Films & Theme

The various Iranian films that will be showcased at the Understanding Persian Culture through Film online film festival bear witness to the dynamism and versatility of modern Iranian cinema. The films selected for showing deal with four important themes – Persian Film History, Ordinary Lives of the People, Women in Film and Society and City in Contemporary Society. One dominant and overarching concept that unites all these themes is what I term the social imaginary. The social imaginary serves to foreground the background to our thinking and action in society.

Read more of Iranian Cinema and the Social Imaginary
By: Dr. Wimal Dissanayake

1. Contemporary Society as Seen in the City

Introduced By: Dr. Kaveh Ehsani

Modern Iranian cinema has been obsessed with the city! Urban life, or its idealized other – ‘idyllic rural life’ – is the ever-present, but often subconscious backdrop framing many of the socially conscious contemporary Iranian films. The dynamic/stressful city as the realm of dislocation and anxiety, of insecurity, of cold and indifferent anonymity, of relentless change, or as the setting for intense personal and social relationships in search of resolutions, provides a unique window into the complex dynamics of Iranian society.

2. Ordinary Lives: Specific yet Universal

Introduced By: Mohammad Attebai

Movies have been among few phenomena that could best reflect the less known aspects and layers of Iranian society to international audiences in past 40 years. Ordinary people have played the leading roles in most of Iranian films, whether mainstream or art and independent feature productions in last decades. Due to restrictions and limitations, as well as social issues, the Iranian filmmakers, resorted to the lower and middle class people, whether rural or urban, as their main characters in the movies.

Though most pre-revolutionary films and post-revolutionary propaganda movies provided a distorted image of Iranian women, the art films depicted realistic beings that took steps to overcome their side and marginal roles. In the past decade, the young generation has turned to be the main character of many Iranian films. While the population rate increased dramatically in the first years after the revolution in Iran, one can witness the presence of these young, educated and intelligent people and their social and political demands in the movies.

3. Persian Film History

Introduced By: Alissa Simon

From a mere 15 features in 1982, Iranian production has grown to nearly 60 titles per year. By no means do all these belong on the international arthouse circuit. Most are contemporary melodramas, light comedies, moral tales for children, historical epics, and films about the Iran-Iraq war. Nevertheless, when one looks back over the past 29 years, the number of Iran’s world class films and filmmakers astounds.

We are lucky to have 7 films by Dariush Mehrjui available to stream right now as part of the “Understanding Persian Culture Through Film Project”. These represent a good selection of his work both before and after the Revolution and range from sophisticated adult dramas adapted from foreign literature, pointed satires, and searing social critiques.

4. Women in Film and Society

Introduced By: Dr. Norma Claire Moruzzi

The ‘New Wave’ of post-revolutionary Iranian cinema started in the 1980s, notably with films that utilized child protagonists to explore current social issues. But where there are children, there are women, and many filmmakers began to focus sympathetically on women’s roles and choices, initially as family members, and then as individuals in a modern society in which no one’s role is fixed. Politically imposed restrictions on women’s appearance in public have created particular constraints and opportunities for creative cinematic expression, reflecting the ingenuity with which ordinary Iranian women engage their daily life.