress - pushed Sepanta to always make four more films in India, inspired by epic literature: Ferdowsi (1934), biography of the Iranian epic poet; Shirin va Farhād (1935, Shirin and Farhad), melodramatic love story; Chashmhā-ye siāh (1935, Black eyes), still a love story, but with a historical background, and Leyli va Majnun (1936, Layla and Majnun), on the union of two young people tragically opposed by families. The success at home was not enough for Sepanta to convince the government to grant him his support when, in 1936, he returned to I. with the intention of starting a modern film production. The situation did not improve in the following years, which indeed saw Iranian screens increasingly invaded by foreign films, especially US, due to the dual occupation of the country by Allied Anglo-Russian troops. love; Chashmhā-ye siāh (1935, Black eyes), still a love story, but with a historical background, and Leyli va Majnun (1936, Layla and Majnun), on the union of two young people tragically opposed by families. The success at home was not enough for Sepanta to convince the government to grant him his support when, in 1936, he returned to I. with the intention of starting a modern film production. The situation did not improve in the following years, which indeed saw Iranian screens increasingly invaded by foreign films, especially US, due to the dual occupation of the country by Allied Anglo-Russian troops. love; Chashmhā-ye siāh (1935, Black eyes), still a love story, but with a historical background, and Leyli va Majnun (1936, Layla and Majnun), on the union of two young people tragically opposed by families. The success at home was not enough for Sepanta to convince the government to give him his support when, in 1936, he returned to I. with the intention of starting a modern film production. The situation did not improve in the following years, which indeed saw Iranian screens increasingly invaded by foreign films, especially US, due to the dual occupation of the country by Allied Anglo-Russian troops. union of two young people tragically opposed by families. The success at home was not enough for Sepanta to convince the government to give him his support when, in 1936, he returned to I. with the intention of starting a modern film production. The situation did not improve in the following years, which indeed saw Iranian screens increasingly invaded by foreign films, especially US, due to the dual occupation of the country by Allied Anglo-Russian troops. union of two young people tragically opposed by families. The success at home was not enough for Sepanta to convince the government to give him his support when, in 1936, he returned to I. with the intention of starting a modern film production. The situation did not improve in the following years, which indeed saw Iranian screens increasingly invaded by foreign films, especially US, due to the dual occupation of the country by Allied Anglo-Russian troops.

It was paradoxically the increasingly widespread practice of dubbing foreign films in the late 1940s to give a new push to national production. One of the main architects was Esma'il Kushan who, after having achieved considerable success by importing foreign films dubbed into Turkey in I., in 1948 he founded a production company in his country, with which he made the first sound film shot in I., Tufān-e zendegi (1948, The storm of life) directed by the famous theater actor Ali Daryabegi. The scant success of the film, a family drama focused on the practice of combining weddings, did not discourage Kushan, who thus began to produce clearly popular works such as the musical comedy, Variete-ye bahāri (1949, Spring Variety), and above all melodrama, Sharmsār (1950, Shame), meeting the favor of the public. They were the prodromes of an Iranian commercial cinema which, with genre works (mainly dramas and melodramas, but also comedies, detective films and adventure films) with a popular and not infrequently inspired system inspired by the great successes of Western cinema (of which were practically unauthorized remakes), allowed the start in the fifties and the consolidation in the sixties of a particularly flourishing season, during which the production companies multiplied and the number of films produced began to increase tenfold. However, there was no shortage of directors who attempted to create a cinema of refined artistic quality and of more authentic social and cultural significance. Farrokh Ghaffari, e.g. after studying cinema in Paris, she returned home where she made Jonub-e shahr (1958, The South of the city), a realistic portrait of the difficulties faced by a woman to survive the death of her husband; and Shab-e quzi (1964, The Night of the Hunchback), a film with episodes of underworld setting, inspired by some tales of the Thousand and One Nights, only to return to being talked about only in 1976 with the historian Zanburak (L ' gunner). Like Ghaffari, Ebrahim Golestan also came from documentary cinema (Yek ātash, 1961, Un fuoco, and Tappehā-ye Marlik, 1963, The hills of Marlik) and stood out for the realism of Khesht va ayene (1964, The brick and the mirror) and later for Asrār-e ganj-e darre-ye jenni (1974, The secrets of the treasure of the valley of the demons): works of great rigor, which were also successful in international festivals,

The situation only matured in the late sixties, when a group of young directors, mostly trained abroad, recognized themselves in the current of the Nouvelle vague, opening themselves to new thematic and artistic perspectives. A movement was formed which - also taking advantage of the propitious moment offered by the government's most available attitude towards cinema, following the reform program launched by the shāh in 1963 - produced a series of works in which human issues were addressed and social with more marked psychological truth and figurative significance, although often forced to indulge in a marked symbolism in order to escape the still tight links of censorship. Notable authors include the names of Dariyush Mehrju'i, Mas'ud Kimiya'i, Naser Taqva ' ie above all Amir Naderi and Bahram Beyza'i. Graduating in philosophy in the United States, Mehrju'i made his debut with the excellent detective Almās-e 33 (1967, Diamante 33), but stood out both at home and abroad by winning the Fipresci prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1970 with Gāv (1969, La vacca), written with the collaboration of the well-known Iranian writer Gholam Hosein Sa'edi. A rural drama dedicated to the hard life of a farmer who sees a cow die, his only source of livelihood, the film was opposed by censorship, which did not like the image of the country offered to the international audience. This did not prevent Mehrju'i from making Postchi (The Postman) in 1972, in which, through the history of a civil servant, a critical cross-section of the contradictions inherent in the forced development to which the country was subjected to by neo-colonialism is offered, and Dāyere-ye minā (1974, The Blue Circle), dedicated to the social drama of health care. Kimiya'i prevailed with Qeysar (1969), considered one of the most important films of Iranian cinema, and Khāk (1973, Terra), dedicated to the relationship between peasants, their fields and landowners, which were followed by numerous other works that, strong of a poetics based on the representation of urban marginalization and on the comparison between individual dramas and mass movements, they placed the director in the group of the most representative authors of the period, only to find him marginalized in the post-revolutionary period. Taqva'i, already known for his documentary work and especially for some short films, was imposed with the debut feature Ārāmesh dar hozur-e digarān (1972, Calma in the presence of others), an acute reflection on the scourge of corruption told through the character of an army general, which was followed by intense activity both in the cinema both on television. But it was Naderi and Beyza'i who represented the highest expressive possibilities of the Iranian nouvelle vague. Naderi concretized in his works a pure cinematographic instinct destined to represent the destiny of struggle and resistance in the solitude of men. His work went from an acutely realistic initial phase characterized by films such as Khodā hāfez rafiq (1971, Goodbye friend) and Tangnā (1973, The Dead End) to a second symbolic and impressionist season (Davande, 1985, The runner; Āb, bād , khāk, 1987, water, wind, land). Subsequently he moved to the United States where he continued to create works of considerable value. Beyza'i, writer, scholar, theater man, one of the main names in Iranian cinema, after making himself known with the short film Safar (1972, Journey), stood out for his ability to combine the themes of Persian culture with a glance cinematically very intense and a sincere communicativeness. Among his works Ragbār (1972, Acquazzone), debut film and realistic lunge on life in Tehran seen through the eyes of a master; Gharibe va me (1975, The stranger and the fog), set in a small seaside village tight in the grip of intolerance; Kalāgh (1976, Il corvo), the story of a journalist who carries out a television investigation on a missing girl; and Cherike-ye Tārā (1978, The Ballad of Tara), an adventurous fairy tale about an ancient sword inherited from a woman. Beyza'i was able to keep his inspiration even after the 1979 revolution, as evidenced by the later Bashu, gharibe-ye kuchek (1988; Bashu, the little foreigner), still an intense drama focused on the theme of intolerance lived on background of the conflict with Iraq through the relationship that is being established between a mother from a northern village and an orphan of war adopted against her will.

The flourishing of authors and works related to the movement of the nouvelle vague, which coincided with the period of greatest development of the national film industry (in 1972 90 films were produced, about 400 cinemas were active and the spectators exceeded 100 million), however, represented a marginal phenomenon in the context of Iranian production, which remained otherwise dominated by genre films intended for a popular audience. But the galloping inflation that weighed on the country did not fail to make its negative effects felt also on the film industry which, starting from 1976, began to show serious signs of crisis, drastically decreasing production in favor of a new increase in the distribution of foreign films. The authors of the nouvelle vague (already largely organized in an autonomous cooperative, after the resignation from the single trade union of show business workers resigned by many in 1974 in protest against the government's cultural policy) tried not to fail in their commitment , as evidenced by works such as Bāgh-e sangi (1976, The garden of stones) by Parviz Kimiavi, the story of an old fanatic who creates a garden of stones to offer to God, and Khāk-e sar be-mohr (1977, La terra sealed) by newcomer Marva Nabili, a realist drama about the life of a young peasant woman in a village of rigid Muslim faith. It was in this period, moreover, that a personality emerged destined to have a prominent role in Iranian cinema: after the resignation from the single union of show business workers resigned by many in 1974 as a protest against the government's cultural policy) they tried not to fail in their commitment, as evidenced by works such as Bāgh-e sangi (1976, The garden of stones ) by Parviz Kimiavi, the story of an old fanatic who creates a garden of stones to offer to God, and Khāk-e sar be-mohr (1977, The sealed land) by debutant Marva Nabili, a realistic drama about the life of a young peasant woman in a village of strict Muslim faith. It was in this period, moreover, that a personality emerged destined to have a prominent role in Iranian cinema: after the resignation from the single union of show business workers resigned by many in 1974 as a protest against the government's cultural policy) they tried not to fail in their commitment, as evidenced by works such as Bāgh-e sangi (1976, The garden of stones ) by Parviz Kimiavi, the story of an old fanatic who creates a garden of stones to offer to God, and Khāk-e sar be-mohr (1977, The sealed land) by debutant Marva Nabili, a realistic drama about the life of a young peasant woman in a village of strict Muslim faith. It was in this period, moreover, that a personality emerged destined to have a prominent role in Iranian cinema: as evidenced by works such as Bāgh-e sangi (1976, The garden of stones) by Parviz Kimiavi, the story of an old fanatic who creates a garden of stones to offer to God, and Khāk-e sar be-mohr (1977, The sealed earth ) by newcomer Marva Nabili, a realist drama about the life of a young peasant woman in a village of rigid Muslim faith. It was in this period, moreover, that a personality emerged destined to have a prominent role in Iranian cinema: as evidenced by works such as Bāgh-e sangi (1976, The garden of stones) by Parviz Kimiavi, the story of an old fanatic who creates a garden of stones to offer to God, and Khāk-e sar be-mohr (1977, The sealed earth ) by newcomer Marva Nabili, a realist drama about the life of a young peasant woman in a village of rigid Muslim faith. It was in this period, moreover, that a personality emerged destined to have a prominent role in Iranian cinema:Abbas Kiarostami. Working initially for the Institute for the intellectual development of children and adolescents, he immediately became noted for the realistic tension that characterized his works made with non-professional actors. His second work, Gozāresh (1977, The report), introduced I. for the first time the direct taking of sound. But his cinema is mainly due to the intuition of the poetic possibilities inherent in the simple representation of the childhood universe, which characterizes his works of the eighties (Khāne-ye dust kojāst ?, 1987, Where is my friend's house?) and then the expression of a clear aesthetic of interiority based on the representation of the most intimate truth of life in films such as Namā-ye nazdik (1990; Close up), Zir-e derakhtān-e zeytun (1994; Under the olive trees) and Ta '

The flare-up of the popular uprising against the shāh regime and the 1979 revolution, which brought I. to become an Islamic Republic led by the Ayatollāh Khomeyni, they also had repercussions on cinema, which saw the production prospects and artistic freedoms change due to the repression exercised by the censorship bodies imposed by the new regime. In this climate, if some directors of the nouvelle vague preferred to expatriate (F. Ghaffari, E. Golestan, P. Kimiavi, later also A. Naderi), others found ways to adapt to the changed conditions, giving life - especially starting from the late the eighties, when the production structure was consolidated again - to a new season of Iranian cinema, prolific of works and authors always able to impose themselves on the attention of international critics: in fact a first phase, marked by the refusal of the western world, in which authors and works adhering to post-revolutionary dictates were overcome (while censorship unlocked and placed on the market films made before 1979), Iranian cinema found a productive and expressive formula that knew how to regenerate both its industrial structure and its authors. A certain balance was restored in the international relations, thanks to the moderately reforming policy of the new president Ali Rafsanjani, elected in 1989, and the disappearance of Khomeyni, the I. he has been able to make his cinema a bridge to the western world. Between the eighties and nineties, a group of authors has gained international recognition and has won prizes in all the main festivals, so much as to constitute an authentic cultural case for a West increasingly fascinated by a series of works suspended between metaphorical realism and metaphysical lyricism. Among these authors, he proved to be particularly representativeMohsen Makhmalbaf, a prestigious figure abroad as loved by the public at home. A full expression of post-revolutionary culture, this director has been able to modulate his cinema on increasingly rigorous solutions, going from the metaphorical roar of his first successes - Dastforush (1986; L'ambulante) and Baysikelran (1988; Il ciclista) - to the aesthetic rarefaction of his last, more ambitious works: Gabbe (1995), Nun va goldun (1995; Bread and flower), Sokout (1998; Silence), Safar-e Qandahār (2001; Journey to Kandahar). Makhmalbaf founded, in the nineties, a film school which is also a production company, aimed at guaranteeing independence to the authors who work there. In this context, the director's daughter, Samira Makhmalbaf, made her debut, who, after Sib (1998; La mela), this author has shown that she knows how to combine humor and drama by letting emerge in the absurd tones of the events that tells an intelligent analysis of the relationships of power. Always careful to grasp the human dynamics taking place in suburban backgrounds, Bani-Etemad has made her masterpiece with Nargess (1992, Narciso), a daring melodrama that tells a love triangle between a thief, a fatal woman and an honest young woman . He then confirmed the high level of his inspiration with Zir-e pust-e shahr (2001, Under the skin of the city), an interweaving of dreams of escape abroad and the need for resignation in the heart of a Tehran family. directors who established themselves in the nineties of particular importance Jafar Panahi who, in addition to a series of short films, he has made three films welcomed with interest by international critics and awarded at festivals: Bādkonak-e sefid (1995; The white balloon), Ayne (1997, The mirror), Dāyere (2000; The circle), winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and Babak Payami, who returned to Tehran after studying in Canada, successfully made his debut in 1998 with Yek ruz bishtar (2000, One day more) - a story of a secret love told through the city streets - and obtained recognition in Venice with the subsequent Rāy-e makhfi (2001; The vote is secret), set in a remote area of ​​I. on election day, following the journey of an employee to collect the ballot papers. The Circle), winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and Babak Payami, who returned to Tehran after studying in Canada and made his successful debut in 1998 with Yek ruz bishtar (2000, One more day) - story of a secret love told through the city streets - and obtained recognition in Venice with the subsequent Rāy-e makhfi (2001; The vote is secret), set in a remote area of ​​the I. on election day, following the journey of an employee to collect the ballot papers. The Circle), winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and Babak Payami, who returned to Tehran after studying in Canada and made his successful debut in 1998 with Yek ruz bishtar (2000, One more day) - story of a secret love told through the city streets - and obtained recognition in Venice with the subsequent Rāy-e makhfi (2001; The vote is secret), set in a remote area of ​​the I. on election day, following the journey of an employee to collect the ballot papers. One more day) - the story of a secret love told through the city streets - and he obtained recognition in Venice with the subsequent Rāy-e makhfi (2001; The vote is secret), set in a remote area of ​​I. on election day, following the journey of an employee to collect the ballot papers. One more day) - the story of a secret love told through the city streets - and he obtained recognition in Venice with the subsequent Rāy-e makhfi (2001; The vote is secret), set in a remote area of ​​I. on election day, following the journey of an employee to collect the ballot papers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

F. Ghaffari, Le cinéma en Iran , Tehran 1973.

B. Maghsoudlou , Iranian cinema , New York 1987.

Iran and its screens , curated by F. Bono, Venice 1990.

Y. Thoraval, Les cinémas du Moyen-Orient. Iran-Egypte-Turquie , Paris 2000.

Middle Eastern and North African film, ed. O. Leaman, London-New York 2001, pp. 130-222.