Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
7/27/2019 The Development of Cinema in Iran.docx MMS
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-development-of-cinema-in-irandocx-mms 1/7
The development of cinema in Iran
- The Iranian Film Industry (or the Persian Film Industry) produces a variety of
commercial films annually.
- Iranian art films have garnered international fame and now enjoy a global outstanding
achievement.
- A range of international film festivals have honored Iranian cinema in the last twenty
years.
- Many film critics from around the world have praised Iranian cinema as one of the
world's most important artistic cinemas.
- It can be divided into two parts: 1- early Persian cinema (old) 2- contemporary
cinema
7/27/2019 The Development of Cinema in Iran.docx MMS
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-development-of-cinema-in-irandocx-mms 2/7
1. Early Persian cinema
- Came to Persia five years after its beginning of the 20th
century.
- the first Persian filmmaker was Mirza Ebrahim Khan Akkas Bashi, the official
photographer of Muzaffar al-Din Shah.
- Khan Baba Motazedi, another pioneer in Iranian motion picture photography emerged
few years later.
- In 1904, Mirza Ebrahim Khan Sahhafbashi opened the first movie theater in Tehran.
- Russi Khan, Ardeshir Khan, and Ali Vakili tried to establish new movie theaters in
Tehran.
- Until the early 1930s, there were little more than 15 theatres in Tehran and 11 in other
provinces.
- In 1925, Ovanes Ohanian, decided to establish the first film school in Iran.
- Within five years he managed to run the first session of the school under the name
"Parvareshgahe Artistiye cinema" (The Cinema Artist Educational Centre).
- Early Persian directors like Abdolhossein Sepanta and Esmail Koushan they
emphasized ethics and humanity
7/27/2019 The Development of Cinema in Iran.docx MMS
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-development-of-cinema-in-irandocx-mms 3/7
Pre-revolutionary cinema, 1950s-70s
- 1960s was a significant decade for Iranian cinema
- 25 commercial films produced annually on 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)-1965 by Siamak Yasami.
- 1969 Masoud Kimiay made Kaiser
- 1969 The Cow , directed by Darius Mehrjui
- Golrizan Festival 1954, 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 Golestan (1967)
The House of God, by Jalal Moghaddam (1966)
The Husband of Ahoo Khanom, by Davood Mollapour (1968)
7/27/2019 The Development of Cinema in Iran.docx MMS
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-development-of-cinema-in-irandocx-mms 4/7
Post-revolutionary cinema
- In the early 1970s, a New Iranian Cinema emerged (cinema motefävet ).
- -Between 1979 and 1985, only about 100 features were released
- Khomeini's censorship remained heavy- small number of features produced focused on
sexual display and western influence."
- Foreign films were cut, and then banned altogether.
- Come 1982, the annual Fajr Film Festival financed films
- The Farabi Cinema Foundation tries to reassemble the disorganized cinema
- government began to provide financial aid on next following year
- leads to participation of female directors
- The focus shifted to children overcoming obstacles: true stories, lyrical, mystical drama,real-life problems, and documentary footage.
- Excellent Iranian directors, such as Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi. Kiarostami, who
some critics regard as one of the few great directors in the history of cinema
- They planted Iran firmly on the map of world cinema when he won the Palme d'Or at the
Cannes Film Festival for Taste of Cherry in 1997.
- The continuous presence of Iranian films in prestigious international festivals such as
the Cannes Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival, and the Berlin Film Festival attracted
world attention to Iranian masterpieces.
- 1997, the newly elected president, Mohammed Khatemi, would eventually come to play a
role in helping filmmakers achieve a certain degree of artistic freedom.
- 1998 Iranian government began to fund ethnic cinema.
- 2001 the number of features produced in Iran rose to 87
- In 2006, six Iranian films, of six different styles, represented Iranian cinema at the Berlin
Film Festival -Critics considered this a remarkable event in the history of Iranian cinema
- In particular the film industry got momentum in Iranian Kurdistan
- emergence of filmmakers such as Bahman Ghobadi, Ali-Reza Rezai, Khosret Ressoul
and many other younger filmmakers.
7/27/2019 The Development of Cinema in Iran.docx MMS
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-development-of-cinema-in-irandocx-mms 5/7
2. Contemporary Iranian cinema
- the Iranian box office is dominated by commercial Iranian films
- Uncensored versions are easily available in black markets
- Box office screened film in Iran- 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.
- 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 as in
Mother , Glass Agency, Charlatan and Killing Mad Dogs were among the post-revolutionary
films that gained the highest box office records.
- the most visible face of Iranian commercial cinema was Mohammad Ali Fardin
7/27/2019 The Development of Cinema in Iran.docx MMS
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-development-of-cinema-in-irandocx-mms 6/7
- He came to be considered an embarrassment to Iranian national identity and his films
were banned.
- Before Fardin,, Iran simply did not have a commercial cinema.[25]
- the Iranian government disdains American cinema
- 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, Alpha and Omega, Casino Royale, The Mechanic, and The Aviator have been
screened in Iranian cinemas and Iranian film festivals since the revolution.
- Western cinema is enormously popular among Iran's young people, and practically every
recent Hollywood film is available on CD, DVD, or video
- Indian cinema is relatively popular among the Iranian people
- Last eight years there is no film from any Arab countries screened in Iran.
- However, 6-8 hollywood films make it to Iranian theatres each year.
7/27/2019 The Development of Cinema in Iran.docx MMS
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-development-of-cinema-in-irandocx-mms 7/7
Iranian women’s cinema
- 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
- Samira Makhmalbaf directed her first film, The Apple
- was only 17 years old and won the Cannes Jury Prize in 2000 for her following film The
Blackboard .
- Internationally recognized figures in Iranian women's cinema are:-
- Samira Makhmalbaf
- Rakhshan Bani-Etemad
- Pouran Derakhshandeh
- Niki Karimi
- Mahin Oskouei
- Pari Saberi
- Tahmineh Milani
- Marzieh Meshkini- Hana Makhmalbaf
