Iranian National Cinema: The Interaction of Policy, Genre, Funding, and Reception 9780367219413, 9780429268878

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Iranian National Cinema

This book examines transformations in the production and domestic and international reception of Iranian cinema between 2000 and 2013 through the intersection of the political markers – the presidential terms of reformist President Mohammad Khatami and his successor, the conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – and filmic markers, particularly Jafar Panahi’s The Circle (2000) and Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly (2009). Through extensive field and media research, the book considers the interaction of a range of factors, including government policy, Iranian national cinema genres and categories, intended audience, funding sources, and domestic and international reception, to demonstrate the interplay between filmmakers and the government over these two successive presidencies. While the impact of politics on Iranian filmmaking has been widely examined, this work argues for a more nuanced understanding of politics in and of the Iranian cinema than has generally been previously acknowledged. Drawing on both personal experience as a juror at the Fajr International Film festival and interviews with significant filmmakers, producers, actors and other industry insiders, including senior bureaucrats and politicians, the volume is a key resource for anyone interested in politics and Iranian cinema. Anne Démy-Geroe was the inaugural Artistic Director of the Brisbane International Film Festival for eighteen years and for seven years a co-director at the Iranian Film Festival Australia. A vice president of NETPAC, an inaugural member of the Asia Pacific Screen Awards Nominations Council, and a director of the Asia Pacific Screen Lab, she was awarded an Australian Centenary Medal for services to the film industry in 2003. She now lectures on Asia Pacific cinema at Griffith Film School, Griffith University, Australia.

Iranian Studies Edited by Homa Katouzian University of Oxford

Mohamad Tavakoli University of Toronto

Since 1967 the International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS) has been a leading learned society for the advancement of new approaches in the study of Iranian society, history, culture, and literature. The new ISIS Iranian Studies series published by Routledge will provide a venue for the publication of original and innovative scholarly works in all areas of Iranian and Persianate Studies. Popular Iranian Cinema before the Revolution Family and Nation in Filmfarsi Pedram Partovi Persian Literature and Modernity Production and Reception Edited by Hamid Rezaei Yazdi and Arshavez Mozafari Rival Conceptions of Freedom in Modern Iran An Intellectual History of the Constitutional Revolution Ahmad Hashemi Iran and Palestine Past, Present, Future Seyed Ali Alavi Persian Calligraphy A Corpus Study of Letterforms Mahdiyeh Meidani Iranian National Cinema The Interaction of Policy, Genre, Funding, and Reception Anne Démy-Geroe For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ middleeaststudies/series/IRST

Iranian National Cinema The Interaction of Policy, Genre, Funding, and Reception

Anne Démy-Geroe

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Anne Démy-Geroe The right of Anne Démy-Geroe to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-367-21941-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-26887-8 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Dancing is not just getting up painlessly, like a leaf blown on the wind; dancing is when you tear your heart out and rise out of your body to hang suspended between the worlds. Rumi

Contents

List of illustrations Acknowledgements Glossary and abbreviations Introduction 1

viii ix xi 1

Making “constructive” films: generic themes and modulations

16

2

Iranian cinema means the middle classes

40

3

New Iranian cinema and the international festivals

73

4

Film festivals and festival films: an Iranian perspective

103

5

Cinema is a weapon: combatting the soft war

121

6

Culture is not a form of entertainment

153

Conclusion: our art will remain the same

173

Bibliography Filmography 193 Index

182 199

Illustrations

Figures 1.1 Actress Fatimeh Motamed Ariya with Adnan Afravian, the titular lead of Bashu the Little Stranger (1987) in his hometown of Ahvaz, February 2015. 1.2 Producer Fereshteh Taerpour with cast, crew and IFFA co-director and author at a reception in Tehran on 14 February 2013 to present the IFFA Audience Award to Facing Mirrors. 1.3 Sacred Defence Display in the Cinema Museum 31 January 2011. 2.1 and 2.2 Some of the international awards for Offside on display in the Cinema Museum, 21 April 2019. 3.1 Jafar Panahi at home with “Iggy”, the chameleon featured in This is Not a Film, 4 March 2011. 3.2 Navid Mohammadzadeh, and far right Amir Jadidi with Festival co-Directors, Armin Miladi, far left, and the author at the Iranian Film Festival Australia. 3.3 Asghar Farhadi in his office with the author in 2011. 5.1 and 5.2 Collateral for the Hollywoodism conference held annually at Fajr International Film Festival between 2011 and 2013. Poster, February 2011 and banner, February 2013. 5.3 At the opening night of the Fajr International Film Festival, 8 February 2011. 5.4 and 5.5 Legal sell-through DVDs from corner grocery stores was instigated in 2010. Photographs from February and November 2011. 6.1 Street banners were a relatively new initiative when Maritime Silk Road was released, Tehran, 30 October 2011. 6.2 On the location of Muhammad: Messenger of God with Majid Majidi, 13 February 2013.

19

21 26 46 88 92 101 132 138 150 164 168

Table 0.1 Table of Filmic Markers 1997–2013 All photographs by the author.

6

Acknowledgements

My serious engagement with Iranian cinema began nearly two decades ago when, as the Artistic Director of the Brisbane International Film Festival, I was invited to Fajr International Film Festival. I was fortunate to be invited many more times. My thanks to Amir Esfandieri, then in charge of Farabi Cinema Foundation’s international affairs, and Kamyar Mosenin, not only for this incredible opportunity but for their unceasing patience under my annual barrage of questions. In those eighteen years I moved from curating to academia by way of a PhD (which became this book) and many supported that transition. Firstly Frances Bonner, University of Queensland, who agreed to be the principal supervisor of my PhD, despite being a friend, and who made the whole process such a pleasure. I am grateful that Tom O’Regan agreed to be my associate supervisor, making some very insightful contributions to my thought process. Further support for this work has come from a wide group of international colleagues embracing both festivals and academia: Philip Cheah, Roger Crittenden, Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Klaus Eder, Gary Ellis, Marc Innes-Brown, Dina Iordanova and Blake Atwood, Jeannette Hereniko, Michele Langford, Adrian Martin, Armin Miladi, Bruce Molloy, Julie Rigg, Jack Sargeant, Susan Scollay, Clare Stewart, Vahed Vahid, Herman Van Eyken, Aruna Vasudev, Maxine Williamson, and so many more. Many members of the Iranian film industry have been very generous with their friendship and help in informing the content and my understanding. Sometimes this took the form of extensive interviews; on many occasions, it was informal discussions or conversations undertaken during the course of my research in Tehran or at other festivals or film events internationally. I would like to single out for their help Asghar Farhadi, Ali Ghasemi, Houshang Golmakhani, Abbas Kiarostami, Majid Majidi, Tahmineh Milani, Fatemeh Motamed Arya, Mohammad Nikbin, Jafar Panahi, Hamed Reza Sadr, Katayoun Shahabi, Kaveh Shahmalou, Alireza Shahrokhi, and Reza Tashikori. I spoke with many more who were generous with their time, including those who wish to remain anonymous. Festivals and other institutions include Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Asia Pacific Screen Awards, Berlinale, Brisbane International Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, Fajr International Film Festival, Farabi Cinema Foundation, Griffith Film

x Acknowledgements School, International Film Festival Kerala, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema, and Shangri La Centre for Islamic Arts and Culture. A special thank you to Mohammad Atebba’i for his patience and his generous sharing of information, knowledge, opinions, and films over nearly two decades. My parents, Pat and Trevor Byatt, have always demonstrated such great faith in me and encouraged my work; I regret that Trevor did not live to see this book published. Finally, to Alireza Ghanie, without whom I would never have sustained my enthusiasm and commitment, I dedicate this work. My sincerest hope is that as a non-Iranian, I have been able to reach some kind of ‘diagnostic’ understanding of Iranian cinema as the late Paul Willemen (37) proposed.

Glossary and abbreviations

Abassian, Rezamohammad – Director of Fajr, 2013; formerly a senior bureaucrat in IRIB. Afkhami, Behruz – Reformist MP and filmmaker. Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud – President, 2005–2013; former Mayor of Tehran. Ansar-e Hezbollah – Helpers of the Party of God. Atebba’i, Mohammad – Managing Director, Iranian Independents; international sales agent. Ayyubi, Hojjatollah – Deputy Minister for Cinematographic Affairs, 2013-. Basiji – Paramilitary morality police with an allegiance to Khamenei. Beheshti, Seyed Mohammad – the first head of Farabi Cinema Foundation, until 1995. BIFF – Brisbane International Film Festival Dad, Seifollah – filmmaker, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance 1997–2002. DEFC – Documentary and Experimental Film Center. ECO – The Economic Cooperation Organization, “an intergovernmental regional organization established in 1985 by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey for the purpose of promoting economic, technical and cultural cooperation among the Member States” (ECO website). Other members are the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Republic of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Republic of Uzbekistan. Ershad – Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, also known as MCIG. Esfandiari, Amir – Head of International Affairs, FCF until 2014; consultant, FCF, 2014+. Fajr – used here to refer to the Fajr International Film festival. Farabi – Farabi Cinema Foundation. Fipresci – The International Federation of Film Critics. Green Movement – Protest movement that arose around the 2009 Presidential election. HOC – House of Cinema aka Khaneh Cinema, Iranian Alliance of Motion Picture Guilds. Hosseini, Seyed Mohammad – Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance 2009–2013.

xii

Glossary and abbreviations

“Insider” (khodi) those trusted by the government and “Outsider” (gharibeh). IFFA – Iranian Film Festival Australia IRI – Islamic Republic of Iran IRIB – Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Khatami, Mohammad – Reformist President, 1997–2005; Minister for Culture, 1982–1992. Khamenei, Sayyid Ali – Grand Ayatollah; President, 1982–1989; Supreme Leader, 1989–. Mohajerani, Attaolah – Reformist Minister of Islamic Guidance, 1997–2000. Mohajedin – People’s Mohajedin Organisation of Iran Mohsenin, Kamyar – Researcher, FCF. Moqavemat – An Arabic word used by the IRI to describe resistance to all perceived enemies and threats, particularly the Western world. Mostazafan – Bonyad – e Mostaz’afan va Janbazan or Foundation of the Oppressed and Disabled, founded in 1979, and a charitable organisation which controls a large part of Iran’s economy. Mousavi, Mir-Hossein – Seyyed Mir-Hossein Mousavi Khameneh, last Prime Minister of Iran, 1981–1989; candidate in the 2009 Presidential election. Mozaffar al-Din Shah – Shah between 1896 and 1907. MCIG – Ministry for Culture and Islamic Guidance NAM – Non-Aligned Movement. Netpac – The Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema, a pan-Asian cinema organisation NFAI – National Film Archives of Iran. OIC – Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Pahlavi – the last dynasty of monarchs in Iran. Rezadad, Alireza – Director, Fajr International Film Festival 2014 Rouhani, Hassan – President, 2013–. SBS – Special Broadcasting Service Shahabi, Katayoun – Managing Director, SMI (Sherhezad Media International); independent international sales agent. Shahrokhi, Alireza – Festivals Co-ordinator, IRIB. Shamaqdari, Javad – Deputy Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance for Cinema and Audio-Visual Affairs 2009–2013; formerly a senior official in IRIB. Shojanoori, Alireza – roles include Head of International Affairs, FCF actor and producer. Ummah The Quranic phrase Ummah Wāhidah refers to the entire Islamic world and is considered to mean “the unity of Muslims”. VMI – Visual Media Institute West Asian – I use the Netpac preferred term “West Asian” rather than “Middle East”.

Introduction

The Islamophobia that descended over the non-Islamic world in late 2001 coincided for me, at the time the artistic director of the Brisbane International Film Festival (BIFF), with the commencement of programming for the following year’s festival. Distressed, I decided to focus on the West Asian Islamic world. My aim was to show films about daily life, films that were as apolitical as possible, exhibited in a politically neutral screening environment. In one of those rare moments of serendipity, I then received my first invitation to the Fajr International Film Festival (Fajr) in Tehran. Thus, in February 2002 between attending, as usual, the International Film Festival Rotterdam and the Berlinale, along with a small group of other programmers and festival directors I boarded a plane from Amsterdam for Tehran. While I knew about the hijab, I was poorly briefed in terms of other clothing constraints and credit cards. No matter! It was a heady time, not only because Tehran is 1200 metres above sea level. To give some context, this was shortly after Jafar Panahi’s The Circle (2000) had been banned in Iran but had won the Golden Lion at Venice. All day we watched films of varying quality. By evening we attended the film market where I encountered, among others, Bahman Farmanara, whose Smell of Camphor, Scent of Jasmine I had screened at BIFF the previous year. A strong memory is of talking to international sales agent Mohammad Atebba’i in the Iranian International Film Market attached to the festival when director Manijeh Hekmat arrived in tears, announcing that she had been threatened with arrest if she continued with the private screening of her new film, Women’s Prison, which she had promised foreign guests. After the market wound up in the evenings, there were parties. The filmmakers generously hosted us in their homes in North Tehran. Despite bans and threats, the cold and heavily polluted air of Tehran carried optimism. For sixteen of the next seventeen years, between 2002 and 2019, I attended Fajr annually, three times as a jury member, and also made a separate visit as a jury member at the Roshd International Film Festival. Much happened in the early years – I jostled with directors such as Majid Majidi and Bahman Farmanara at the film market, met director Rakshan Bani-E’temad and actresses Leila Hatami and Niki Karimi over festival dinners; I was invited to Jafar Panahi’s and Fatemeh Motamed-Arya’s famous parties, attended by the likes of Abbas Kiarostami,

2

Introduction

where we watched films not selected for Fajr (such as Karimi’s One Night and Mania Akbari’s 10 + 4) projected onto the walls; I enjoyed more intimate gatherings in the home of the vivacious Tahmineh Milani and her gracious producer husband, Mohammad Nikbin. We were busy from morning till morning, watching films or travelling up from the Hotel Laleh, located downtown next to the Gallery of Modern Art, where the screenings took place until 2009 in the North Tehran homes of the filmmakers. Between mixing with everyone from government officials to activist filmmakers, I observed first-hand the impact of government dictates on the industry and what it produces. Despite long industry experience and an understanding of how national film industries generally operate, initially I could only perceive inexplicable contradictions in the functioning of the Iranian system. I could not make sense of the gap between the rules and the reality. And it was this that intrigued me. Grasping how the system worked took some time. For example, in the predigital days, film stock was issued against a script approval permit. How could films be made with all the required permits yet not receive the final screening permit? I asked Jafar Panahi about it at the time, and he murmured that sometimes the script approved was not actually the shooting script. While I understood that this could happen once, how could a director manage this repeatedly? There were other permutations – films could receive a domestic screening permit but not an international one, or vice versa; screening permits could be issued then withdrawn; or one filmmaker could receive a permit for controversial material, yet another could not for very similar material. While stock situations for the filmmakers, as I came to realise, for me these were difficult to reconcile. And how could Panahi’s film Offside screen at Fajr for both the public and the foreign guests but subsequently be banned? Perhaps it was trying to understand the system that intrigued me most. But it was more complex than this. Even as I was trying to understand the scene as something static, the environment was in a continuous state of flux. In my first years, the reformist government under Mohammad Khatami, in office since August 1997 and into its second term, had infused the filmmakers with palpable optimism. But in 2005 Khatami was replaced by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a religious conservative who had been the mayor of Tehran since 2003 and even as mayor had been reversing previous reforms. After Amadinejad’s first term ended and the contested 2009 election mobilised the film industry in an unforeseen way, he refocused his attentions on the film industry. He attempted to win popularity by permitting or re-introducing some Persian or pre-Islamic elements into cultural life not favoured by the Supreme Leader. These were insufficient for many people. Digital technology, including mobile phones, could now be harnessed for documentation and for dissident filmmaking. Actresses such as Fatemeh Motamed-Arya and Leili Rashidi put their public support behind MirHossein Mousavi, the candidate favoured by Khatami, and were punished for it. The famous arrest of Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof occurred in 2010. In the successive years the House of Cinema was closed down but not without a fight from the film industry. These and many other events made film a cultural marker for many international political observers.

Introduction 3 After 2009 Fajr became a sad event. Many filmmakers and distributors boycotted Fajr, my personal cultural marker, and left Iran for the duration of the festival. One year Kiarostami took the opportunity to go location scouting in Japan, and Farhadi went to a film festival in Serbia; Motamed-Arya went to film festivals in Vesoul or Rotterdam, and independent international sales agent Katayoun Shahabi also went to Rotterdam rather than participating in Fajr’s Iranian Film Market. Others simply stayed away. I was one of a rapidly decreasing group of international guests who continued to attend, initially bearing the wrath of Jafar Panahi and other filmmakers for not adhering to the boycott. This work, already underway at the time, is my justification for that decision. During Ahmadinejad’s second term, we witnessed the introduction of a small but important genre called the “Magnificent Productions” as part of a renewed commitment to Muslim filmmaking. The first of those films, The Kingdom of Solomon, screened in 2009. By 2011 the conservative elements had introduced an annual sidebar into the festival, an international conference called “Hollywoodism”, underpinned by anti-Hollywood sentiments. That year I was asked to sit on the international jury as a replacement for someone unable to attend. I was conflicted, as I felt it my duty to assist my festival colleagues, but anticipated correctly that my Iranian filmmaker friends would not regard this favourably. In 2012, for the first time since 2002 I did not attend, but on returning in 2013, what a different event I found. The event was “under new management”, responsibility having been transferred from the urbane Farabi Cinema Foundation to the Visual Media Institute since 2009 under the direction of Rezamohammad Abassian. The festival seemed now exactly in the form desired by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. This was evidenced by the festival’s heavy political presence in two forms, both the increased presence of politicians and the increased use of the festival as a political tool. Thanks to the concerted efforts of the government, the facilities for the festival had improved dramatically from 2002 to 2013, and the hub moved to North Tehran. In 2013 guests were hosted in the Azadi Hotel, where my room overlooked the beautiful mountainous area of Darakeh. But in some kind of irony, because “azadi” means freedom, the ominous floodlights of the infamous Evin Prison, where political prisoners, including Tahmineh Milani and later Panahi, had been incarcerated, foregrounded this view. In 2014, after the election of Rouhani as president, Fajr was again placed under a new director and festival team, many of whom had been previously involved with the festival. Its opening night film was the Iranian premiere of Abbas Kiarostami’s previously unscreenable Certified Copy, by now four years old. This was clearly a signifier from the new regime. The new rhetoric suggested that 2013 marked the end of a chapter in Iranian film history. Over these many years I continued my usual attendance at international festivals, meeting up with among others Kiarostami in Venice, Mehrju’i in Rotterdam, Niki Karimi in Vesoul, Panahi in Berlin, Motamed-Arya in Cannes as well as in Tehran, and indeed inviting filmmakers to Brisbane to my own events, viewing largely the films that we did not see in Fajr (although there was some overlap) and programming films that the government wished did not exist.

4

Introduction

This work is both provoked and informed by my personal observations and experience in Iran, including as an official guest at Fajr on annual visits between 2002 and 2019. It considers Iranian fictional feature filmmaking from 2000 to 2013, covering the successive presidencies of Mohammad Khatami and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. These fifteen years provide ample evidence of Iran’s changing political situation, starting several years into the reformist years, under Khatami, when the effects of that reformist presidency had become apparent, and followed by the successive two presidential terms of the conservative Ahmadinejad. The period concluded with the election of Rouhani. This work seeks to compare and contrast the dominant metanarrative operating under each of the two presidencies as responses to changing government policies. I was writing as the history was unfolding, and I was essentially interested in making sense of it. I was as interested in the rhetoric as the reality. For the period prior to 2009 I was able to draw on the work of Hamid Naficy, Nacim Pak-Shiraz, Saeed Zeydabadi-Nejad, Blake Atwood and others, although many of these works were published as I was writing. With no academic literature to draw upon for the later period, most of my written sources of information after 2009 have been news articles and primary source documents from both Iranian and international media. This involved daily monitoring, or perhaps I mean trawling, of English language Iranian press between 2009 and 2013. Although I usually cite only one source, I have attempted to read against and cross-check sources to corroborate evidence. This has been supplemented with nearly two decades of informal discussions, personal observations, and professional experience. The year 2000 has been selected as the starting point to take account of a number of significant factors. Mohammad Khatami, who had served as Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance twice between 1982 and 1992, and had “with a team of Muslim intellectuals, laid the foundation for an independent press and a new, national cinema”, was elected president on a reformist programme in 1997 (Tapper, Screening Iran). Khatami advocated, among other reforms, greater freedom of expression. As Atwood has related, “Starting in the early 1990s, an intimate relationship developed between the popular reformist movement and the film industry” (4). By 2000 some significant changes could be seen. Many factors seemed to come together. Not only were “many long-suppressed films screened [but] new films addressed issues that had been taboo” (Tapper, Screening Iran). A significant marker occurred with the introduction of a new official genre, the category of sinema-ye moslehaneh, known as “Social Issues” filmmaking. Yet another was, as Hamid Naficy noted at the time, the return home of a generation of Iranians born or raised in Europe and the U.S., marked by the unprecedented presence of three diasporic films in the 2000 Fajr International Film Festival (Naficy, Making Films, 43). The year 2000 also saw the first prominent use of the term ‘The New Iranian Cinema’, referencing the style of Iranian filmmaking, which had found a relatively prominent place in Western festivals, occurred in London to describe a series of film screenings, a concurrent conference, and a seminal book. To underline the importance of the year as a turning point, it “marked a spectacular achievement

Introduction 5 for Iranian cinema” (Dabashi, Close Up 259) in terms of awards. Three new or early career Iranian filmmakers, Samira Makhmalbaf, Hassan Yektapanah and Bahman Ghobadi won major awards at Cannes, and their films were purchased for distribution. None of these films were as controversial on the home front or as successful internationally as Panahi’s The Circle (2000), which won a Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in September 2000 and was purchased for international distribution. Panahi had anticipated and received a domestic screening permit, but Seyfallah Dad, Deputy Minister for Cinematographic Affairs, unexpectedly revoked it. There were already signs by 2000 that Khatami’s government was coming under pressure from the conservatives. His Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Ata’ollah Mohajerani, who pursued a policy of leniency in the arts, was forced to resign in April 2000 after a failed impeachment attempt against him, described movingly by Naficy (A Social History 4: 311–313). Dad has subsequently claimed that he felt forced to ban The Circle in order to avoid political problems in the aftermath of Mohajerani’s resignation (Zeydabadi-Nejad 52). The effect of the banning of Panahi’s film on the international scene was not lost on Iranian filmmakers. His international success positioned him as a role model for many of them, if not aesthetically, then in terms of process, suggesting the financial viability of making films targeted at the international market. Panahi was far from the first to achieve an international sale – Kiarostami and Makhmalbaf had led the way here – and the concept of ‘festival films’ as a derogatory term for films that were achieving international rather than domestic acclaim had been discussed by Iranian film critics prior to The Circle. Nonetheless, Panahi represents a turning point. He was a filmmaker whose career began well after the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), and shortly before the reformist era. Over the next few years, filmmakers continued to respond to policy changes under the reformist government, taking advantage of the new freedoms and continually pushing boundaries further as they became more politicised. Independent filmmakers came to dominate the metanarrative, very often producing what became described derogatorily as “festival films” in Iran. The next marker was the 2005 election, when Khatami had completed his maximum two terms and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad assumed the role of president. The reformist presidency was over, and by 2006, as Naficy noted, “Khatami’s surprise defeat last year by the bellicose conservative Mahmud Ahmadinejad puts many of these hopes [for the film industry] in doubt” (Naficy, Making Films 43). Policy shifted. A factor that cannot be underestimated was the now superior technology, making possible quality digital filmmaking for which shooting permits were initially not required. Panahi’s Offside, which had screened just once legally in Iran at Fajr in 2006 before being banned and just days before the screening for which it won a Silver Bear at the Berlinale, is an early and perhaps the most successful example of digital filmmaking outside the system. The film was widely screened at festivals and distributed internationally. It represented one of the choices that filmmakers now had: to work within the limits for a domestic audience; to work against the system as Panahi did; or, with the election of the conservative government,

6

Introduction

Table 0.1 Table of Filmic Markers 1997–2013 Political Markers

Filmic Markers

1997 – 2005 Khatami reformist presidency 2000 Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Ata’ollah Mohajerani resigns, April 2000, after failed impeachment attempt against him 2001 Khatami second presidential term

1997 Abbas Kiarostami, The Taste of Cherry, Palme d’Or; does not screen in Iran 1998 Majid Majidi, Children of Heaven, is the first Iranian film nominated for the Academy Awards 2000 Major awards Samira Makhmalbaf, Blackboards, Special Jury Award Official Competition Cannes Hassan Yektapanah, Djomeh and Bahman Ghobadi, A Time for Drunken Horses, share Camera d’Or, Cannes Jafar Panahi, The Circle – Golden Lion, Venice Film Festival, but banned in Iran Social Issues category introduced by the MCIG Introduction of the Interfaith Award 2004

August 2005 – 2009 Ahmadinejad first presidential term

2005 Introduction of the Spiritual Category at Fajr The Makhmalbaf family goes into exile 2006 Offside screens at Fajr; wins Grand Jury Prize and Silver Bear Berlinale; banned in Iran 2008 Bahman Ghobadi goes into exile

August 2009 – August 2013 Ahmadinejad second presidential term 12 June 2009: the contested election Green Movement

2009 February: Asghar Farhadi About Elly wins Silver Bear, Berlinale June 6 About Elly releases commercially in Iran 2010 February Filmmakers boycott Fajr 10 March Arrest of Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof Bahram Beyzaie goes into exile 2012 26 February Asghar Farhadi, A Separation, the first Iranian film to win Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards May 2011 Jafar Panahi’s This is not a Film, his first post-arrest film screens in Cannes 3 January 2012 Closure of House of Cinema

August 2013+ Rouhani presidency

2013 12 September House of Cinema re-opens

Note: Filmic Markers 1997–2013 with the relevant political markers

the option of going into exile. Since the huge exit immediately after the revolution, relatively few had taken the exile route. However, during the Ahmadinejad presidency, some major filmmakers, including the Makhmalbaf family (2005), Bahman Ghobadi (2008), and Bahram Beyza’i (2010) left, indicating the ongoing

Introduction 7 insistent pressure being exerted on filmmakers. While filmmakers continued pushing the boundaries, the withholding of film screening permits became a regular occurrence. A more significant marker was the contested June 2009 election when Ahmadinejad was returned for his second term. The effects of his policies, which polarised the film industry, became fully apparent. Following the failure of the Green Movement in which many from the industry had been involved, the government intensified efforts to re-harness cinema to the Islamic Revolution. The regime responded to the criticism against it, filmmaker activism, protests from within the film industry, and what it considered inappropriate production, with unprecedented constraints on the industry as it sought to control dissidence. March 2010 saw the beginning of an ongoing conflict played out on the international stage between Jafar Panahi and the government. However just prior to the 2009 election, another cultural marker had occurred to further complicate the story of conservative government versus filmmaker auteur. Just as Panahi’s The Circle had shown a new way in 2000, in February 2009 Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly came onto the scene. It won a Silver Bear at the Berlinale, was purchased for international distribution, and attracted the attention of prominent industry figures such as David Bordwell while also achieving second place at the Iranian box office. Its initial screening at Fajr had not been without problems, but here was a film that was both tolerated by the regime and critically and financially successful domestically and internationally. An ideologically sound middle way had emerged at this politically sensitive time for those who did not want to follow Panahi’s path. This quickly became the new model for many younger filmmakers and some kind of new way forward. The domestic audience was re-connecting with its arthouse filmmakers just as the government was reigning them in. Farhadi’s was one of three names which dominated the international scene during Ahmadinejad’s second term. Kiarostami was still making films, although now outside Iran. Panahi, although banned from filmmaking, remained very visible with two post-arrest films. On 3 August 2013, after Ahmadinejad had completed his second term, Hassan Rouhani assumed his role as the seventh president of Iran. No history is ever tidy. While campaigning, Rouhani had stated, “Let’s leave the cinema to those who know cinema, to fimmakers [sic], artists,” and “we must allow cinema organizations to be free” (House of Cinema re-opens). At Fajr the following year, Abbas Kiarostami’s previously banned Certified Copy opened the festival in his presence. Two new big-budget government films begun under the previous presidency were also being showcased. Although what was the major production being undertaken during Ahmadinejad’s second term, Majid Majidi’s Muhammad: the Messenger of God, was still not finished, Vittorio Storaro was honoured in person at the closing night. However, a statement from the president at the opening ceremony read, “Today, after what has happened to art and culture over the past years, I see my country’s cinema gloomy and depressed. But now, a new era has dawned and it is time to leave behind whatever happened to cinema previously, although we shall never forget the lessons,” (“Rouhani asks cineastes”). The government was keen to distance itself from the former presidency. Clearly an era had

8

Introduction

ended and a new beginning was being announced. What that was to be is not the subject of this book, but I will make a few observations about it in my conclusion. Cinema in Iran has had a complex relationship with politics since its earliest days. In France the first film footage was of scenes from daily life; in Australia, a penal colony till 1868, ironically the first feature film (and the world’s first), The Story of the Kelly Gang, was about outlaws. By contrast, the first piece of Iranian film footage was taken by the court photographer Mirza Ebrahim Khan Akkas Bashi for the purpose of recording Mozaffar al-Din Shah’s first journey to Europe in 1900 (Parhami). There are some familiar elements to this early history. As Parhami notes, not only was film brought to Iran by the Shah as a form of courtly entertainment, but it also remained in the exclusive service of the Shah for some time, rather than being developed as a form of mass entertainment as was happening elsewhere at this time. Mirza Ebrahim Khan Sahaf Bashi held the first public screening in Tehran in the back of his antique shop in 1904. In 1905 he opened the first movie theatre in Iran. This did not last for more than a month. In a series of events that foreshadows Iranian cinema history to this day, Sahaf Bashi was arrested and sent into exile. He was a nationalist and political activist lobbying for a constitutional monarchy, but the punishment probably gained extra momentum from what Naficy describes as the “alleged prohibition” of cinema by Shaikh Fazlollah Nuri for “its display of unveiled foreign women” (Naficy, A Social History, 1:90). Parhami comments, “Perhaps this was the first instance of censorship in the history of Iranian cinema” (Parhami). Within five years of the first Iranian footage being shot, all of the players had assumed their roles in what was akin to a musical overture to the contemporary Iranian drama of film as a political plaything – then a form of courtly entertainment at the sole service of a secular monarchy, and now a tool for an Islamic Republic to educate the masses on Islamic virtue. Then, as now, there was a pattern of arrests and exile. In short, the very stuff of the history of Iranian cinema of the first decade of the new millennium follows a pattern established a century earlier. Leaping forward to the last days of the Pahlavi rule, the physical space of the cinema was used for the infamous arsonist attack in Abadan. On 19 August 1978 the Cinema Rex was set ablaze, resulting in the slow deaths of some 470 people. Although uncertainty as to who was responsible still remains, it became a precedent, and during the period of the revolution, 180 of the 436 cinemas in the country were destroyed by fire. Many of these have not been rebuilt. However, on his return to Iran in 1979, Khomeini, who blamed the Shah’s government, then still in power, for the immolation of the Rex Cinema, suddenly reversed his negative opinion of cinema, which had been widely circulated prior to the revolution. In his first speech on returning, he famously publicly recognised cinema’s educational potential, ensuring a new beginning for Iranian cinema under the Islamic Republic of Iran. The educational priority of the new Islamic Republic provided the policy context in which a new Iranian national cinema emerged and flourished. Consequently, the history of post-revolutionary Iranian national cinema has to be contextualised and understood through both the relevant and changing ideology(ies) of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the impact on filmmaking and its policy

Introduction 9 carriage through the different political phases since 1979. Official policy in the Islamic Republic forty years later still views film in the light of Khomeini’s 1979 statement that it “ought to be used for the sake of educating the people” (258). This principle was enacted through film being placed within the purview of an arm of government named the Ministry for Culture and Islamic Guidance (MCIG), signposting in its very title its policy, purpose, and orientation. This principle is also clearly enunciated in the mission statements of all the Iranian government bodies concerned with film and in the many press statements made by Iranian government officials. To conform to Khomeini’s decree, the post-revolutionary government initially focused on developing a “pure” Islamic cinema (Devictor, 67), leading to what Naficy subsequently described as the “Islamicate Period” extending from 1978 to 1984. First the authorities needed to define this “pure Islamic cinema” and develop models for the transformation of the largely popular and commercial cinema of pre-revolutionary Iran. Khomeini famously declared “neither East nor West” in positing Islam as a third alternative. Yet the most prominent examples of new modes of cinema established by governments in response to significant ideological change were secular – in the Soviet countries and China under communism and in Germany under the National Socialists. The usually anti-government Third Cinema in various developing countries was designed to precipitate change, not to cement change already effected. Complicating this, although Khomeini had reversed his pre-1979 position against cinema, not all theologians embraced Khomeini’s changed views. As Pak-Shiraz observes (2008), there was from the inception of the IRI ongoing opposition not only from some theologians but also from lawyers and officials to the cinema itself, which persists in some quarters into the present. Nonetheless, in spite of this opposition from within their own ranks, the post-revolutionary bureaucrats forged ahead. The cinematic transformation that occurred in post-revolutionary Iran could be perceived as a reworking of older Islamic ideas and practices to articulate with the social and political change that occurred with the Islamic Revolution. This transformation involved changes to both form and content – an Islamic aesthetic and the foregrounding of Islamic morality. The cinema, as Naficy suggests throughout his work, was “cleansed” of the polluting Western and Pahlavi contents. Hamid Reza Sadr describes it partly in terms of omission and cleansing – “the abandonment of the majority of actors and actresses from the industry prior to the Revolution; the omission of all sex, song and dance” – and partly in terms of additions – “constant reference to religious issues, oppression by masters, the rebellion of the oppressed against cruelty, and the fight against monarchic cruelty” (Sadr Contemporary Iranian Cinema, 29). However, it might be argued that much of the organizational and strategic infrastructure established under Pahlavi in the 1960s and 1970s was retained and simply re-branded. Little film development was in evidence amidst the chaos of the first five post-revolutionary years. Despite the omission of cinema from the first five-year budget of 1983 (Naficy, Islamising Film Culture 34), by 1984 some basic strategies, policies, and structures were being established (although many

10

Introduction

of these were reworkings of structures established by the former Empress Farah Diba). Naficy marks 1984 as the beginning of what he calls the “globalizing era”. By 1990, after the cessation of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, and the death of Khomeini a year later, cinema could be considered “part of the infrastructure rather than the superstructure in Iran” (Tapper, New Iranian Cinema 8). Filmmakers had also learnt to work around the various proscriptions associated with cleansing. For example, initially many had avoided portraying women because of the difficulties of showing them in what was seen always as a public space. There was by now what Naficy describes as a “more dramatic” female presence on screen as opposed to the “ghostly presences” of the first decade of the Islamic Republic (Social History: 4, 121, 114). This brings us back to the time period under discussion in this work. My annual attendance at Fajr over the time period under discussion and beyond has given me ample opportunity to observe the evolving industry. During eighteen visits, each of some five to ten days duration, I would see fifteen or more new Iranian films at the festival. These were approved films, although some such as Offside were subsequently refused screening permits. The diversity embraced films which subsequently became well known internationally, such as A Separation, then known as Nader and Simin, as well as many films which never screened outside Iran and were for the most part never subtitled. This has afforded me a rare glimpse of a whole slice of filmmaking that had little currency outside of Iran. Such domestic offerings constituted and still constitute most of the Iranian national cinema. Usually I was fortunate to attend a few private screenings of “banned” films, such as Mania Akbari’s Ten Fingers, Jafar Panahi’s Taxi, Saman Moghadam’s Miss Iran, and Niki Karimi’s One Night, in the homes of filmmakers. There would also be extensive discussion, socialising, and partying with film industry members of all political persuasions, and on occasion set visits, such as to City of Mice 2. Generally, friends such as Panahi would recommend other films for viewing, or might arrange for me to meet lesser known young filmmakers, and I would leave Iran with a bundle of both approved and banned DVDs along with recommendations. All of this gave me a good understanding of what the government considered acceptable, if not always desirable, and what was happening with filmmaking outside the endorsed filmmaking. While in those years I was attending Fajr for film programming and curating purposes, eventually I decided to write about it, and during my visits between 2010 and 2012, I focused largely on research. Having attended for so many years I had excellent access. Interviewing filmmakers was relatively easy, but I also interviewed a broad range of industry insiders, including government ministers, bureaucrats at various levels, festival directors, heads of government and semigovernment production, distribution, and sales agents. Often, just as I wanted to record them, they insisted on recording me, as evidence in case problems arose as to what they had really said. Furthermore, I interviewed commercial distributors and sales agents, academics, and those involved with private film schools, a wide range of filmmakers, actors, and cinematographers, as well as owners of small production houses.

Introduction 11 One of the problems of research on Iranian national cinema became evident in my search for the basic statistics of annual film production numbers. One might presume that the strict Iranian permit system would enable very precise statistics. Of this, Amir Esfandiari and Kamyar Mohsenin, then respectively Head of International Affairs and Researcher for Iran’s major cinema organisation, Farabi Cinema Foundation, cryptically noted in their 2011 entry for International Film Guide, “unofficial statistics indicate that over 100 features are completed and ready for release in Iran each year” (Esfandiari and Mohsenin, my emphasis). Roughly concurrently an article in the House of Cinema Newsletter noted, “According to contradictory available statistics, the number of produced films increased to 90, while 60 films were screened. It should be noted that in 1384 [2005] film production reached the record number of 112 films” (Hashemi, again my emphasis). My point here is not any discrepancy in the actual numbers cited but that there can be such uncertainty about the statistics. The permit system intended to control production should elicit infallible statistics, but Esfandieri, Mohsenin and Hashemi are giving unspoken acknowledgement to the large number of virtually untrackable films made outside the system. The most obvious difficulty for publishing my work lies in citing interview sources and informants. Many sources were happy to talk, some specifying anonymity; others were reluctant. As noted, bureaucrats who accepted to be interviewed usually made their own recordings of interviews. Ultimately, given the volatility of Iranian politics, I have chosen to be cautious to protect my sources and to be careful in dealing with interviews, conversations, and discussions inevitably caught up and shaped by a charged political situation. For transcription of Iranian names, I have tried where possible to use the official websites of filmmakers, actors, and films; in other cases the film credits have been used. In quotes I have retained the spellings used by the writer even if these vary from other uses in the work. My interest is less cinephilic; it lies largely in the transformations in production and the resultant history of exhibition, both domestic and international, of Iranian cinema between 2000 and 2013, as the result of or the response to government policy. In taking 2000 and 2013 as markers, for reasons already stated, I compare and contrast the dominant film metanarratives operating under the Khatami and the Ahmadinejad presidencies as responses to changing government policy. I will discuss how filmmakers responded to policy changes under the reformist government, pushing boundaries as they became more politicised, and how independent filmmakers came to dominate the film metanarrative. International reception, which encouraged this, is demonstrated through the international festival response. I will then focus on government attempts, under the presidential terms of Ahmadinejad, to re-harness the industry to its own goals, introducing its own metanarrative. Throughout, I take into consideration what Gönül Dönmez-Colin has identified as the several menaces . . . threatening national film industries [across the Middle East and Central Asia]: Hollywood dominance, economic limitations, state

12

Introduction censorship, but also, the increasingly powerful network of film festivals and funding/distribution systems of the West that have begun to shape national products according to the tastes of western audiences, creating artificial products that do not have an audience in their country. (Cinemas of the Other 16)

Willemen states that “the more [a cinema] is complicit with nationalism’s homogenizing project, the less it will be able to engage critically with the complex, multi-dimensional and multi-directional tensions that characterise and shape a social formation’s cultural configurations.” He continues that “the nationalist propaganda film” may well address these divisions, but for the purposes of delegitimisation and repression (Willemen 33, his emphases). Once one considers that in this theocratic country, Iran, religion, and state are one, and that nationalism and cultural identity are viewed through the prism of “Islamic values”, its application to the ideological project of cinema becomes clear. There are various ways of defining a “national cinema”. Naficy and others have included diasporic or “accented” cinema. However Willemen further notes that “[T]he boundaries of cultural specificity in cinema are established by government actions implemented through institutions such as the legal framework of censorship, industrial and financial measures on the economic level, the gearing of training institutions towards employment in national media structures, systems of licensing governed by corporate law, and so on (33). I am interested in the sort of cultural specificity that emerged in Iran during the 2000s and how it inflected the scope and possibilities of filmmakers and filmmaking. Therefore, while diasporic cinema is clearly part of the national cinema, it is not subject to these issues and is excluded from consideration here. Even after eliminating diasporic filmmaking, there remains a broad and disparate field of filmmaking within Iran. Stephen Croft’s “Reconceptualising National Cinema/s”, which lists “some seven varieties of national cinema”, can be used to demonstrate the dilemmas involved in placing Iranian national cinema (44). Since the establishment of the IRI, the regime has strived for the cinema model that Crofts labels “cinemas which work within a wholly state-controlled and often substantially state subsidized industry” (45) or “totalitarian cinemas” (51) in that the Iranian state has sought significant shaping control over output. However, this clashes strongly with the “often political art cinema” by filmmakers such as Panahi and Rasoulof, which Crofts note as typically a peripheral production of totalitarian cinema (51). Crofts adds a caveat that “these categories are highly permeable”, with both individual films and different production sectors in a national cinema “straddl[ing]” various groupings (45). Among the puzzling aspects of the Iranian film landscape are the numerous ongoing contradictions on all levels. Of those between the various segments of officialdom, Naficy expressed it thus: “Of course, the . . . . regulations themselves contain many ambiguities, which the cabinet dictated must be resolved by appropriate committees” (Islamizing Film Culture 37). But this is one of many issues. In the first and second chapters I will discuss a range of films made between 2000

Introduction 13 and 2013, attempting to categorise them thematically. The issue of categorisation has been a difficult one for me. Initially I was tempted to describe these categories as genres. While the general debate on genre is a complex one, and not within the scope of this work, in Iran I have observed a kind of dual perception of it, with considerable discussion as to whether what is officially described as a “genre” conforms to the Western concept of genre. As Stam notes, film genres, as with literary genres, are “permeable to social and historical tensions” (14). This is particularly the case for Iranian cinema, where the specific official genre of Sacred Defence has been developed as a matter of state priority. Such genre classification is not only an organic affair formed out of an audience’s perception and experience of the cinema but also a matter of statecraft. Nonetheless, the categories, even Sacred Defence, do tend to be content based, which Stam notes as the weakest criterion for generic grouping (14). On stage at the opening of the Fajr International Film Festival in 2019, film critic Houshang Golmakani stated that there was only one active Iranian genre in contemporary Iranian cinema – Sacred Defence. Mohammad Atebba’i, Shahab Esfandiery, and Kamyar Mohsenin all agreed with this in discussion with me, with Mohsenin noting the misunderstanding of genre by officials. However, the tension between the two senses of the term is important – not least in Iran itself where the interplay between these two senses is constitutive and where being aware of the “official” character of the descriptors as generic is part of managing a filmmaking career. Ultimately, I am interested in thematic concerns, and I have settled for a combination of the one genre and a range of descriptors most closely matching the terms and groupings used in official circles over this period: • • • •

sacred defence (genre) mystic/spiritual films religious films social issues films

Within the Social Issues category, I have, however, posited a sub-set, the middleclass family drama, which I consider has claims to be a genre. I begin the first chapter with a discussion of the kinds of issues that cause problems for filmmakers – the contradictions, permit issues, and issues in reading the films – as well as some of their strategies for dealing with them. I then discuss films made within the official genre of Sacred Defence, contrasting generic and thematic variations, and the traditional and encouraged category, Religion/ Spirituality, expanding as relevant on how the filmmakers have pushed boundaries into unacceptable content. In Chapter 2 I will explore the new category encouraged by the reformists, the social issues films. These deal with general social issues themes which assumed significance over this time. Firstly, I will briefly compare the very different career trajectories of two self-proclaimed social issues filmmakers, Jafar Panahi and Pouran Derakhshandeh; then I will consider in the same way the work of two senior female filmmakers, Tahmineh Milani and Rakshan Bani-E’temad, whose

14

Introduction

work falls within the sub-category, Women’s Issues, defined by Zeydabadi-Nejad. I then move to other individual topics and the various approaches taken to representing them, considering where and why they fall in relation to government acceptance – welcomed/desired, tolerated, or unacceptable/banned. There is some sense here of the changing landscape between 2000 and 2013, using the cultural markers of Panahi’s The Circle (2000) and Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly (2009). I also place considerable emphasis on domestic and international awards in preparation for discussions of reception in successive chapters. Chapters 3 and 4 are both concerned with Iranian cinema and its complicated relation with the West, largely through the gatekeeping of Western film festival programmers. In his discussion of national cinemas, Tom O’Regan uses the academic sense of the term ‘festival film’ (without reference to Iran), to describe literally films that screen in festivals (50). There is no evaluative intent. Between 2000 and 2010 as Iranian filmmakers started to strategically target international festivals, there arose a division between the domestic and the foreign non-Muslim markets. Films satisfying the foreign market came to form a distinctive variant from the Western situation – the ‘festival film’, a term which characterised the view of Iranian cinema by the outside world while coming to acquire derogatory force (as in many non-Western cinemas) to describe films considered by the domestic audience to be made solely for international consumption. (The uneven development of an international Muslim market for commercial fare is considered in chapter 5.) This, I argue, was a major turning point for Iranian cinema, and the festival film became a contender for the dominant metanarrative. Iran was a cinematic ‘hotspot’ on the international festival circuit for about a decade from the mid-90s to 2005, after which cinema was transformed into a cultural marker of both internal and international political conflict. The third chapter maps the international terrain, tracing the history of the reception and the rise of Iranian cinema in the West and its construction as the New Iranian Cinema. The major issue this chapter turns on is the definition, position, and consequences of the festival film for Iranian national cinema. While exploring Western intervention through festivals and other funding, it also considers Western interest in specific film content, such as the role and portrayal of women. Much of this is based on my own experience as a festival director. In the fourth chapter this perspective is reversed, examining the response of the Iranian industry to this Western interest. In 2002 Farahmand identified three categories of filmmaking in Iran. In addition to the two that Naficy has identified – the statesponsored, ideologically defined cinema, and the popular cinema concerned with contemporaneous social issues – Farahmand identified a third “trend” – “that of making art films targeted towards festival reception” (Naficy 2002, Farahmand 105). Naficy notes its dismissive use in 2001 by filmmaker and historian Mohammad Tahaminejad and in 2003 by historian Hamed Reza Sadr (Social History 4:178). Esfandiery also notes the existence of the television series Cinemaye Jashnvareh’i (Festival Cinema), which consisted of a series of debates and interviews between filmmakers, critics, and policy makers, produced by veteran film critic Masoud Ferasati in 2006 and published in book form under the same name

Introduction 15 in 2009 (73). The extent of the explicit criticism of festival filmmaking, by both critics and the public, is telling, particularly when we think of how much “festival” filmmaking activity continued throughout this period. It may be that we can see here the collision of public purposes (criticizing “festival cinema” for its “making of ourselves attractive to international not domestic audiences”) and private purposes (the need to find strategies for sustainable filmmaking careers). Expanding beyond critical writing on the topic, I will also examine the impact on, and opinions of filmmakers. The final two chapters are concerned with the second presidential term of Ahmadinejad. In the fifth chapter I consider the concept of “Muslim Filmmaking”, a term I justify using for the government’s ideology, long evident within the Islamic Republic, but which came to the fore once again in the Ahmadinejad era. I examine the proactivity of the government in establishing and reinforcing domestic and international policy and strategies encouraging Muslim filmmaking, interweaving the various political and cultural markers of this presidential term, and the government’s efforts to position itself internationally as the centre for Islamic cinema. Of particular interest is the government rhetoric. The efforts of the government and the judiciary to re-harness the industry to its own ends through increased constraints on freedom and the escalation of filmmaker alienation is also addressed. Chapter 6 deals with government production between 2009 and 2013, overviewing the changes after 2009 within government production agencies, and examining in some detail a new category of filmmaking known as Film-e Faakher for which I use the translation, the “Magnificent Productions”. This was a short-lived scheme aimed at solving what the government perceived as problems within the industry, addressed in Chapter 5. Finally, the conclusion queries the long-term importance and impact of political change on Iranian cinema by viewing briefly what has become evident in the transition to the next presidential term, that of Hassan Rouhani.

1

Making “constructive” films Generic themes and modulations

In 2007 one of the highest-grossing Iranian films of recent times, Masoud Dehnamaki’s The Outcasts (2007) came out, followed by two successful sequels, The Outcasts II (2009) and III (2011). The first of this slapstick comedy trilogy, a subversion of the Sacred Defence genre, tells the story of a working-class man from South Tehran (based on a real gangster) who falls in love with the daughter of a very pious man. He has just been released from prison but gives out that he is returning from Hajj. Obviously, our flawed hero, who among other sins prefers smoking to praying, must reform in order to marry her, and so he enlists in the war against Iraq with some of his mates. The humour lies in the portrayal of his interactions with both these mates and his beloved’s more pious father. The second part, also a subversion of the Sacred Defence genre, is quite daring. It opens with the martyrdom of our hero and then follows the capture of his friends by Iraqi forces. The final film, The Outcasts III (2011), moves away from the frontline to the homefront, following the electioneering of three candidates in the 2009 election, two of whom are the war veterans from the earlier films. Their cynical ploys to win the votes of young people through non-Islamic actions form the basis of the humour. The young “heroine” of this allegory, the aptly named Iran, is initially impressed by these candidates. On their release, the political positioning of the whole trilogy was quite ambiguous. It is not that they were comedies, treading where comedies rarely did. Although this was remarkable, Kamal Tabrizi had set a precedent here with Sacred Defence – comedy hybrid Leily is with me (1996), about a television crew at the front. All three of these films were far more daring. In the first of the trilogy, The Outcasts, Dehnamaki mixed banned ‘decadent’ pop songs by exilic Iranians, a student protest song from both of Khatami’s campaigns, and official war songs with sacred references, “blur[ring] the lines between permissible/impermissible, and pious/impious” (Bajoghli). It is the third part on which I will concentrate here. The ambiguity in Outcasts III is accentuated because the characters are composites of real politicians of opposing sides – for example, one of the candidates is nicknamed Mr Greenoff, suggesting an alignment with Mir Hossein Moussavi, the leader of the Green Movement, yet his mother demonstrates exaggerated superstition, which is normally associated with Ahmadinejad. Dehnamaki, a war veteran and first-time filmmaker, was

Making “constructive” films 17 a former head of the militia group, Ansar-e Hezbollah. It is then not surprising that, “In the post-2009 election atmosphere Dehnamaki [was] caught defending himself from both sides of the political spectrum” (Lotfalian, 218). Some considered it a critical satire that showed Dehnamaki as a reformed fundamentalist, while the heavy promotion that the film received on state television, and the fact that the opposition called for a boycott of this blatantly commercial film, suggested otherwise. Political ambiguity was not the only factor under discussion at the time. In June 2010, between the release of the second and third parts of the trilogy, film producer Jahangir Kowsari described contemporary Iranian comedies produced for the home entertainment network as “culturally destructive” and noted that “[t]hese productions follow the same pattern as Iranian films produced in [the] 1970’s”. The Outcasts III was a 2011 Nowruz release. However, as a major producer, Kowsari would have been well aware of the contents of the third part of the trilogy and would have likely criticised the whole trilogy, connecting them all to the luti genre. Furthermore, he saw these comedies as being politically motivated, part of a cynical attempt by the Ahmadinejad presidency to attract people back to the cinemas (Modern Iranian comedies ruin). Connecting Ahmadinejad to prerevolutionary work was a scathing comparison. In 2013 I asked Javad Shamaqdari, deputy minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance for Cinema and Audio-Visual Affairs, about how The Outcasts trilogy and Under the Peach Tree conformed to the government’s view of Muslim filmmaking. His response was that they, although entertainment, embraced and were able to promote Islamic values (Interview). This did not take me much further. In 2011 at the conference, Cinema in Iran: Circulation, Censorship, and Cultural Production, Mazyar Lotfalian had discussed various readings of the films. In 2015, in an article for a book based on the conference, he wrote that “the intelligentsia [viewed the film] as a back-handed pro-government story” while Dehnamaki was claiming a conspiracy by the government to curb the viewing of his film (218). Lotfalian also discussed the Ahmadinejad government’s cultural “risk management”, part of its strategy to “defuse social tension” by distracting the public from the highly charged political environment post-2009, although he does not specifically deal with this film in relation to risk management (221). Bajoghli, an anthropologist who has focused on Iranian media production, presented a slightly different perspective in 2017: “The 2005 election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president offered an opportunity for some pro-regime cultural producers to seek the creation of new forms of entertainment that could communicate the proper ideals of the revolution to the second and third generations and bring them back into the fold of the Islamic Republic.” However, the popularity of these films lay in the jokes that crossed the “red lines”, leading Bajoghli to the question of the effectiveness of such films to impart “a moral message about the ‘right’ way to be a patriotic, pious, Islamic, righteous, and revolutionary citizen”. The official reading of the trilogy was finally clarified in 2018. The Outcasts was included in the 15th International Resistance Film Festival as part of a programme entitled “40 Years of Resistance Cinema” where it was voted one of the best films

18

Making “constructive” films

(Iran’s Sacred Defense cinema celebrated). Khomeini had once stated, “The film you make, if it happens to be constructive, will leave its positive mark all across the nation. If not, its misleading message will affect all throughout the country.” (32nd Fajr International Film Festival [Catalogue: 1] 2014). Perhaps heavyhanded religious or sacred defence films are preferred. However, films such as The Outcasts trilogy are tolerated and probably even encouraged as “constructive” for risk management. The debate over the trilogy is indicative of the complexities involved in reading Iranian cinema generally and the emphasis that Iranians place on extratextual information to de-code and politically position films that are themselves available to quite different interpretations. While, of course, as others, including Maltby, have noted, films generally are open to many interpretations by viewers and the political exigencies in Iran, as in other countries with strong censorship regimes, encourage substantial ambiguities in production and, regardless of any signs from the filmmakers, divergent readings by both officialdom and the general viewer. This instance discusses a film that was permitted, possibly even encouraged, despite a mildly critical stance by the filmmaker. Conversely, the question is often why a film was banned. Ascertaining the correct answer is not easy. This gives the system its case-by-case caste. It also suggests that much extraneous information can and may need to be considered in determining reasons why films are acceptable or not. A brief glance at any government structural chart indicates some of the problems that might arise in obtaining permits: the hierarchy is not vertical, and council and committees can cross-check and countermand each other. A permit granted by one section might be rescinded by another. Finally, it is not uncommon for a film to be granted a shooting permit by a committee, then to be refused a screening permit by the same committee because the constituents of that committee have changed, as several filmmakers noted to me (Milani Interview). In general, it is individuals who make decisions on production and screening permits, making the system ambiguous and arbitrary. These decisions may or may not be based on content. From the perspective of an official, there is the fear that a decision could be questioned or countermanded from any number of different sides. In a cinema where much meaning is buried in allegory and metaphor, and where extrafilmic information is inserted into the decoding process by most Iranian viewers, government officials can have as much difficulty in decoding hidden meanings in films as anyone. Giving a permit that can be challenged by another committee is clearly a dangerous act, and there is some evidence of a deal of risk avoidance of this possibility on the part of committees. An anonymous source told me that when he spoke with one of the authorities in relation to his screening permit (around 2000), the official said of his allegorical film, “We saw a Tarkovsky film in London and were unsure whether it was for or against religion. We also don’t know if your film is for or against religion.” In this particular instance, when the reformists were at the peak of their power, the committee took the risk of giving the permit. But it is easy to imagine the safer decision to withhold the permit being granted, and for this safer decision to be the decision-making norm.

Making “constructive” films 19 Changing political imperatives can also change the fate of a film. There is the earlier, very famous case of Bashu the Little Stranger (1987). Bahram Beyza’i’s first two features were banned. Ostensibly Bashu, his third film, about a young boy who loses his family in the war and flees from the south of the country to the north, where he is taken in by a childless couple, was destined for the same fate. However, this classic of Iranian cinema gained a screening permit after the cessation of the Iran-Iraq War because the theme, under changed circumstances, was suddenly considered appropriate (Bahram Beyza’i Film Director). Earlier I mentioned Manijeh Hekmat’s first feature, Women’s Prison (2002). This controversial, taboo-breaking film, produced largely through her own production

Figure 1.1 Actress Fatimeh Motamed Ariya with Adnan Afravian, the titular lead of Bashu the Little Stranger (1987) in his hometown of Ahvaz, February 2015.

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Making “constructive” films

company, “depicts the lives of Iran’s lost generation in the two decades since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, using the claustrophobic life of women behind bars as a metaphor for the entire society” (Beglari). After the initial problems mentioned earlier, her film became a political football. The reformists pushed for its release as part of their struggle with the conservative judiciary (Zeydabadi-Nejad 45), and the film was ultimately released domestically with cuts but screened uncut internationally (Atebba’i Interview). By contrast, Panahi had the opposite experience with the banning of The Circle, from 2000, two years earlier, for which he had received a screening permit. Seifollah Dad, then the reformist Deputy Minister, has subsequently claimed that he was forced to revoke the permit for The Circle in order to avoid political problems in the aftermath of Mohajerani’s resignation (Zeydabadi-Nejad 52). Naficy has noted another important factor that marks the filmmaking process – what he describes (and repeatedly demonstrates) as “cronyism based on Islamicate values and kinship” (Social History 3: 121). Naficy has also expressed this concept of cronyism in another way. He notes that the pre-Islamic duality that became overlaid with Islamic values has been enlisted by the regime in the form of a duality applied to artists – “insider” (khodi), those who are trusted by the government and “outsider” (gharibeh), those who are not (Social History 3: 9). Naficy quotes a published letter from Kiarostami where he discusses the government’s “own filmmakers (insiders) and independent filmmakers (outsiders) (Social History 4: 250). This concept, which Esfandiery and Zeydabadi-Nejad also use, is one with which I am only too familiar from everyday parlance with filmmakers who, when asked why a permit was refused, routinely respond simply that they are “outsiders”. Conversely an anonymous source wrote to me of a trilogy featuring the clergy made between 2001 and 2010 (discussed later), “No wonder the producer of Copper & Gold had also produced The Lizard and Under the Moon Light. He is the one who could easily cross all the so called regime’s redlines and this could not happen unless you have a green light from the higher layers.” That light undoubtedly turned green because the producer was Manouchehr Mohammadi, a former director of supervision on filmmaking in the MCIG (1997–2000). Kamal Tabrizi, director of both the controversial The Lizard and one of the most revered Sacred Defence films, Leily is with me, claims openly his connections as a basis for trust, what others might consider cronyism (Zeydabadi-Nejad 96). Girls (Qasem Jafari, 2009) contains a suicide, a taboo subject, and Parisa Shams, the scriptwriter, told me that getting funding was very difficult for this film, but ultimately it was made, released, and screened. Moreover, it screened in a prominent position, highlighted by an accompanying panel discussion in Roshd, a very conservative film festival. Others routinely refer to the director as an “insider”. This sort of insider/outsider logic possibly represents a workable, pragmatic solution to an otherwise highly individualised, case-by-case system of filmmaking regulation that would otherwise be ‘clogged up’ with too much uncertainty to be sustainable in film production. It can also perhaps be understood as the result of the situation I described earlier in relation to Jafar Panahi – “Sometimes the script you shoot is not the script you submitted.”

Making “constructive” films 21 Sometimes ‘trust’ is a more appropriate word for the process. Several veteran women filmmakers gave explanations of the process of getting projects up with bureaucrats, who suggested connections and trust as major factors. They surely helped Fereshteh Taerpour when making the controversial Facing Mirrors (2011), the first fictional film about transgender issues, and Pouran Derakhshandeh, whom I interviewed whilst she was in pre-production for Hush! Girls Don’t Scream (2013), dealing with paedophilia (Interviews). These films, directed or produced by women in Ahmadinejad’s second term, suggested that there was perhaps a different approach by women, one possibly worth investigating. Much earlier Mohsen Makhmalbaf discussed the insider/outsider issue in yet another way: I don’t believe that one should see the authorities as black and white. One cannot say that every official in this regime is bad and their opponents are all good. In cinema sometimes the person in charge was strict and his deputy was sympathetic and vice versa. We always found loopholes which we went through like water in a crack. (Zeydabadi-Nejad 48) In summary, “cronyism” and “kind dictators” (as Showqi described the early management of Farabi Cinema Foundation) can be seen as different perspectives on

Figure 1.2 Producer Fereshteh Taerpour with cast, crew and IFFA co-director and author at a reception in Tehran on 14 February 2013 to present the IFFA Audience Award to Facing Mirrors.

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what many filmmakers described to me as “contacts”, “compromise”, and “knowing the [shifting] boundaries” in a fluid governance system. Conversely, many (clearly unnameable) writers and directors in interviews with me between 2010 and 2012 claimed that they were ‘outsiders’ and this status alone was enough to have their permits rejected, without serious consideration being given to the project. In the late 1990s Dad had attempted to introduce legislation to decrease ambiguity and make the system less dependent on individuals in office. Filmmakers voiced concern about his attempt, and reformist MP (and filmmaker) Behruz Afkhami even opposed it in parliament. He believed that their chances were better, if more complicated, with negotiation with censors under the current laws rather than with the judiciary (Zeydabadi-Nejad 51). It is of note in relation to this ambiguity that of the many filmmakers I have talked with over the years, few if any have even read the regulations, confirming that they are perceived as open to discussion rather than legal interpretation. Between 2002 and 2008, I saw around fifteen films annually from the selection on offer for viewing by international guests at Fajr. As a group they differed significantly from what would end up at international festivals. My own observation, from watching this limited selection, was that in any given year there seemed to be specific social issues themes that had not previously been dealt with and might not recur thereafter, suggesting to me that funding and subject matter might be connected. In my first year, 2002, ‘temporary marriage’ was a prevalent theme across a number of films. I have asked several Farabi officials about a possible connection between funding and content, and all denied it, although one official conceded that he had previously been asked this question by another foreign guest. A film industry insider suggested that the connection was more likely the result of filmmakers responding to topical issues raised by the government, thus anticipating and seeking their production support through their selection of such issues. It would also maximise the likelihood of requisite permits. I proceeded to take this line of questioning with filmmakers. Although this is a delicate question, I was satisfied that this was indeed sometimes the case. Perhaps the most extreme example points to the reason for the continuing interest in the Sacred Defence genre from some filmmakers. In 2014 a young filmmaker surprised me with the topic of his new (never realised) project – Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and Sacred Defence – the latter element added, he conceded, to attract government funding. I was satisfied on questioning him that he was serious. After a film has a screening permit, the next issue for both filmmakers and distributors is securing its cinema release – getting the film into a desirable cinema at a desirable time of the year and with good timeslots. This is faced by the industry worldwide, but the Iranian situation is slightly different. Perhaps the most significant immediate problem facing filmmakers is the desperate shortage of screens in Iran. The conflicted attitude towards cinema and the destruction of many cinemas at the time of the revolution has combined with a reluctance until the mid2000s to re-build cinemas. System-wide under-investment in new infrastructure and a lack of renewal of the existing cinema infrastructure is being addressed, but

Making “constructive” films 23 unsurprisingly slowly. As Golmakani and many others very quickly pointed out to me in interviews, there are some twelve hundred filmmakers and fewer than four hundred screens in Iran. A film might be suitable for a permit, but it also needs to be commercially appealing to even obtain a release, much less at a desirable cinema. Cinema release meshes with the classification system in Iran differently from, for example, America, Great Britain, Australia, and India. Initially the system graded and categorised the filmmakers, films, and cinemas. In addition to being given a screening permit, films are rated not according to age suitability (because in general films that conform to Islamic values have been assumed to be appropriate for children, although this no longer holds true) but rather for their perceived quality (relating to their reflection of good Islamic values) into A, B, and C. Cinemas were similarly categorised, with films slated for screening in corresponding cinemas with the same grade. This system was changed under Dad so that the scheduling of films was determined by a committee comprised of members from the MCIG and the House of Cinema. Several industry insiders have suggested that this centralisation of scheduling is a source of corruption, with both cronyism and bribery rife. Being able to screen a film in a more popular cinema (reserved for those films with good Islamic values) clearly has a significant impact on the box office and, as in other countries, release dates also affect returns – a Nowruz (the Persian New Year) release is the equivalent of the coveted Australian or U.S. Christmas release. Conversely Muharram, the time of mourning for Imam Hossein, is a bad release timeslot for which there is no Western equivalent. Bahman Ghobadi, in discussing domestic screenings for his A Time for Drunken Horses (2000), complained, “I can only get permission to show my film in one cinema . . . whereas in the United States 50 cinemas are showing it” (Modarresi, Iran’s directors fighting). Milani’s Payback, which finally received a screening permit and release in 2010, three years after its completion, did not achieve the commercial success for which she had hoped. In Milani’s opinion this was partially attributable to it being placed in the wrong cinemas and given a poor release date (Interview). On top of corruption, depending on the attitude or risk-taking of the committee members, this scheme appears to be a potentially useful mechanism for the government to ‘bury’ a film. From the perspective of the filmmakers, even if they do have that desired screening permit in hand, the system may still be stacked against them in subtle and unsubtle ways. There is also the slippage between films that are considered oppositional and consequently not given screening permits (or, in common usage, “banned”) and those that are not considered commercially viable for release. There is no hard and fast distinction between such films. Unearthing the distinction in research is often complicated by the fact that Iranian filmmakers are aware of the interest shown internationally in films that are “banned” and may claim this status for films that are simply judged uncommercial. The pathway from inception to release is difficult for filmmakers anywhere, but for Iranians it does have additional hazards. Despite the control that the Islamic Republic ostensibly exercises on production, Iranian cinema conforms to O’Regan’s description of national cinemas as “fundamentally dispersed”

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(2). When factors such as intended market (domestic or international), funding sources, and government permits are combined with consideration of genre, Iranian cinema becomes an example of what O’Regan calls a truly “messy affair” (2). O’Regan suggests that one solution to defining a national cinema is to demonstrate a film milieu made up of antagonistic, complementary, and simply adjacent elements to be made sense of in their own terms (4). This is a pragmatic solution for Iranian cinema. It allows us to hold together completely oppositional viewpoints in relation to film politics and the politics of members of the film industry and to make sense of each position, eliciting understanding for different sorts of production. In this and the next chapter I will consider a range of films made between 2000 and 2013, organising them by generic and/or thematic concerns. My dual umbrella structure follows what Naficy identified – the state-sponsored, ideologically defined film, and the popular cinema concerned with contemporaneous social issues (which may or may not be state-sponsored) – comparing some that have successfully negotiated or been negotiated through the system with some that have experienced difficulties in funding, production, or release. I will look at the ways the presentation of themes and genres have modulated, whether or not that has been to accommodate changes in government policy or practice or simply the consequence of generic transformation over time in response to more normal film specific transformations. Moreover, I will note other issues that may contribute to difficulties in release. The intention is to elaborate on the relationship between Iranian cinematic structures and the genres and themes encouraged and discouraged by those bodies by looking at the resultant products, the films, and to place these in the context of their date of production. As Tapper notes, “The revolution itself and then the war with Iraq (1980–8) [had] suggested positive ways of promoting Islamic themes and images, and became subjects for major genres of art and cinema” (Screening Iran). The war with Iraq hastened the crafting of a new genre – the Cinema of Sacred Defence and the often-related category of Mystic/Spiritual cinema – both still current, although they have since undergone various transformations and hybridisations, of which The Outcasts trilogy is an obvious example. Here I will consider these two categories of film, beginning by contextualising with two Sacred Defence films made prior to 2000.

The Cinema of Sacred Defence and its modulation, resistance The Cinema of Sacred Defence (Sinama-ye defa’e moqqadas) takes as its subject matter the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88), the magnitude of which is often overlooked outside Iran. That it is one of the longest conventional wars of the twentieth century, which has formed the content of much Iranian cinema, both documentary and fictional, is hardly surprising. The Sacred Defence cinema was also one of the processes by which the concept of a “Persian” identity was to be re-constructed into a Shi’ite Iranian one, utilizing as its subject matter the new nation, the Islamic Republic, under serious threat. While the Rooseveltian idea of war as an important

Making “constructive” films 25 crucible for nationhood has been played out in other national cinemas, including Australia’s, the Cinema of Sacred Defence does have a peculiarly Iranian flavour, derived from Shia Islam and its mourning for the martyrdom of the Third Imam. It was conceived as “a clear departure from the earlier action films”, to depict the spiritual dimensions of the war and based on the concept of martyrdom in war (Varzi 158). It was also an attempt to make the divine manifest both in film and in real life. This spiritual dimension is emphasised in the action scenarios (Varzi 158). By extension this event became an allegory for the Iranian nation and its place internationally. Naficy notes that in this genre “sacred subjectivity replaced modernist subjectivity” (A Social History 3: xxiv). Sadr notes that it differs from Western war movies by “the absence of a stereotypical ruthless enemy” because of the cinematic regulations prohibiting the portrayal of disturbing violence (Contemporary Iranian Cinema 33). It forms part of a larger ideology of Sacred Defence developed around the “imposed war” with Iraq and has involved ongoing celebration such as Sacred Defence Week and military parades, the Sacred Defence Film Festival and the Sacred Defence Poetry Festival. Moreover, this genre would appear to have initially been a very pragmatic one for finding an appropriate (although effectively non-) representation strategy for women in the new gendered segregation of space onscreen occasioned by the revolution. Sadr writes that the early Iranian war films were told from the point of view, not of ordinary Iranians, but of the “religious fundamentalist soldiers whom they depicted” (Against the Wind 410). Despite the early failure of the genre from the perspective of the audience, the government persisted with it, and by 2000 two hundred Sacred Defence films had been made (Social History 4: 7–8). In 2013 it still featured strongly in the Fajr programme. The purpose of Sacred Defence cinema is to glorify the feats and sacrifices of the Iranian nation in the Iran-Iraq war, despite Iran’s ultimate defeat. Although there is no room for films that are critical of war or consider peace as an option, not all filmmakers have been complicit with the Islamic Republic’s views and needs in depicting war and its impact. Already in 1989 Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s controversial and angry Marriage of the Blessed (1989), about an alienated young veteran whose changed perspective of life does not allow him to resume his former life, was “the first film to censure the war” and Makhmalbaf’s sharp critique brought down on him the wrath of the government (Zeydabadi-Nejad 66, Sadr, Against the Wind 204). A short time later Rasoul Mollagholipour also made a less heroicising and more critical kind of Sacred Defence film. His acclaimed Journey to Chazzabeh (1995), which remains moving and effective in its portrayal of the horrors of war, is one of the first to depict “the ambience of a bitter defeat” (Danesh, Apocalypse Now) and criticism of the organisation of the war (Sadr Against the Wind 222). Chazzabeh, which fuses a spiritual dimension with war cinema while reinforcing notions of nationalism, demonstrates the difference between Western war films and Sacred Defence films. From the comfort of a Tehran recording studio, a film director, in the process of making a film about his own war experiences, discusses the film’s music with the composer, whom he somewhat derogatorily nicknames

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Figure 1.3 Sacred Defence Display in the Cinema Museum 31 January 2011.

“Mr Beethoven”. He wants something simple and in a shorthand rejection of the West (using Beethoven), wishes that they had used Persian instruments. (The use of Western music was proscribed by the cinema regulations of 1996 (Devictor 70)). Shortly after, they go on location. The sound of the ney, perhaps the most spiritual of Persian instruments with its close connection to the poet, Jalal ad-Din Rumi, leads the director off location and back ten years into the very midst of the war incident that he is attempting to capture in his film. There, he and his composer, who has meanwhile joined him, in some kind of time travel encounter his dead comrades and experience the events that his film is honouring. As every death in the “imposed war” is considered a case of martyrdom, the urbane and intellectual artiste composer asks the director, “Wasn’t he martyred?” A short time later they “witness” this very martyrdom in the way his father has dreamt it. In yet another spiritual synchronicity, his wife calls him on his mobile in what is the onscreen present to tell him that the body of his brother-in-law has just been found ten years on. The narrative is limited; rather, the film is about immersing the audience in the horrifying experience of war. The presence of the two witnesses, director, and composer, and their existential discussions serve to heighten the audience’s response to the events portrayed. Despite the spiritual dimension, Mollagholipour suggests the meaninglessness of violence and death and desists from infusing the incident itself with spiritual meaning.

Making “constructive” films 27 Although there is photographic evidence of women taking up arms during the Iran–Iraq war, for which they had an historical model in the active and even combative Zaynab, granddaughter of the Prophet (Rauh), in peacetime this wartime role of women was forgotten, and initially was not portrayed on screen. Women were encouraged to follow the more prominent Fatimeh, the Prophet’s daughter, an archetype of Shi‘a female virtue – femininity, humility, sacrifice, and primarily connected to family, the main cell of society (“Islamic views on women issue must be theorized”). While the efforts by Iranian filmmakers to come to terms with the loss initially focused on the front or the re-integration of veterans into society, there was a gradual shift in the genre towards including a female presence; women were introduced as wives and mothers on the homefront. Mollagholipour was at the forefront with Hiva (2000), about a woman who decides to remarry ten years after her husband has gone missing in the war. But she needs to convince herself that he really is dead. She makes a journey to try to see his body, and their love is brought to life through his old letters. As in Chazzabeh, Mollagholipour portrays this by playing with the concept of time. He contrasts their love with grim flashbacks of combat. She eventually concludes that her own life has been empty, lacking the strong beliefs and values for which her husband had fought. Sadr, who describes the film as “brutal”, states that “Hiva lays emphasis on the character of a woman at the heart of the war and conveys a message familiar in Iranian cinema: . . . a woman is defined by what can or cannot be done to her.” He considers Hiva a turning point, showing “a different view of the significance of female roles during the war” (Sadr 2002, 222–223). However, ultimately the woman still defines herself in relation to her husband and his war experiences and finds her own experiences lacking by comparison. Mollagholipour’s critical attitude was not always “officially welcomed”, and in 2001 he announced that he would not be making any more films because of the official restrictions on his work (War filmmaker Mollaqolipur honored). However, he made several more, and his final film was in the Sacred Defence genre and focusing on women. M for Mother (2007) is a particularly interesting variation on motherhood. A woman who has been exposed to chemical weapons during the war decides against an abortion despite the likelihood of her baby having serious birth defects. Consequently, her husband leaves her, and she rears the child alone. Later the husband returns from abroad to find that she is dying of cancer, but the handicapped son is performing in a concert. The film was well received by the Iranian public, and indeed Danesh notes of the melodrama that “some viewers even fainted at movie theaters.” It was selected by the House of Cinema for submission into the Best Foreign Language Films category at the 80th Annual Academy Awards in spite of the fact that the character of the father, a diplomat (and thus a government representative), is portrayed in a poor light. After Mollagholipour died in 2007, a small focus of his works was screened at Fajr in 2008, and a posthumous ceremony honouring him was held in March 2011, suggesting his rehabilitation in a political climate that needed to embrace contained opposition as a sign of its liberalness. This was most probably helped by his reputation for using spiritual and religious references (Danesh).

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Sacred defence in the hands of female directors Just as initially there were very few women in front of the camera in Sacred Defence films, so directors were initially male. Hiwa had laid the groundwork for one of the most effective and widely acclaimed films portraying women on the homefront from this period. Then Rakshan Bani-E’temad entered the field with Gilaneh (2005), highlighting a new theme, the idealised self-sacrificing mother who gives all for her children. The titular Gilaneh, a middle-aged woman, bids farewell to her son, Ismaeel, who is leaving for the front, and then turns to give support to her pregnant daughter, Maygol, whose husband has deserted the war. Fifteen years later we see Gilaneh, crippled with age, caring for her son, who has been badly disabled in war fought with chemical weapons. In an interview with the lead actress of the film, Fatimeh Motamed-Arya, I experienced myself the impact that such a film could have for an Iranian audience (Démy-Geroe). We both wept as she shared the story of her own brother who, lost for many years after fighting in the war, walked in the door on her wedding day. As we speculated how this might have informed her internationally award-winning performance in Gilaneh, it gave me some understanding of how such a cinema might resonate in a country where the wartime loss of life is estimated at over one million. Positioning Gilaneh, an influential film which won multiple national and international awards for both the director and the lead actress, is complex. Although Gilaneh is generally considered to be anti-war outside Iran, making films advocating peace is not tolerated in Iran. Gilaneh is thematically concerned with war, embracing the Islamic values of sacrifice in war and on motherhood. Although she and her feelings are ennobled, the aging Gilaneh is also defined in relation to others. There is an interesting aspect relating to the history of this film. While thematically it might appear to non-Iranians to resist inclusion as a Sacred Defence film, with an apparently anti-war theme, a segment of it initially screened at Fajr in 2004 as part of a tripartite portmanteau film. The other two sections, A Little Wish by Parviz Sheikhtadi and God’s Jokes by Abdolhassan Barzideh, which depicted war at the front, were not considered favourably by foreign programmers, but all, myself included, wanted to include Bani-E’temad’s segment in their festival. This is my own very strong memory of the event. The inside story: “The film was shown in Fajr and got an award of directing for Rakhshan. But, as the first and second episodes were very low quality, Rakhshan asked the producer to change her episode into a feature film, and she added a part to that episode and changed it to a feature film, Gilaneh, co-directed by Mohsen Abdolvahab in 2005”. Furthermore “all [episodes] were in Sacred Defence genre” (Atebba’i email). Not only Atebba’i but Shahab Esfandiery stated categorically to me that the film is in the Sacred Defence genre, and three years after the film had been released, in 2008, it was still being acknowledged for these values. At the third Parvin Etesami Film Festival, a festival dedicated generally to the role of Iranian women in society and focusing that year on the theme of Sacred Defence, BaniE’temad was accorded the special “Parvin” plaque for the film. The jury members of the main competition were Dariush Mehrju’i, Tahmineh Milani, and Rakhshan

Making “constructive” films 29 Bani-E’temad, and thus she must have been comfortable in such positioning of the film. Nonetheless, she has stated, “This is how I wanted to show my hatred for war” (Laurier and Walsh). This history makes for an interesting sub-text and calls to mind Naficy’s comments about the “internal tug-of-war . . . between liberalism and conservatism” in her films (Social History 4: 158–9). It should also be read in relation to Bani-E’temad’s relationship to feminism, discussed in the next chapter. Two further important films about the Iran-Iraq war from female directors, both debut features, were released between 2014 and 2017. They are included here because they show an important trend and the gestation of both began during the Ahmadinejad period. Track 143 (2014, Narges Abyar), like Gilaneh, deals with the suffering of a young soldier’s mother. Gilaneh’s son returns, although severely handicapped. But in Track 143, as in Hiva, the son is missing in action. Believing steadfastly till the end that he will be found alive, the mother must wait more than fifteen years for closure. The debut feature based on one character from the director’s own novel, The Third Eye, is fairly minimalist, essentially a portrayal of faith and grief, delicately filmed, with the emphasis on the performance of the mother. It includes intriguing details – when she discovers that the Iraqi radio announces the names of the Iranian prisoners of war, this simple country woman wears a radio round her neck, even when working out in the fields, to be sure not to miss any news about him. Track 143 was praised by director Ebrahim Hatamikia and film critic Shahab Moradi who stated that it, “illustrates Iran-Iraq war, martyrdom and captivity in the best way and this isn’t against the war” (my emphasis). The Supreme Leader met with the filmmakers, favourably noting the portrayal of the role of the mothers of martyrs (Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Interview). According to my informants, this meeting has unfairly tagged Abyar as an insider within the industry, perhaps not surprising given both the subject matter and that it was distributed by IRIB. It should be noted that the filmmakers only approached IRIB for distribution support (not production funding) and only after completion of the film (Shahrocki). While the film has every indicator of strong government approval, it seems to have transcended that limitation, injecting new life into the genre. It won the Audience Award at Fajr that year. Moreover, as with Motamed Arya’s role in Gilaneh, Merila Zare’i as the mother was singled out domestically and internationally for her strong performance. She was, for example, shortlisted for the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. The first draft of the more recent debut feature, Villa Dwellers (2017), was scripted by writer/director Monir Gheydi around 2008. She has noted that she began pre-production on the film a number of times. The film is set in 1986, close to the end of the Iran-Iraq War, in a compound of “villas” near the front that have been made available as accommodation for the families of soldiers, to facilitate visits. The compound also houses a vastly under-resourced hospital where the soldiers’ wives volunteer. Women and children come and go, coinciding with the death of loved ones at the front. The film records their daily lives, depicting the usual kindnesses and petty jealousies that such a situation brings. The opening

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voiceover makes clear the intention of the filmmaker. Firstly, she invokes a sense of Iran’s pre-revolutionary near past by noting the history of the buildings: they were erected by a French company in the early 1970s for those working on the south railway. She then explains that the film is “the story of the patience of the brave women who could courageously be the hidden half of these heroic acts [the Iran-Iraq war] for many years”. These three sensitively directed films from female directors do stand apart from the many other representations of women in Sacred Defence films in placing the women at the centre of the narrative. Abyar’s second film Breath (2017), about a young girl growing up in Yazd, was set against the background of both the revolution and the war. The film was selected as Iran’s Academy Awards Foreign Language nomination that year. It is surprising, given the topic, that Abyar and Gheydi, who are both half a generation younger than Bani-E’temad and were both children during the war, had some difficulties in getting these films up despite being first features. However, anecdotally their films are amongst a small group that have transcended positioning as “insider” works, despite strong affirmation from government sources for conforming to Islamic values.

Modulations on the Sacred Defence film A film that deals with a different aspect of Sacred Defence is Alireza Amini’s first feature Letters in the Wind (2002), set mostly in an isolated army training camp amidst deep snow, where conscripts are toughened up for service. Perhaps inspired by the bootcamp section of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, according to Amini, the film has some basis in his own Iran-Iraq War service. It focuses on two of the cadets, one of whom has a tape recorder with the voice of a woman. It is treated as a kind of pin-up by the soldiers; the whole camp plays the tape obsessively. When one of the soldiers takes a brief trip to Tehran, he takes recorded messages to the families of his colleagues. The film won two Crystal Simorghs at Fajr, then premiered at my own festival, the Brisbane International Film Festival, when it received a special mention from NETPAC, going on to Toronto. Although the film had been produced by the Documentary and Experimental Film Center (DEFC), a government body, it was finally banned in Iran. Some feel that there is an insinuation of masturbation (which I did not notice); perhaps the unsympathetic portrayal of the bootcamp, a characteristic of such films anywhere, was considered undesirable. Turning to another significant variation on the war at the front, Kiumars Pourahmad’s minimalist black and white film The Night Bus (2006) completely changes the territory of Sacred Defence films, absorbing the characteristics of a road movie. The film is set over a twenty-four-hour period, and about three years into the war. Two young soldiers must supervise the overnight transportation of thirty-eight Iraqi prisoners of war from inside Iraq to their company’s garrison in Iran. The private, although the junior of the two, takes charge. He is clearly frightened, making him bark aggressively at the prisoners and treat them with contempt. The civilian driver of the old bus is difficult, and the dangerous terrain

Making “constructive” films 31 is full of land mines. Negotiating all this and managing his blindfolded prisoners is a huge task for a young man. But the old bus driver, whom he addresses respectfully as “Amu” or uncle, softens and aids him. Gradually he overcomes his fear and learns to treat them humanely. Eventually he allows the removal of the blindfolds, and we see enemy faces at close range. True to its form as a road movie, the passengers on the bus begin to exchange life stories. The private, who is only eighteen, is from Abadan, a key site early in the war, and we learn that his father has been martyred. One of the Iraqi prisoners has an Iraqi father and an Iranian mother. Another is an Iraqi Kurd, and yet another a member of the Baath Party. What is unusual is that the Iraqi enemy is given a voice, both literally and metaphorically. The three Iranians speak Farsi among themselves. The prisoners speak in Arabic. But the Iranians are able to communicate with the Iraqis through broken Arabic, and thus language becomes a metaphor for the uneasy truce and then what is almost a bond that develops between all on the bus. A film extending sympathy to the enemy is rare, and Kambozia Partovi’s Adult’s Game (1993), perhaps the only other example, was banned for a while for very this reason. This film, honoured with a special display in the Cinema Museum till the renovations of 2013, has had strong endorsements from independent sectors of the Iranian film industry and was screened widely at festivals internationally. It won the Jury Grand Prize at APSA in 2007, when Jafar Panahi was a jury member, and was also nominated for best film, actor, and screenplay, signalling its universality. Another unusual film, hybridising spiritual and Sacred Defence genres and bringing the relevance of Sacred Defence into the present, is Mohammad-Ali Basheh-Ahangar’s debut feature, The Child of the Earth (2008). Described as “one of the best films of the 26th Fajr International Film Festival”, where it received six awards, including Best Film, it deals with the ongoing search for bodies of Iranian soldiers killed in the Iraq-Iran war (Danesh, The Bone Collector). Initially, Iranian body-search groups were sometimes arrested by the Iraqis. Eventually, the Iranians began to pay Iraqi Kurdish women and girls for the remains of their soldiers. Apparently, many people made a living in this way for quite a few years. In The Child of the Earth, the pregnant wife and the mother of a missing soldier make the dangerous journey into Iraq to identify the body. Malone suggests that such subject matter is normally the stuff of a documentary, but in this fictional film it becomes “a transforming quest which highlights Islamic perceptions of prayer, holiness and pilgrimage” (Malone, Spiritual Cinema). Bashe-Ahangar’s second film, Awakening Dreams (2010) combines Sacred Defence with social problems in a melodrama in which the wife of a soldier mistakenly reported dead has married his brother for the sake of their child. As the Iran–Iraq war inevitably began to lose some currency some two decades after its cessation, and the government under Ahmadinejad became increasingly hostile to the West and unsure of its power domestically, the concept of Sacred Defence based around the Iran-Iraq War expanded, becoming conflated with general resistance against the USA and Israel. This expanded ideology was called “Resistance” or “Moqavamet”. There were filmic precedents, with some noteworthy earlier films about the Palestinian struggle of which a prominent example

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is Seifollah Dad’s Arabic language Survivor (1995). Set in 1948 in Haifa against the background of the Israeli Declaration of Independence, it is told from the perspective of a Palestinian family who have lost their home to a Jewish couple. In 2011 there was an interesting example of this modified genre in the low-budget Farewell Baghdad (Mehdi Naderi), produced by the DEFC. Like The Night Bus it differs from the norm in portraying the enemy with empathy. But Farewell Baghdad is set in the context of the Iraq War (2003–2010), not the Iran–Iraq War, and the enemy is the U.S. The film attempts an even-handed representation focusing, if not equally in terms of screen time, on three characters: An American soldier who has enlisted in the army to escape his past but has deserted when his mission is over to avoid returning and is guilt-ridden at having accidentally shot a young Iraqi girl in her home; a young American woman who lost her husband in 2003 in the American attack on Iraq on the day of her wedding runs a café on the Iran-Iraq border for soldiers from either side. In her spare time, she tries to clear landmines, replacing them with trees; an Iraqi math teacher lost his family on the same day; subsequently he was imprisoned in Abu Ghraib. He enters the young woman’s cafe disguised as a woman, intending to suicide bomb, but sees his own photograph on the wall and runs away in shock. Fractured, expressionistic flashbacks illuminate the background of the American soldier and the emotional impact the killing of the child has on him. Insight into the character of the suicide bomber is suggested subtly. The western woman is quite enigmatic. A first feature, and clearly so, it is aesthetically influenced by American Indies. A large portion of the dialogue is in English. As with Gilaneh, this film was appropriated for government use. It became Iran’s 2011 Academy Award nominee. The film’s director, Naderi, stated that he did not want his film to be seen as “a tool of soft war” against the West and that “[f]ar from being state propaganda, [the] film which explores the motivation and doubts of both U.S. soldiers and Iraqi insurgents, was made in the face of unhelpful pressure from the authorities and on a shoestring budget” (Iranian Movie on US). Naderi further stated, “It took six years to get the permission to make this film and we changed the script about 18 times to satisfy officials. I want to show how an Iranian filmmaker can make a movie without any financial support in less than two months from a country with lots of rules and censorship”. From Chazzabeh to Bear: In 2013 a complex modulation on Sacred Defence appeared with Bear by Khosro Masoumi, proving that new and interesting Sacred Defence stories were still possible. Noureddin returns from war to his mountain village to find that his wife has remarried and has two children. He had been gone for eight years and was assumed martyred. What emerges is that unbeknownst to him she was pregnant when he left, and although she still loves him, both his and her family convinced her to divorce him in absentia and remarry. The reveal as to why Noureddin was absent for so long, about forty minutes in, is memory loss. “I risked going to war and defending my country! It’s not fair that I should lose my wife in the process, is it?” he declares. By now the viewer is sympathetic to all the competing voices and problems. Afra (the titular bear), her second husband, is clearly devoted to her, although violent and very patriarchal. He lacks interpersonal skills, and shame also looms large for him. This film is unusual for Sacred

Making “constructive” films 33 Defence, dealing with strong earthly rather than spiritual love or moral duty, giving it a universality. Nonetheless, lines such as that from the clergyman, “We were so jealous of your martyrdom” place it inside Sacred Defence. But shame, as in most honour killings, wins out and Afra, the bear, shoots mother and daughter dead to protect his honour.

Religion and the spiritual If cinema was to be “constructive”, at the service of the Islamic regime, as Khomeini had made clear, then obviously content would need to reflect this. It is unsurprising that films dealing with religion and the spiritual still retain their currency in much production in the Islamic Republic, but perhaps surprising is the varied terrain. I have defined, perhaps simplistically, “religious films”, as those which combine religious content with a didactive function, making their audience aware of important aspects of Shi’ism, and the Iranian state’s religious history and doctrine. Of the “religious” films, many are historical costume dramas. In keeping with the Islamic Republic’s mandate, many such films (religious epics and religious mini-series) tend to be made for television, with IRIB as the main producer of them, although this was not exclusively the situation and there are examples, as anywhere, of television productions breaking out into theatrical release. A popular formula has been to produce a mini-series, out of which a feature film can be extracted. An exemplary filmmaker in this tradition is Shahriar Bahrani. In 2002 he made St Mary, about the mother of Jesus based on the Quranic version and the Islamic tradition. There were two versions – both an eleven-part TV mini-series and a feature film. I have selected Bahrani because in 2010 he directed The Kingdom of Solomon (2010), a kind of Islamic blockbuster, and discussed in Chapter 6 as the first of the new “Magnificent Productions”, intended to give religious films a more contemporary identity. However, there is a kind of division that has emerged periodically between religious and mystical. Many of the religious films with contemporary settings were initially made through the Arts Centre of the Islamic Propaganda Organisation. According to Zeydabadi-Nejad, Seyed Mohammad Beheshti, the first head of Farabi (till 1995), encouraged more mystical or spiritual films (39). Later, during Khatami’s second term, there was significant discussion and controversy around the concept of the spiritual as a new “trend” and the introduction of a type of film labelled as “interfaith”.

The introduction of interfaith films I will begin with the small but intriguing Interfaith category. In 2002 Fajr sent an invitation to the Pontifical Councils for Social Communications and Culture to send a representative to the festival. The then SIGNIS president, Jesuit priest Peter Malone, went to Tehran. That year a hastily constituted SIGNIS Interfaith jury of two, comprised of Malone and Amir Esfandieri from Farabi, made the first award. In 2003 the Interfaith Award “to single out films which dramatise values which are common to Islam and Christianity” was more formally introduced at

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Fajr. Subsequently the jury of the (still extant) award has consisted of members of SIGNIS, who are Catholic, and Muslim nominees from the festival, filmmakers, academics, or clergy. Although the award was the first public manifestation of this category, gradually a strategy to support “interfaith” films across policy, funding, and awards emerged. A small body of productions has arisen that can also be labelled “interfaith”. My definition for this, an adaptation from that used by Fajr for their Interfaith Jury, is “films which dramatise values or specifically religious themes shared across different faiths”. The films were largely made by IRIB, confirming how closely this move was connected to government policy. A large and prominent production of this type was Nader Talebzadeh’s Jesus, the Spirit of God (2005), which used the same formula as St Mary, mentioned earlier. Jesus, the Spirit of God, reduced from a ten-part mini-series, The Messiah, was “an unusual interfaith project” in the religious film category. The biopic (and mini-series) of Jesus was made according to the Quran, but Talebzadeh continued to work on the film after discussions with Christians and filmed a second ending according to the Gospel account of the Passion (Malone, Interview). In 2007 two “interfaith” films were completed, both focusing on the compatibility of Christianity and Islam. Parviz Sheikh Tadi’s Red Robin (2007) twists the simple spiritual film to a remote mountain village setting where Christianity and Islam co-exist. A miracle occurs when a young boy is brought back to life through the relics of Imam Hossein and the cross of Jesus. (Sheikh Tadi was later to make the “anti-Zionist” Saturday’s Hunter, discussed in Chapter 6.) Abbas Rafei’s The Sun Shines Equally on Everybody (2007) unites the faith of two female friends, a Christian and a Muslim, when they take the husband of the Muslim woman, a chemically injured war victim, to a shrine. “They find miracles all around, leading them at the end to a greater miracle for the Muslim couple and unexpected enlightenment for Janet, a Christian” (IRIB website). The film, a hybrid with the Sacred Defence film, advances the narrative using dreams and magic realist elements. It won awards in international religious festivals of both faiths – a Golden Minbar at the Russian “Muslim Cinema” Film Festival and the “In the spirit of the faith” and “Women and Religion” Awards at the Italian-based “Religion Today Film Festival”. Maziar Miri’s The Book of Law (2008) revolves around the relationship between an Iranian Muslim businessman and a Christian Lebanese woman he meets on a trip to Beirut. After she converts to Islam, he decides to marry her. But she finds a discrepancy between the Quran and the customs and business practices of her new in-laws. This is portrayed humorously, although the film does also switch to melodrama. The film was banned domestically and internationally until some nine minutes were removed.

The spiritual “trend” The concept of “spiritual films”, a significant complication on the categorisation of religious films became evident at Fajr in 2005, just months before Ahmadinejad

Making “constructive” films 35 assumed the presidency. Farabi had newly established a Spiritual Cinema Centre under Abdollah Esfandieri. Funding productions such as Majid Majidi’s The Willow Tree and publishing new Iranian works along with translations of foreign works on spiritual cinema (Pak-Shiraz 53) were among the major tasks. Within the festival there was the new “Competition of Spiritual Cinema” with an internationally constituted jury. The introduction of the concept of spiritual cinema was a controversial one. While I was well aware of it, discussion in the English language version of the daily newsletter was limited. Pak-Shiraz, also present that year, has written a detailed account of the whole, noting vociferous debate around the term sinama-ye ma‘nagara and its English translation, as well as the confusion over what this category might include, possibly partly related to these translation issues. Alireza Rezadad, the festival director that year, stated in an interview, “We’ve described it many times. Spiritual cinema is a trend, not style nor genre or kind. It’s actually a tendency. This kind of cinema consists of those movies, which consists of those movies, which concern ultra-material [extra-material] phenomenon” (Pak-Shiraz 37). On Farabi’s website stood “the nature and essence of the stable values of mankind, accepted by worldwide civilizations, is the main subject of Spiritual Cinema” (Pak-Shiraz 54). The head of the Spiritual Cinema Centre, Abdollah Esfandieri, expanded this definition to “a contextual phenomenon that can occur in any cinema”, exemplifying it with films such as Carrie (Brian de Palma, 1976) and The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973), along with less surprising examples such as The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson, 2004) and Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987) (Pak-Shiraz 57). For my own part I was a member of the Spiritual Jury the following year under the chairmanship of Agnieska Holland. The Iranian jury member was Talebzadeh (Jesus, the Spirit of God). While the Iranian films were what might be expected in such a category, as a jury we were surprised to be considering films such as Neil LaBute’s The Wicker Man (2006) and Thai thriller ghost tales alongside what for us were more obvious choices as spiritual films. In considering the spiritual “trend” as exemplified by Iranian examples from Fajr, the films were definable as ones providing a potentially spiritually transformative journey for both their onscreen characters and the audience. Content may or may not be explicitly religious or overtly aligned with a particular religion. My personal response to the best of them is that they are often contemplative or meditative pieces. The recipient of the Spirituality Award in my year as a juror, 2006, was Bahram Tavakoli’s debut feature, Barefoot in Heaven (2006), a metaphoric film about belief and self-sacrifice. The film portrays a clergyman working at a hospital where both the terminally and the mentally ill are segregated into a section called Heaven. Despite a widespread belief among the hospital staff and patients that infectious material is on the floor, the clergyman defiantly crosses the ward’s floor barefoot, walking out into the snow. An unusual group of films in terms of content, because of its mildly critical stance on the clergy, is what is regarded as a trilogy – Under the Moonlight, The Lizard, and Gold and Copper – made between 2001 and 2010. The three films have different directors, accounting for their significantly different styles and

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tones. Their commonalities lie in their use of the clergy as subject matter and that they share the same producer. Pak-Shiraz, writing in 2007 before the third film was made, positioned the first two as “not a mere reflection of the prevailing oral and written debates. In fact, such films are an important – if often overlooked – part of the larger discourse within Iranian society” (Filmic Discourses 331). These first two pre-date the ‘identification’ of the ‘spiritual trend’ and probably informed it. My concern here is to situate them as spiritual films in terms of their domestic and international reception. The first in the trilogy is Reza Mir-Karimi’s Under the Moonlight (2001). A young seminary student is ambivalent about graduating and donning the clerical attire. Eventually, in deference to his father, he purchases the gown but it is stolen. In retrieving his clothing, the young man encounters the homeless, for him a whole new stratum of society, and gains new understanding of society and his own role as a clergyman. This delicate and sensitive film has been dealt with fairly extensively, not only by Pak-Shiraz, but what is notable is that it was recognised not only domestically with a Special Jury Award at Fajr but also found favour internationally with the Critics Week Grand Prize at Cannes. Given the subject matter, what was perhaps more remarkable was the international reception of the third in the trilogy, Homayun As’adian’s Gold and Copper (2010). It also features a young seminary student. Married, with a model Islamic family, he brings them with him to the city so he can study at a seminary. When his wife is diagnosed with an incurable illness, amid the derision of his fellow seminarians, he takes on the running of the household, even weaving the carpets that bring in their income. The clergyman, as in Under the Moonlight, grows spiritually, reflecting the film’s title, a quote from Rumi (Bitter is made sweet through love; copper becomes gold through love) – he learns that not only spiritual but also worldly concerns are important (41). While the seminarians mock him when he brings his young son to classes, through his attention to the family’s needs he rises significantly in the estimation of his wife’s medical team and all women who have been initially cynical about a clergyman. But taking on domestic duties can only be temporary for any man, much less a member of the clergy, and the permanent solution is provided by Islam when he takes a second wife. One of the most moving scenes in this film is when the mother is trying to cook spaghetti for her children. She is physically incapable of doing it, and the couple has a small argument, he claiming it would be easier if she could just accept her disability and allow him to cook. Soon they lovingly make up with an exchange of some flirtatiousness banter, amidst which she suggests to him that he take a second wife. At the time of production, the Family Protection Bill had been in dispute since 2007. One of the key issues about which there had been discussion and protest was the issue of taking more than one wife. Iranian law had allowed Muslim men to have up to four wives, but only after obtaining a court order which included the permission of the first spouse. Article 23 of the Family Draft Law of 2007–08 removed the necessity for the first wife’s permission. In 2008 a rather innovative protest was implemented:

Making “constructive” films 37 On a summer night in 2008, the wives of some Iranian members of Parliament started receiving phone calls. ‘Would you mind if I married your husband – just for a week?’ asked the female voice on the end of the line. The callers argued that taking another wife is a Muslim man’s right. By allowing it, the MPs’ wives would be performing a good Islamic deed. Some of the wives hung up in shock. (Iranian Women Fight) The law was finally passed in 2013 without the requirement for the first wife’s permission. Gold and Copper, from 2010, would seem to be justifying certain circumstances for a second wife, supporting the pre-revolutionary clauses still in effect until the 2007–2008 draft. The film premiered at the world Shi’ite centre of theological training in Qom, was praised by the Supreme Leader, and won the Path of the Prophets Award at Fajr, indicating strong approval from the clergy. Despite this formal approval, it was rewarded with good audiences domestically (achieving fifteenth place at the box office in that year). It was taken on for international exhibition by the farfrom-conservative sales agent, Iranian Independents, and received a very positive review from American Variety critic Justin Chang who described it as, “a simple, intimate and profoundly moving melodrama . . . of near-universal appeal”, an assessment with which I concur. Much credit should be given to the lead actress, Negar Javaharian, who plays a similarly affecting role in Painting Pool, discussed in the next chapter. Although the ideology of Gold and Copper, embracing polygamy, made it less appealing internationally, it had a small run of international festivals. My own experience of exhibiting it was that the audience was smaller than average, suggesting disapproval in advance, but those who saw it could ignore the solution, also agreeing with Chang. These two films both conform to the Spiritual category as defined above, being both transformative for the protagonists and contemplative for the audience, but Kamal Tabrizi’s, The Lizard (2004), had a very different trajectory. This highly commercial second film in the trilogy takes the somewhat peculiar form of a spiritual-comedy hybrid, following the precedent of his Sacred Defence-comedy hybrid discussed earlier, Leili is with me. As in Under the Moonlight, stolen clerical clothing become the catalyst. Here a thief in a prison hospital steals the clothes of a clergyman and escapes in the world at large, with much of the comedic value in the thief’s discovery that the mullahs are often at the receiving end of poor treatment from worldly civilians. He finds, for example, no taxi will stop for him, a scene which elicits the mirth of recognition from Iranian audiences, although was less understood by the international audience. But clothes make the man, and eventually our thief, mistaken long enough for a real mullah and having to meet the expectations of those around him to sustain his disguise, transforms and does good, based on his own secular experience, making for a kind of inversion of the plot of Under the Moonlight. The film screened at Fajr in the main programme and in the special programme for the international audience, suggesting how it was viewed internally. Farabi

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presented the film in the market at Cannes, indicating government approval, not just toleration, and it was then released domestically to an enthusiastic reception. It was four-walled widely outside Iran for the Iranian diaspora, indicating the nature of its reading by that audience. However, while transformative for our protagonist, the popular domestic reception of what was a very clever script suggested to the clergy that it was being read at their expense, and their complaints led to its voluntary withdrawal (not banning) after several weeks in release. Its popularity in those few weeks had returned significant (and sufficient) box. This appears to be another case of a film open to various interpretations. It was released late in Khatami’s second reformist term. Had it been made three years later, it may have been viewed as “risk management” as with The Outcasts, from the same scriptwriter, Peyman Ghasemkhani. There are many arthouse and more popular films made for domestic release which, measured against the above definition, might be considered “spiritual” rather than “religious”; some have crossed over into the Western market. Many of the films of Reza Mir-Karimi, which have won acclaim domestically and internationally, are refined examples, but his third feature, Here, a Shining Light (2002), the first recipient of the new Interfaith Award at Fajr, is typical of the simpler spiritual films. The custodian of a shrine must go on a trip and leaves the responsibility for the shrine to his mentally handicapped son. The focus is on the community members helping the son, making it a universal, humanistic, and spiritual story, albeit with a religious setting. This seems to be a key difference between the spiritual and religious films and accounts for the ability of such spiritual films to cross over to international festivals. Exemplary of the popular version of the spiritual film, which did not cross over internationally, is Ali Ghavitan’s Sun, Moon, Earth (2012), in which a clergyman returns to his village to claim some inherited land but realising the disruption this will cause, he leaves without the villagers ever discovering that he is its rightful owner. The film also offers an opportunity to showcase village life. IRIB is, unsurprisingly, heavily involved in the production of spiritual (as well as religious) films. Dariush Mehrju’i’s telemovie for IRIB, Beloved Sky (2011), is an informative example of the kind of filmmaking this involvement sponsors. A doctor takes to the road upon discovering he is incurably ill and stumbles across a shrine. He enters into a mystical experience, travelling hundreds of years back in time to when there was a village around the shrine. He lives for some years in the village, serving as the doctor to a troubled young woman, learning about traditional medicine and gaining insight into his own troubles. He also provides the expertise to build the dome of the shrine. When he himself is healed and the time to leave comes, he finds himself before the shrine once again, domeless but now in ruins, and he realises that he has somehow been transported back hundreds of years. The film stars real-life husband and wife Ali Mosaffa and Leila Hatami, who previously performed together with Mehrju’i in Leila. Because of their offscreen relationship, they are able to touch on screen. Mehrju’i has taken advantage of this, and their performance is a highlight of an otherwise ordinary film.

Making “constructive” films 39 In late 2009 Shamaqdari, formerly a senior official in the conservative IRIB, was appointed as the Deputy Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance for Cinema and Audio-Visual Affairs. Already in 2006, he had noted his opposition to the concept of a ma’nagara, or spiritual cinema grouping, “Had Iranian cinema ever worked outside the realm of meaning that it intends to do so now? . . . Have we ever produced films that had anything but spiritual outlook and values? . . . Our Revolution was ma’nagara and our art and cultural products have also been in line with these values” (Pak-Shiraz, 63). Post-2009, under the Ahmadinejad government, there was a strategy which re-framed the concept of the spiritual in cinema along with Sacred Defence cinema for international consumption, as will be discussed later.

Conclusion Films revolving around religion could be expected to be a staple of a theocratic government and have continued to assume an important role in Iranian cinema. Iran’s history of mysticism, despite the state pressure exerted on sufism and darvishes, makes films of a spiritual nature also a natural part of the terrain. The exploration of “interfaith” is less to be expected. Its emergence at the end of the Khatami era suggests the context of Khatami’s Dialogue of Civilisations, which was declared as a UNESCO “year” in 2001, and the UNESCO Year of Rumi, 2007, in which Iran participated with a number of international conferences. The importance of the Sacred Defence genre to nation-building based on religion rather than ethnicity is incalculable and explains the emphasis placed on it by the Supreme Leader. In this time period its scope was expanded to include resistance and hybridised with other genres, in particular family dramas and commercial comedy to broaden its appeal. The directing of Sacred Defence films had been male-dominated, but the expansion of the genre’s scope also encouraged the participation of women writer/directors. The genre thus was prominent in the 2012 and 2013 editions of Fajr and still remains at present. Between 2009 and 2013 there was a stronger emphasis on Sacred Defence, resistance, and religious filmmaking in government policy, manifested through a number of blockbustertype movies relating directly to Iran’s foreign policy and the soft war. They are covered in chapter 6 as part of a consideration of Muslim filmmaking.

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Iranian cinema means the middle classes

Political and social criticism had been unacceptable in Iran since formal censorship began in the 1920s (Tapper, Screening Iran). Prior to the revolution, despite the existence of this strict censorship, “a few films with critical social themes” were tolerated (Golmakani, 1989). A high-profile example of one that was initially not tolerated was Darius Mehrju’i’s controversial and biting The Cycle (1975), about the issue of blood trafficking. It was banned for three years, until the government opened its first blood bank (Parhami). In the kind of irony perhaps consistent with Iranian cinema, the film then gained a limited release in Iran in 1977 and a general release in 1978. In between it screened at the Berlin Film Festival in February 1978 and was Iran’s first ever submission for the Best Foreign Language Film at the fiftieth Academy Awards. The story of social issues films has not been so very different under the Islamic Republic. When Ali Reza Haghighi spoke at a conference held in 1999 at the School of Oriental and African Studies, the published papers of which became the seminal The New Iranian Cinema: Politics, Representation and Identity, he noted that although Iranian cinema was heavily affected by politics, film content could not reflect political issues. He added that unlike other cultures under political restrictions, filmmakers had rarely engaged in symbolism to reflect political content. Nonetheless, irrespective of these severe constraints, many films were able to be read as political (Haghighi). By the time Hahgighi’s work was published in 2002, the situation was different. Golmakani noted in reviewing the Iranian cinema of 2000 to 2001 that the biggest change in that year was the filmic exploration of political content. He wrote that, up to that point, the Ministry for Culture and Islamic Guidance (MCIG) had kept Iranian cinema free of politics to protect it. (Golmakani is suggesting here that the bureaucrats within the MCIG were mediating between the politicians and the filmmakers and, in a kind of benevolent paternalism, had the long-range interests of the film industry uppermost in their minds.) Tapper also noted in 2001, within two years of the reformists coming to power, “[N]ew films such as Rakhshan Bani-E’temad’s The May Lady (1998) and Tahmineh Milani’s Two Women (1999) addressed issues that had been taboo” (Screening Iran). Samira Makhmalbaf had made the undeniably political The Apple (1998). Soon the use of metaphor and allegory to reflect political content was to be seen as a hallmark of Iranian cinema, as Langford, among others, has written (Displaced Allegories).

Iranian cinema means the middle classes 41 Moreover, the reformist regime was interested in making Iranian cinema more appealing to the public. Shahab Esfandiery has claimed in relation to the early Makhmalbaf films that “one reason behind the Muslim film-makers rise to prominence in the post-revolution era was that their films, despite many technical flaws, were rooted in the depth of impoverished sections of the society and therefore captured the hearts of millions of the poor and pious people of Iran, who were largely unrepresented or misrepresented in the pre-revolution cinema” (72). However, after his 1997 appointment as Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance in Khatami’s new reformist government, Seifollah Dad released results of a survey he had commissioned, which indicated a distinct lack of popularity for the main type of government-backed cinema, films about the Iran-Iraq War, and a high rating for what Zeydabadi-Nejad translates as “political and social films” (50). Dad said in an interview with Zeydabadi-Nejad, “I was explaining to [the filmmakers] that Iranian cinema means the middle classes.” Eventually in 2000 the MCIG introduced the category of sinema-ye moslehaneh, the “cinema of reform” films, known popularly as “social issues films” or “socialproblem” films, and which, according to internal MCIG documents, defines films made with “‘reformist intentions’ which would focus on social, political and cultural problems” (Zeydabadi-Nejad, 50; Naficy, Social History 4: 127). Naficy adds that social issues films go “beyond the plight of individuals to critically comment on society”, and of their content notes that “their narratives tended to be didactic” (Social History 4: 129, 127). Most Iranian industry and academic colleagues agree that it is not a genre. According to Atebba’i, the category was intended to facilitate a kind of quota for funding (Interview). Under the reformists, not only were more things permissible for practising filmmakers, but also some of the veteran filmmakers who had been unable to make films were able to make films again (Naficy, Making Films, 43). Bahman Farmanara finally gained permission to make two films between 2000 and 2001, and Mohammad Reza Aslani, writer of Kimiavi’s Garden of Stones (1976) and The Mongols (1973), was funded by Farabi to make The Green Fire. Although not completed until 2008, it commenced production under the reformists. All of these were working in what would generally be labelled as social issues films. Naficy lists as early examples of Social Issues films Samira Makhmalbaf and the “products of the Makhmalbaf Film House”, Rasoul Sadrameli, The Girl in Sneakers, (1998), and I Am Taraneh, Fifteen Years Old (2002), Mollagholipour’s The Burnt Generation, and Panahi’s The Circle. He also includes Milani’s Cease Fire from 2006 (Social History 4: 128). Sacred defence films at this point were dealing with the re-integration of veterans into families and a changed society, and with the mothers and wives left at home during the Iran-Iraq war, showing some hybridisation of the genre with social issues films. Mollagholipour’s previously discussed Hiva, about a woman whose husband disappears during the war, also a product of the year 2000, exemplifies this. Other favoured “social issues” themes often touch on or hybridise with the spiritual. Although social issues films enjoyed the status of official recognition, they were always going to be troubled, with significant constraints on content. Social

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issues films of various kinds have not just been refused screening permits but have resulted in filmmakers such as Milani and Panahi serving time in prison. Problems with the government over Social Issues films have driven filmmakers such as the Makhmalbaf family and Bahman Ghobadi into exile. In this chapter I will cover a number of topics that are often “troubled” – reflections on the treatment of women; legal issues – sharia law and Qisas, while noting representation of prisons, drugs, and parties. Finally, I will move to a trend of filmmaking which has found increased tolerance by the government and indeed perhaps has been co-opted for its own use – the middle-class family drama. As many of the films deal with more than one topic, I have attempted to discuss them in one category but cross-reference as relevant.

I am a social issues filmmaker: Pouran Derakhshandeh and Jafar Panahi Pouran Derakhshandeh and Jafar Panahi have both, in English language conversation with me, asserted quite vehemently, “I am a social issues filmmaker”. While this is demonstrably true, these two directors represent the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of government approval. It is worth making a brief comparison. Veteran filmmaker Pouran Derakhshandeh began her career with documentary films prior to the revolution. Her breakthrough second feature, A Little Bird of Happiness, won five awards at the Fajr Film Festival in 1987 and remains her best-known film. An examination of its themes suggests it is precisely the favoured formula for a social issues film. A young teacher starts work at a new school. It turns out that because she cannot bear children she has stepped out of her happy marriage (self-sacrifice), explaining her gravitation to a motherless young girl with behavioural problems. She coaxes the child to start writing again by dictating to her a prayer (piety), and to be able to speak by becoming a mothersubstitute (motherhood, love, and compassion). The film broadens out beyond the individual to society by showing her teaching colleagues also growing in understanding their own social roles. In 1990 Derakhshandeh had written about the role of cinema in the following terms: [T]he responsibility of art is to help man reach an understanding of himself and others, a spiritual fulfilment (my emphasis). That, I feel, is the goal of cinema. However, art does not deliberately impose a choice on the audience. That choice is theirs. (Derakhshandeh, 14) In 2013 she stated, In looking at women, we should pay attention to their position, to their presence, not to their gender. A woman is not a tool, she is a human being with an elevated attitude. (Hush! Girls Don’t Scream)

Iranian cinema means the middle classes 43 These two statements usefully illuminate her films, which often deal with women and family issues. The latter statement was made in relation to Hush! Girls Don’t Scream, a highly accomplished melodrama that she wrote and directed in 2013. A film about paedophilia, a controversial subject anywhere, but perhaps more so within Islam, Hush! Girls Don’t Scream is about a young woman who kills the janitor of her apartment building. Shirin and her fiancé are being photographed for their wedding. When she briefly leaves the shoot, she hears a young girl screaming and realises that she is being molested by the janitor. Shirin is subsequently charged with murder, but it is revealed that she herself had been molested from the age of eight for many years. As a result of her testimony, her tormentor is arrested and executed. But despite the pleas of Shirin’s lawyer and the detective in charge of the case, the parents of the young girl whom Shirin rescued will not allow the girl to testify, believing it will ruin their reputation. Her lawyer then argues in court for consideration of the effects of the traumatic events of Shirin’s childhood. But Shirin is sentenced to be hanged. It seems that there might be a reprieve when they discover that the janitor has a brother. According to sharia law, if he seeks blood money, Qisas, the execution can be stayed. In a moment of high drama, the brother dies of a drug overdose just as they arrive at his door. The execution proceeds. The complex plot contains much controversial material, discretely delivered. Neither a murderess nor paedophilia is a light subject. Derakhshandeh is arguing that the social constraints and inequities in the Iranian legal system make justice in such a complex case impossible to attain and that it needs to be given special consideration. She makes it clear that the blame for the problem in the film lay with individuals – the parents of the young girl whom Shirin protects, who could not bear the shame of speaking out, and Shirin’s own parents, who were oblivious to her plight in her childhood – as much as with the system, which lacked flexibility. Clever casting supports her efforts. The detective, a government representative who tries to encourage the parents to speak out, is attractively embodied by superstar Shahab Hosseini. The film’s message is not compromised by the improbability of his efforts, and it softens the relatively unsympathetic court officials who are unresponsive to the injustice of it. The victim, Shirin, is an attractive “girl next door” rather than a beauty. The lawyer is a female, adding another dimension for women’s issues. Hush! Girls Don’t Scream won Best Film at Fajr in 2013, was released in cinemas in Iran shortly thereafter, and then took on the international festival circuit where it was warmly received judging by the invitations received. Zeydabadi-Nejad notes that the negotiation of the radical content of many social issues films through the state-controlled mainstream funding and distribution system has often compromised their content, or as he puts it made them “more susceptible to its influence” (55). But although Hush was funded and distributed through Farabi, Derakhshandeh, who clearly enjoys official endorsement, used different tactics. For her the most important thing is to get the film out as she wants it. She commented in an interview that it was “about knowing what to say and how to do it”. One might also wonder if it is about knowing when to lend support. In 2011 she was already

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preparing for this film. Her prominence and approval in government circles was very much in evidence at Fajr in February that year, when many filmmakers were boycotting it. She was a member of both the Fajr Selection Committee and the Fajr International Jury, and was also honoured with a tribute at the festival. She was prepared to support Fajr at a time when other filmmakers were not. Jafar Panahi’s prominence on the world stage beyond film circles had started around this time, mostly revolving around the Cannes and Berlinale film festivals. In 2010 he had been arrested, sentenced to six years in jail, and banned from making films and from leaving the country for twenty years, ostensibly for making a film without a permit. When he was sent to Evin Prison, his name became known in much of the world for more than filmmaking. It was now a cipher for the abuse of human rights in Iran. That year Cannes prominently placed an empty seat on stage for him as an absent jury member. Even more press coverage for his situation was to emanate from the Cannes press conference for Kiarostami’s Certified Copy, screening in competition that year. Its lead French star Juliette Binoche burst into tears when it was announced that Panahi had gone on a hunger strike in Evin Prison. The following year, 2011, his explosive This is not a Film, allegedly sent out of the country on a USB stick inside a cake, screened at Cannes. Concurrently, although still not permitted to leave the country, he was awarded Cannes’ lifetime achievement award, the Carrosse d’Or. But this story had begun long ago. The Circle, Panahi’s first overtly social issues film, as already discussed, was denied screening in Iran. Although, as already noted, the denial of the domestic screening permit came unexpectedly and was linked to contemporary political events, it had taken a year before this for Panahi to obtain a shooting permit, and retrospectively it is clear that the content was potentially problematical. The opening scene of the film is an indictment of society in general – a woman worries that her daughter will be divorced for giving birth to a girl. We then follow three women, two on temporary prison pass-outs and a third who has escaped. In what Dönmez-Colin describes as a “vicious” circle, it details many of the everyday constraints on Iranian women, particularly those from the poorer class, and ends grimly back in the prison they had left. The film deals with prostitution, a topic not favourably regarded, and police corruption, still a problem for Abdolreza Khalani with Absolutely Tame is a Horse, many years later in 2011. But DönmezColin writes by way of an introduction to an interview with Panahi that the film had been withdrawn from Fajr “on grounds that the film was offensive to Iranian Muslim women” (Cinemas 91). Comments by film critic Pezhman Lashgaripur in 2002 when he accused Panahi of “prostituting himself culturally” and “turning his back on our deep beliefs and culture” substantiate this (Naficy, A Social History 4: 252). To date none of Panahi’s subsequent films have received a permit. His next film, Crimson Gold (2003), portrays the problems of a young pizza delivery driver from the poorer South Tehran. Hussein finds a handbag which he wants to return to its owner. The bag contains receipts from a North Tehran jewellery shop, but, when he attempts to return the purse, he is not allowed to enter the shop. This is the first humiliation for an honest man. It begins to coagulate with his troubles. He needs to buy wedding jewellery for his fiancé, but he is struggling to come up

Iranian cinema means the middle classes 45 with the money, so he is convinced to try purse-snatching himself. Then he starts to fantasise about buying from the exclusive shop that will not even permit him inside. When he does get in, they recommend that he buy Iranian gold rather than the Italian jewellery they stock because it holds its value better. This is by now the fourth humiliation. Contrary to the views of some reviewers, this is actually good financial advice, but it is nonetheless humiliating and things begin to fester inside the schizophrenic Hussein’s mind. Furthermore, he faces the daily spectacle of extreme economic imbalance as he witnesses the wealthy to obscenely wealthy lifestyles of those to whom he delivers pizza. The whole culminates in his attempt at an armed robbery in the jewellery store, which goes horribly wrong. We circle back to the opening scene, where Hussein shoots himself, and whence the film takes its powerful title – gold mixing with blood.

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Figures 2.1 and 2.2 Some of the international awards for Offside on display in the Cinema Museum, 21 April 2019.

Thematically, Crimson Gold (2003), Panahi’s only fictional film to deal with the male psyche, fits the social issues mould well, dealing with “the poor and the oppressed”. What made it so problematic that the MCIG demanded some twelve scenes be cut? (Naficy, A Social History 4: 130). Was it the violence in the opening? The depiction of handbag-snatching? The party scene? The red nail polish on

Iranian cinema means the middle classes 47 the floor of the apartment that might have been mistaken for menstrual blood? Let me single out the party scene, which treats a Basiji raid on a party in North Tehran in a humorous way. The protagonist, who has arrived to deliver pizza to the party, is not allowed to enter and eventually serves it to the frustrated and slightly foolish-looking Basiji hanging around down below on the street outside, waiting for the party-goers to exit. Offside (2006) is a more obviously problematic film, criticising a specific government regulation stipulating that women are not allowed inside football stadiums. It portrays young women attempting to enter the football stadium by dressing as males. Those caught are taken to a holding pen to be guarded by young soldiers. There is much humour as the sharp Tehrani girls banter with the slow country boys just doing their national service. Not only does the film make fun of the regulation forbidding women’s presence at football matches, but it was defiantly made at the stadium during an actual World Cup qualifying game between Iran and Bahrain. Although shot without a permit, technically it was legal because it was made at a time when a shooting permit was not required for digital productions. This is confirmed by its screening at Fajr for both the domestic audience and the guests just days before it premiered internationally at the Berlinale (with an international screening permit; I recall Panahi impatiently pacing the floor in Berlin, waiting for the international screening permit to arrive.). The lightness of tone and the playful humour make it a delightful watch, also for a younger audience. One of the soldiers explains to the girls the basis for the regulation – the unsuitability of such a venue for women because men might swear. This seemed like far-fetched dialogue when I first heard it in 2006, but it was almost verbatim with that in a very widely reported statement six years later. In 2012 a cinema in Tehran was closed for defying a police ban on selling women tickets to live public screenings of Euro 2012 football games. The deputy police commander in charge of social affairs was widely reported as saying, “Men, while watching football, get excited and sometimes utter vulgar curses or tell dirty jokes.” Somehow, retrospectively, this has given the humour a sobering tone. Despite the film’s banning Panahi has gleefully stated that thanks to piracy it is his most widely seen film in Iran, and I have personally encountered pirated DVD copies for sale several times in contraband DVD stands at Darband (Interview). Panahi’s well-documented political activism on the international stage was a major factor in his clash with the government. My own extensive conversations with him over the period 2010 to 2013 indicated that at no point was he interested in compromising on any level, despite approaches from the government at the highest levels. After his well-publicised arrest in March 2010, with the ensuing ban on making films, Farabi rallied to aid Panahi and Rasoulof, extending each an opportunity to make a film. Rasoulof consequently made Goodbye, but Panahi was not interested in ameliorating his situation, instead turning to the theme of the clash between the artist and the government with his illegally made This Is Not a Film (Farabi Interview). Closed Curtain was made in spite of the ban and screened at the Berlinale in 2013, Taxi followed in 2015, and 3 Actresses at Cannes in 2018. Although Panahi shrugged when I asked if he thought the government had been

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aware that he was making these films, he has indicated to me quite clearly on several occasions that his own apartment was bugged. It would seem that the government was trying to avoid more of the international furore that Panahi was able to create. While Panahi becomes depressed about his inability to make a film with appropriate resources, his commitment to his principles is strong.

Another approach to social issues: Mohammad Rasoulof Examining even so briefly the respective histories of Derakhshandeh and Panahi, both of whom make social issues films generally concerned with women, confirms that it is not only film themes that lead to or ameliorate troubles. The difference in terms of filmmakers’ approach and their willingness to compromise plays a significant role in their ability to negotiate films domestically, reinforcing that censorship is punitive as well as content based. It is informative to consider the approach of Mohammad Rasoulof, who began filmmaking under the reformists and who was arrested with Panahi in 2010. Just as Panahi’s first film, The White Balloon, won the Camera d’Or but was also suitable to represent Iran at the Academy Awards, so Rasoulof’s first feature, The Twilight (2002), won Best Film at Fajr. It is the story of a prisoner who is always in trouble for petty misdemeanours; the warden feels pity for him. He enlists the aid of his elderly mother, also imprisoned, to get him married to a fellow prisoner, believing that this will settle him. They have a child and eventually both are released, but the responsibility for a family is too much for him. He’s a hard worker, but there is no work. He finds a way to return to jail, leaving his wife to fend for the child under the watchful eye of her mother-in-law. The story, as stated at the opening of the film, is true, as are all the names of the characters, who play themselves. With no track record behind Rasoulof, this first film can be read on the surface. A story about a troubled young man for whom, although aided by a kindly prison warden, life just does not go well. However, given Rasoulof’s future films, it is hard not to look back at The Twilight as a metaphor about a country under a benevolent but bumbling dictator represented by the warden. Rasoulof’s second feature, Iron Island (2005), is set almost entirely on an old oil tanker moored in the Persian Gulf. On board, a whole community with all the necessary services, a bakery, a classroom, and so on, lives under the leadership of Captain Nemat. The autocratic captain not only holds all of the passports of those onboard this vastly overcrowded ship but also controls all general affairs and arranges personal matters such as marriages. Moreover, he ignores inconvenient problems such as the claim by the erudite schoolteacher onboard that the ship is sinking, or the notices from the authorities ordering that the ship be evacuated. Retrospectively it is easy to see that this oil tanker, “Iron Island”, is an allegorical Iran. It was cleverly disguised, with most of the inhabitants of the ship being the Sunni Arabs who live in this part of Iran. Curiously, although the film did not screen domestically, Iron Island was heavily promoted to festivals internationally through CMI, IRIB’s theatrical distribution arm, although perhaps like his previous film, its metaphor was easier to read after he had made The White Meadows.

Iranian cinema means the middle classes 49 Indeed, these two films, the readings of which become clearer retrospectively, suggest why for the MCIG the idea of outsider and insider could be useful. There is no appropriate category within which to place Rasoulof’s fourth film, The White Meadows (2009). An episodic film, its overarching story involves a middle-aged man making his regular tour around the villages on a lake, performing a strange ritual that involves winning the trust of the people, then bottling up their secrets and troubles by collecting their tears in a vial. Within this there is a separate sharply allegorical tale from each village he visits. Two of the tales, for example, deal with the role of women. In one village he must remove the body of a beautiful young woman who was probably murdered, because of a fear of necrophilia. In another village they are sacrificing a virgin by sending her off on a raft to marry her to the sea. In yet another village he encounters an artist being tortured. His tormentors force him to look at the sun and then rinse his eyes out with urine to convince him that the sky is blue not red. The tear collector advises him to simply humour them. This seems reasonable advice until at the conclusion of the film we realise that he and the tormentors are both serving the same master. Eventually (and shockingly) the tear collector reports back to an old man in a wheelchair, undoubtedly a reference to Khomeini, whose feet he bathes in the tears he has collected. Like Iron Island the film is a mystic-realist allegory, but initially it invokes the structure and feeling of both a simple spiritual arthouse film and an exotic festival film. My initial viewing of the film was with an Iranian, and until we both realised that the ritual being portrayed in the film was metaphorical, we responded in different ways to what we perceived as cynical “festival film” material. The film is an homage to The Weeping Meadow by Greek Director Theo Angelopoulos, one of the Iranian industry’s favoured directors. The Weeping Meadow had won the Jury Award in the first Competition of Spiritual Cinema at Fajr in 2005, and The White Meadows has visual as well as titular references to it. The White Meadows is set on Lake Urmia, Iran’s famous salt lake. It affords a very exotic landscape but also visually references The Weeping Meadow, with the saltpans replacing the vast bodies of water featured in the latter, and the black chadors of the women and the suits of the men are as graphic as the black clothing of the Greek men and women. Mise-en-scene, colour palette, and shot composition are all similar. If Rasoulof’s previous films have used a prison, then a rusty old oil tanker as a metaphor for Iran surely here is the dying Lake Urmia which has shrunk by nearly 90 percent since the 1970s. Underscoring this is the ironic reference to barren and corrosive saltpans as meadows. This sharply critical allegory about the Iranian government surely contributed to the December 2010 sentencing of Rasoulof, its writer/producer/director, and its editor, Jafar Panahi. Rasoulof’s next film, Goodbye (2011), takes “leaving Iran” as its main theme. Technically Rasoulof was banned from filmmaking at the time, but in yet another example of the IRI’s apparently contradictory actions, Farabi, the government film body, approached him and Panahi with offers to fund a film and gave all the assistance it could (Farabi Interview). Rasoulof took the opportunity to produce a film that would return him to government “tolerance”. He abandoned his use

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of allegory and with this and his next two films began to use a very direct style of narrative. Manuscripts Don’t Burn (2013), one of the most explosive films ever made in Iran, premiered on the final day of Cannes 2013, less than a month before the election that would mark the end of Ahmadinejad’s term. Manuscripts Don’t Burn references a real incident, a failed assassination attempt by the regime in 1995 when twenty-one writers were heading by bus to Armenia. The writers were ordered never to speak about the incident and were kept under surveillance. The film takes the matter up in the present. One of the now elderly writers creates a document about the incident, hoping to blackmail the government into giving him permission to leave Iran. A senior government official attempts recovery of the document. Assassins clearly used to this kind of task are despatched in what is a slow-building thriller. The film withholds all credits other than Rasoulof’s. It was perhaps the most searingly transgressive film of this period. Rasoulof was no stranger to political works. All of his previous films, as noted above, are both set in self-contained locations that are clearly metaphors for Iran and feature situations controlled by figures referencing Khomeini. But they were allegorical or metaphorical. As The Hollywood Reporter notes, there is nothing opaque about the political references in Manuscripts; it “bypasses the indirect allegorical style of Rasoulof’s past work to mount a sustained attack on state corruption, violence and censorship in modern-day Iran” (Dalton). Alissa Simon, in her Variety review, claims it as “perhaps the first film since the declaration of the Islamic Republic to confront so directly the brutality of the feared security apparatus”. Rasoulof remained in Europe after the screening but returned to Iran after the 2013 election. This pattern was to be repeated by Rasoulof with his highly controversial 2017 feature, A Man of Integrity, made under Rouhani. With these three directors all making strong social issues films, we have examples of the different paths taken by filmmakers working during Ahmadinejad’s terms. Derakhshandeh negotiates carefully to create a work that can be released; Panahi refuses to compromise in any area, either as a filmmaker or in the public arena, maintaining his principles on all fronts and managing to make two postarrest films, both dealing with the role of the artist, during Ahmadinejad’s second term. While simpler productions than he has noted he wanted to make, they screened at Berlin or Cannes and received awards; Rasoulof made peace with the government after his arrest in 2010, and the film he made with government assistance won the Best Director prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, but he has since returned to what he wants to make with two highly controversial works, both of which also screened at Cannes and reached a wider audience than his earlier works.

The Makhmalbaf Film House and the path of exile A final example of a complicated and perhaps more painful path by makers of troubled films in this category is supplied by the Makhmalbaf Film House (MFH). This is the path of exile. Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s early and very well-known

Iranian cinema means the middle classes 51 filmmaking history as an Islamist gradually turning against the regime need not be repeated here. Picking it up from the time under discussion here, in 2001 he would make Kandahar, his last feature, set in Afghanistan but shot largely in Iran. Based on a real story, it follows a young Afghan woman living in Canada trying to return home to help her younger sister. It won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at Cannes in 2001. A short time later Samira Makhmalbaf made At Five in the Afternoon (2003), shot in Afghanistan. Each day a young woman ritualistically and stubbornly exchanges her flat black shoes for a (scruffy) pair of white heels before entering the school she attends against her father’s wishes; her firmly held goal is to become president of Afghanistan. This film won the same prize at Cannes that her father’s Kandahar had been awarded – the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury – along with a Jury Award. Naficy has commented that Samira “has displaced the subject and object of her critique from women in an Islamist Iran [as she did with The Apple] to women in an Islamist Afghanistan”, finding her own way to make films that would not be tolerated in Iran (Social History 4: 239). A letter on the Makhmalbaf family website dated 2013 details the exhibition history of their films in Iran: At the beginning of Mr. Khatami’s government, by the decree of the Office of the Supreme Leader, seven films made by our family members were banned simultaneously, three of which were released later with the help of the then-Minister of Culture. During Ahmadinejad’s time, the entire work of our family was banned, even those works that were previously released and distributed. (MFH website) For the Makhmalbaf family the election of Ahmadinejad was the cue to leave Iran, and the family went into exile shortly afterwards in 2005. Nonetheless, even from a distance and sometime later, Makhmalbaf was able to greatly trouble the government with The Gardener (2012), a philosophical investigation into religion and spirituality conducted by Makhmalbaf and his son Maysam in Israel. While Maysam visits famous religious sites important to various faiths, Mohsen, who declares that he is neither Muslim nor Christian, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Jew, or Baha’i, but rather an agnostic, has lengthy discussions with a gardener in the Baha’i Gardens. They discuss the Baha’i religion, which originated in his own country, although its adherents have been severely persecuted under both the Shah and the IRI. This material, controversial for engaging with the Baha’i faith, is doubly problematic by being shot in Israel (which simply equates to Zionism in the minds of many government officials). It possibly also equates to apostacy, an offence punishable by execution in Iran, and the Deputy Minister of Cinematographic Affairs rose to the bait, ordering the removal of Makhmalbaf’s awards from display in the Cinema Museum. Meanwhile the film was highly lauded internationally, with many awards and accolades. Generally, the Makhmalbaf exilic productions have continued to demonstrate some kind of thematic connection to Iran. A good example is Mohsen’s The President from 2014, nearly a

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decade after they went into exile, about a toppled dictator. The film defies geography and could be set anywhere, as he is at pains to point out, including Iran and about either the Shah or Khamenei (Dehghan).

Rakshan Bani-E’temad, Tahmineh Milani and the “women’s films” Moving from the trajectories of individual social issues filmmakers to the differing representations of a number of individual issues in Iranian cinema between 2000 and 2013, I will begin with “women’s films”, defined by Zeydabadi-Nejad as “’social films’ which deal with women’s issues and “patriarchal domination” (104). Such films are unarguably a significant theme for social issues filmmakers of either gender in Iran. According to Zeydabadi-Nejad’s research, they are popular with Iranian women and, as will be discussed in chapter 3, on the international reception of Iranian cinema, films reflecting the treatment of women in Iran are popular internationally. I noted earlier that the themes of Panahi’s and Derakhshandeh’s social issues films overridingly concern women. Panahi’s The Circle and his more recent Three Actresses (2018) both conform to this description. A reading of his interviews over the years seems to demonstrate Panahi’s very personal interest in this topic. He has wondered of the protagonists of his first two films – those strong little girls – what will happen when they grow up. In relation to the prologue in The Circle, where the mother of the woman who has just given birth to a girl states her grave concern for her, Panahi has stated that his own mother felt it necessary to tell him that there was no shame when his wife gave birth to their own daughter. He told me once and has also stated elsewhere that Offside, a film about the small injustices against women, was inspired by his daughter (Interview). The two senior female filmmakers in Iran, Rakshan Bani-E’temad and Tahmineh Milani, were both working before the reformist era. Milani’s melodramas from the reformist era, although not the type of film that would normally travel on the festival circuit, resonated internationally as well as with Iranian women because of their strong feminist stance. Such positioning in itself is likely to bring trouble. Although widely known, it bears repeating that women’s rights activists have been heavily persecuted in Iran, and conservatives often claim that feminist views are anti-Islamic. Even in 2017, speaking on the birthday of Fatima Zahra, the daughter of the Prophet, the Supreme Leader repeated his oft-stated negative views on gender equality, adding, “Today, Western thinkers and those who pursue issues such as gender equality regret the corruption that it has brought about” (Esfandieri, Golnaz). This view is not only held by conservative males. The same report claimed that in December 2016 “the head of Iran’s female Basiji militia called the promotion of gender equality illegal and demanded that the country’s powerful judiciary take action against people who speak out against gender discrimination”. Milani is very vocal in proclaiming her feminist stance and has paid the price for this. Bani-E’temad approaches it differently. She has said,

Iranian cinema means the middle classes 53 After the revolution . . . we tried our best to construct a very positive character of women, which created a myth. The filmmakers began to mould model characters that the society expected. . . . Women are human beings, with positive and negative characteristics. They are not what our society, tradition or culture expects of them. (Dönmez-Colin Cinemas 26) And elsewhere, “In any country where women aren’t free, no one is free” (Winter). Yet she has also stated in an interview, “with the current understanding of this term [feminism] in Iran, I don’t want to be called that” (Stehlik), and she emphasised this again in an interview with me in 2015. Perhaps more revealing of her real thoughts is her documentary We are Half of Iran’s Population, which was completed just a few months before the 2009 election. It included a diverse demographic of women directing questions relating to marriage laws, violence against women, gender quotas on education, and other issues of discrimination to the presidential candidates. Three of the four candidates responded on film, but Ahmadinejad declined. Three of the women who participated in the film were afterwards imprisoned in the huge post-election detentions. Bani-E’temad’s stated interests are broader than just women’s issues. Speaking of her film, Tales, completed in the middle of Ahmadinejad’s second term, “Tales is not a mirror reflection of the whole Iranian society. What it reflects is the issues that I’m concerned with and that are interesting to me, such as issues of workers, women, drug addicts, people suffering from economic hardship, etcetera” (Talu). Tales is a good place to start in considering her work from this period. Although completed in 2011, it was not given a screening permit until the Rouhani government came to power, first screening at Fajr in 2014, then premiering internationally at Venice. It has been described as a summation of her career. She brings together characters from her previous films in a kind of six degrees of separation, seven different tales showing where life has taken them since their original story. While it apparently stands alone for those unfamiliar with her other films, knowing the backstories of the characters enriches the film immeasurably and presents a very full picture of life for a broad cross-section of Iranians under Ahmadinejad. It is a tragic film about people who are impoverished, damaged, and/or without hope and includes some representation of the middle classes. The core film used in Tales is Under the Skin of the City, 2001, an early reformist film which deals with the disintegration of a working-class family. Tuba, the matriarch, works double shifts to keep her adult family. The one piece of security in their lives is her house, but somehow her husband and older son manage to manipulate its sale. Now, a decade later, the son, a taxi driver, realises this and other youthful drug-related mistakes; his dreams have become the nightmare of his life, and he wonders at his mother’s capacity for forgiveness. Although now retired, she is leading a group of younger males in a pay claim because none of them have been paid for nine months’ work. One of those with her is the husband of Nobar, from The Blue Veiled (1995). Although the family is struggling desperately, his manly pride is hurt when Nobar’s former lover, a Haji whom she has

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not seen for a decade, leaves her and her husband a small house as some kind of acknowledgement for wronging towards her. But much of the action centres around a drug rehab centre. Nargess, from the film of the same title, turns up. Nargess (1992), like The Blue Veiled, made prior to the reformist period, deals with an unacceptable love triangle (involving two women and a man) in the context of drug dealing. A young man, a thief, is in a relationship with a much older woman, his fellow thief. When he meets and falls in love with the titular Nargess, a young girl from an impoverished and very conservative family, the older woman self-sacrificingly assists him to marry her. I consider it one of Bani-E’temad’s toughest films, although the resolution sees the thief reforming, the relationships regrouping in a way which could be viewed as more appropriate, and the older woman conforming to Muslim values in terms of self-sacrifice. But now Nargess turns up at the shelter, the victim of shocking violence from her addicted husband who nonetheless cannot live without her. The doctor who had been treating the titular Gilaneh’s son, a badly injured war veteran, also volunteers there. He receives a distraught call from her about his severe deterioration. Tales is more than the disintegration of a family – it portrays the disintegration of society. Sara, the heroin-addicted young woman from Mainline (2006), now clean, because her middle-class mother could take her to rehab, also works at the centre. But as the penultimate scene makes clear, for her this is some kind of self-inflicted penance. Her soul is damaged, and love is not a notion she can entertain. There are other stories in this ensemble piece. In order to obtain a shooting permit, Bani-E’temad applied to shoot a series of short films about the characters in her earlier films. Some lines of dialogue indicate why she anticipated permit problems: “People don’t have money to buy bread – they’re flat broke”, the unnamed character played by Negar Javaherian tells her brother on the metro. The timing of the film is clear because Hamed, who works as a part-time driver at the rehab centre and as a tutor, has been expelled from university and presumably ‘starred’. His life, as with many university students at this time, has been ruined in another way by his participation in the Green Movement. And from Tuba in a twenty-minute single take scene, an interview being shot within the film, “You always hear them say it’s going to get better” and “To get any kind of job you need to pull the right strings.” Her frightened colleagues respond with, “Don’t say this on camera” and “No politics, it’s going to cause trouble.” Tuba responds that she is talking about her son’s situation, and how can that be political? Tuba reflects her despair about the ability to change anything: “Haven’t they already made a hundred of these films?” and “Who sees these films anyway?” With bleak outcomes for the titular Nargess and Gilaneh, and at best ambiguous ones for Nobar from The Blue Veiled and Sara from Mainline, the film is an indictment on the lives of women in Iran, made immeasurably more powerful by our access to their back stories, but men and woman are all suffering. If BaniE’temad had not already made a documentary titled, Our Times, it would seem to be a highly appropriate title for this film. Tahmineh Milani’s films, produced independently by her husband, Mohammad Nikbin, have frequently appeared in the top-ten grossing films of the year with

Iranian cinema means the middle classes 55 their popularity and their form placing them inside the commercial sector. For her part Milani considers herself a feminist. Conversation with her is peppered with feminist comments, and an amusing confirmation of her stance is an interview (on YouTube) where she is asked about her kitchen and cooking and she responds acerbically that she also designed the kitchen (she is a trained architect), asking how many other women can do this! (Tahmineh Milani). In an interview: They call me, “You feminist!” meaning to insult me (Zeydabadi-Nejad,122). For Milani there was a shift at the time of the reformist government from her earlier allegorical works such as The Legend of Sigh (1991) to melodrama with the tougher Two Women (1998). The latter presents the kinds of issues that women might typically face through the portrayal of a friendship between two women who meet as university students; provocatively, it starts in 1979, the year of the revolution, when the universities were closed, and traces the next fourteen years of their lives through marriage and consequent problems. She suggested the difficulty with obtaining a screening permit for Two Women (1998). “I think the main objection . . . was to the fact that I showed an individual and furthermore, a woman, capable of choosing her own identity” (Dönmez-Colin Cinemas 85). With The Hidden Half (2000), Milani sets the film again in the context of the revolution. She overstepped the line. It is a case worth examining. A “model wife” whose husband is a judge, she decides to tell him about her own hidden past, seeking his tolerance for a case currently before him, a woman on appeal. The “hidden half” of her own life took place during the revolution when she was attending university. She became mixed up with a communist group and had a relationship with an older man, a Mossadeq supporter, who unbeknownst to her was married. Despite having shooting permission for the film, Milani was arrested. In her own evocative words, “I was imprisoned for making The Hidden Half. When I was in jail, I was sentenced [on four accounts] for fighting with God, working with left groups, disturbing public opinion by making films, opposing the Islamic Republic. A statement of protest [signed] by world artists, including Robert Redford, Costa Gavras, Juliet Binoche and . . . and President Khatami’s intervention, I was released, but I went to court for five years. Finally, after five years my innocence was proven” (email 8 July 2019). In the meantime she made The Fifth Reaction (2003), about a young widow forced to choose between marrying her husband’s younger brother or losing her children; she creates another option – to flee with the children, aided by an old girlfriend – but her course is doomed. The film, dubbed “the Thelma and Louise of Iran” was very controversial both with the critics and the public – one of the cinemas where the film was screening was subject to an arson attack (Zeydabadi-Nejad, 110). Milani moved into domestic comedy with her divorce comedy, Cease Fire (2006), the highest-grossing film in Iran until the release of The Outcasts. Her comedies have been as strongly imbued with a feminist stance as her earlier films, and some are seen as equally threatening. Cease Fire and its much later sequel, Cease Fire 2 (2014), deal with the issues of married couples, reflecting the general trend towards the middle-class family drama that I will argue for further on. Payback (2007) is something very different. A feminist revenge comedy, it received

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its screening permit only three years after its production, the year that Milani chaired the International Jury at Fajr. From a Western perspective it can be hard to understand the government’s issues with the clearly farcical Payback: a group of women who have been released from prison gather together to kidnap and “pay back” the males who have wronged them. But from other “troubled” films we can assume that the film is seen either as a bad role model for Islamic women or an insulting depiction of them. Perhaps the prison reference gives Payback an autobiographical reference for Milani, reinforced by the rare casting of her husband and producer, Mohammad Nikbin, in a cameo as the only decent male in the film. An important difference between Bani-E’temad and Milani in negotiating films through the system and into release lies in the fact that Bani-E’temad generally makes her films through the government-associated foundation, Farabi, while Milani’s are commercially produced and released by her husband. She manages to make the film she wants, albeit with a lot more difficulty but without the compromise to material that Zeydabadi-Nejad has noted and that Naficy suggests for films funded through government sources.

Darius Mehrju’i and the “women’s films” In the 90s Darius Mehrju’i had made what is sometimes considered his ‘women’s trilogy’, Sara (1993), Pari (1995), and Leila (1996), all featuring strong-willed urban middle-class female protagonists. Sara maintains the facade of the doll-like wife her academic husband wants, but unbeknownst to him she all but ruins her eyes by beading wedding gowns to raise money for an operation for his lifethreatening illness. Pari is a student who becomes interested in a mystical text and ceaselessly questions the pompous assertions of the males who surround her, all of whom – her lecturer, her fiancé, and her brother – assume they are intellectuals. Leila is somewhat different and quite complex. Leila, unable to bear a child, concedes to her mother-in-law’s demands for a second wife for her son, despite his insistence that he does not care about having children. Conforming to the Islamic ideal, she helps her husband find the new wife but eventually leaves him. The films in this trilogy all depict transformative journeys for the titular women, necessary ones but not necessarily appearing to be positive ones. In 2002 Mehrju’i made Bemani. This film was a searing indictment of the plight of women in provincial Iran, focusing on three young women of different backgrounds in a town near the Iraqi border. Madina, whose drug-addicted husband has abandoned her, weaves carpets to survive. One day a young soldier accompanies her home, ostensibly to buy a carpet. Her horrified brothers behead her for bringing shame to the family. Nassim is studying medicine at the university. When her father discovers this, he drags her out of the institution and locks her up in the cellar; in her shame she sets herself on fire. The third young woman is the titular Bemani. Hers is an old story too – she must marry the impoverished family’s wealthy landlord. But “Bemani” means “to stay alive”, and eventually she chooses another fate. This beautiful young girl leaves her husband, going to live with the dead in the nearby cemetery. This was an “issues” film, and there

Iranian cinema means the middle classes 57 was no need for nuanced characters. These were familiar stories that had their origins in social conditions. Mehrju’i produced the film privately with Nikbin and Milani. Farabi was the world sales agent, suggesting governmental approval, and the film screened at Fajr, also for the foreign guests. However, it received no awards, which was unusual for a film of this quality, and it was finally banned. It did screen internationally at Cannes in Un Certain Regard, undoubtedly aided by the subject matter, which I have already suggested would have been of particular interest to foreign programmers.

Dance of death: from honour killings and Qisas to suicide Returning to Bemani, it is probable that the honour killing of Madina in the first section, a taboo subject for film, was the major impediment to gaining a permit for the film. The following year the Venice Biennale screened Babak Payami’s film, The Silence Between Two Thoughts (2003), also about an honour killing. The original negative and sound material was seised while the film was being edited, and Payami informed us at the screening I attended later elsewhere in Europe that its international screenings were all on a re-constructed DVD version, although Variety claims the Venice screening as betacam. The Silence Between Two Thoughts, set and shot in eastern Iran near the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan, opens with an executioner firing at three unseen targets. However, he is prevented from firing at the third target because his religious leader, known simply as ‘Haji’, realises that the young woman is a virgin and would go straight to heaven. The executioner is ordered to marry and deflower the girl, then kill her. He questions this, and although he takes her home as a prisoner, he does not sleep with her. Meanwhile Haji orders the local muezzin to be shot, but when the villagers riot, it is the executioner who bears the brunt of their anger. While the subject of honour killing may be taboo, the government was likely at least as concerned about the crisis of faith exhibited by the executioner following the cleric’s instructions and the metaphor for mindless fundamentalism that is so apparent. Payami’s previous film, the absurdist Secret Ballot, was about a young female ballot officer on polling day trying to get people to vote. At first the young soldier from the area queries her work but then with enormous zeal escorts her, trying to get the villagers to vote at gunpoint. It was perhaps less inflammatory but nonetheless suggested a strong precedent for such a use of metaphor. Payami went into exile in 2003. Close to the end of our period, a decade later, there were two more takes on honour killing. I have already discussed Bear from 2013. This film was probably deemed acceptable because the honour killing, although prominent, was the resolution, not the narrative cause. In 2012 The Paternal House from a very respected, although internationally lesser-known veteran director, Kianoush Ayari, screened in the Horizons section in Venice. Like the two predecessors discussed above, it was banned at home. The film opens in 1929. A young woman has raised the ire of her father for some real or imagined shame that is never explained, and he enlists her young brother to help kill her. Her mother and sister do not know what to

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make of her disappearance, and it is many years before her mother discovers what happened and that she has been secretly buried in the cellar, a space where the women of the family weave carpets and perform other domestic chores. Her loss, or perhaps her presence, continues to haunt the family as it reverberates through the following generations. This is the film’s theme – the transgenerational trauma resulting from such an action. The film has a particularly interesting production history. It had actually been finished two years earlier, made ironically not only with the requisite permissions but also with the investment of the cultural arm of the Iranian State Police, Naji Film, who owned 50 percent of the film. How they were unaware of the content of the film is unknown, but on the film’s completion they threatened legal action (Rajabi). Honour killings is a very sensitive topic not only for the government but also for Iranian diasporic audiences, as will be discussed in the next chapter. There is a small group of films dealing with Qisas, or the Law of Retaliation. Under sharia law, the victims, or the family of the victims of Qisas crimes are given a choice as to the punishment that will be imposed. The relatives of a victim of intentional homicide may decide between execution, compensation (blood money), or alternatively forgiveness, as an act of charity or in atonement for sins. A number of films have dealt critically with this complex issue from the perspective of the convicted and their family. An early example from the period under examination is Farhadi’s second feature, The Beautiful City (2004). A youth convicted of the murder of his girlfriend at sixteen has been incarcerated in a juvenile detention centre till his eighteenth birthday, when his execution can be legally carried out. As the date draws near, a friend from the detention centre is released by a sympathetic warden to try to stay the execution. He joins forces with the murderer’s sister, a single mother, to try to negotiate compensation. It’s a quest film, where the obstacles and complications come in the form of the two families – that of the murderer, and of the slain girl, chiefly her vengeful father. There’s also a growing attraction between the friend and the murderer’s sister, complicated by her child and her addicted ex-husband. This had the potential to be a very sensitive topic. Iran is under surveillance as the world leader in juvenile executions. But Farhadi found the boundary of acceptability under the reformists by making the juvenile wait till he is of age part of the plot, and not overtly questioning the system but rather placing the narrative emphasis on the plea for mercy from the individuals concerned. The film won a minor award at Fajr and then made its way into a number of international festivals. There were three important films about women executed for murder during Ahmadinejad’s era. Of these, I have already discussed Derakhshandeh’s Hush! Girls Don’t Scream, about a woman executed for murder because there was no family left to claim compensation. The two salient points were that the murderer was female and her crime was motivated by her own experience as a victim of paedophilia. There were two further films dealing with similar issues around this time. Niki Karimi’s third film as director, The Final Whistle (2011), deals with quite a complex set of issues. It centres around a filmmaking couple, Sahar and Saman, who need to film another shot for the ending of the husband’s telemovie.

Iranian cinema means the middle classes 59 It is already scheduled for broadcast, but he has been informed that the ending, a suicide, must be changed, and urgently. Busy on another project, Saman asks Sahar, a documentary filmmaker, to sort it out. Sahar and her assistant track down the lead actress needed for the shot, discovering that she works as a cleaner when not acting. At this point, however, she is busy trying to sell her kidney to raise the blood money needed to stay the execution of her mother for the murder of her stepfather. The linking of the suicide of the actress in the film to the blood money she is trying to raise in real life makes the whole a kind of inverted mise en abyme. Sahar starts to shoot a documentary about the mother. When the daughter sees the rushes, she confesses that she killed her stepfather because he was trying to abuse her, and the mother (in keeping with the Islamic concept of mothers and sacrifice) has taken the blame. The Final Whistle deals with the intersection of the middle class and the working class (as Farhadi’s films often do), comparing attitudes and problems from the various perspectives of the different classes. Here the concerns all revolve around money. It is simply on a vastly different scale for each character. The actress needs money to save her mother’s life, while the telefilm director notes with pride that their ability to afford a new apartment is the result of making two telefilms at a time. His wife, Sahar, has a very different attitude and is prepared to sell her car to help raise the blood money. When that will suffice, she wants to retrieve their deposit on the new apartment. Saman does not agree; he does not see why she should get involved. But in a throw-away line he bets the same amount on a football match. An intriguing aside occurs early in the film when Sahar and her assistant are following by car the young man taking them to the home of the actress. They wonder why he stops his motorcycle to give a lift to an old woman, inconveniencing and delaying them. Is she his mother? But when they reach the bazaar and the old woman gets off, she pays him and they understand. This is how he, a cleaner, earns a little extra money. It’s a tiny detail that feeds further into the film’s emphasis on the importance of money, which drives all of the characters except Sahar. And this is the crux of the film – that money can buy life and lack of it may bring death. The film, with its sensitive script from Karimi and some spectacular work from cinematographer Touraj Aslani, screened domestically but initially did not receive an international screening permit for the Dubai Film Festival. The festival listed it in their programme without the permission of the sales agent, which resulted in the loss of his license for a while. It did finally screen several months later in the Vesoul Film Festival. Karimi told me that the changes required were minor, relating to music. Fereidun Jeirani’s, I Am a Mother (2012), has a similar plot: a young woman kills a family friend after being raped by him, and her mother takes the blame. The rapist’s family calls for the mother’s execution. The film, upon release, reportedly broke Tehran’s single-day ticket-sales record (In Iran, New Movies Boost), but conservative groups called for its banning. In December 2012 these groups along with members of the film industry, opposed to its banning, demonstrated outside the MCIG building. As the problem supposedly lay in the depiction of some rather un-Islamic behaviour, it drew the following comment from

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the minister, Mohammad Hosseini: “In order to show how some un-Islamic lifestyles lead to a dead end, the filmmaker must depict their behavior and improper relationships. . . . Society should show a little tolerance.” However, the MCIG subsequently revised its position, citing Qisas as the reason. The acting director of the Supervision and Evaluation Office, Mehdi Azimi, released a statement: “In order to prevent any misunderstanding about the vital law of Qisas, the necessary changes in the ending of the film have been determined and [the filmmakers] were informed”, suggesting sensitivity to criticism of the law (Photos: Rallies held in Tehran). Suicide is a taboo topic on religious grounds. For this reason, Kiarostami’s A Taste of Cherry, where the lead character contemplates suicide, famously did not screen commercially in Iran, despite its Palme d’Or win. Yet in 2009 Qasem Jafari made Girls, a tripartite film about the societal pressures on three young girls, one of whom commits suicide. Not only was the film released, but it screened at the conservative Roshd International Film Festival in 2011, with a panel discussion in which I participated afterwards. The producer/scriptwriter claimed that financing the film had been quite difficult because of the topic. Others have suggested that the reputation of the director as an “insider” assisted in receiving the necessary permits and its subsequent exhibition history.

Further brushes with the law: minor and not-so-minor misdemeanours Moving from honour killings, murder and suicide, other themes – prisons, parties, and drugs have all given their share of problems in films. But the problem is not always what a Westerner might think. . . . And sometimes the obvious makes only a small contribution to the problem. As one director told me acerbically, “it’s never just one problem or issue – it’s always a range of factors”. With these smaller misdemeanours it does seem that they merely form a part of the whole. I have already mentioned three films dealing with prisons, all of which had chequered exhibition histories and were at least initially banned – The Circle (2000) from Jafar Panahi, Women’s Prison (2002), from Manijeh Hekmat, and The Twilight (2002), from Mohammad Rasoulof and – all reformist films. One of Iran’s serious social problems is drugs. It is very present in the background of many social issues films but also forms the central problem in a number of films, rather than just context. Three directors already mentioned in relation to Women’s Issues provide good examples. Derakhshandeh’s Candle in the Wind (2003) and Bani-E’temad’s Mainline (2006) are two examples of approved films dealing with drug issues in quite a tough way. In Mainline, set in a family situation, a young middle-class woman ruins her chances of marrying her fiancé, a resident in Canada, because in spite of all her mother’s assistance she cannot go straight. The melodramatic film, one of those followed up in Tales, is almost didactic. But finding the boundary of what will prove acceptable to authorities can be difficult. Mehrju’i’s Santouri (2007), made after the return of the conservatives under Ahmadinejad, did not fare so well. In what is a familiar line in relation to

Iranian cinema means the middle classes 61 many of the films discussed here, including Mehrju’i’s earlier Bemani, it only ever screened in Iran at Fajr, again for foreign guests. Set (like Mainline) in middle-class Tehrani society, this film depicts how a heroin ruins a love-match marriage, by contrast with preventing an arranged marriage in Mainline. Hanieh and Ali, known as Ali Santouri because he is a brilliant santouri performer, fall in love and marry. But Ali, who does not have permission to record his music, can only earn from small live gigs – weddings, parties, and so on. He is gradually consuming more and more heroin and alcohol, to the point where Hanieh must bring in their income, performing in a small trio for charity gigs. The background to this is that Ali has been disinherited by his extremely wealthy family because his very religious mother insisted that he choose between the home and the santour, a choice that can be read metaphorically as a more general one between culture and religion. Hanieh’s and Ali’s love is a kind of amour fou, emphasised by Ali twice referencing Layla and Majnun in songs. When she inevitably leaves with another musician, he spirals into homelessness. The pitfalls of heroin addiction are portrayed in a way that is far from heroicising and could be seen as didactic. The conclusion has Ali rejecting returning to the world, electing to stay in the sanatorium where he has freed himself of his addiction to teach santour to his fellow inmates. So where was the problem? Initially it lay with the music. It was sung by Kurdish musician Mohsen Chavoshi, who at the time had no permit for broadcasting, with the lead actor, Bahram Radan, simply miming. This problem was overcome, but anecdotally the then minister was personally against the film. This is very plausible – Mohammad-Hossein SaffarHarandi, the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance throughout Ahmadinejad’s first term, was well known for his views on music, particularly music that he considered incompatible with Islamic values. The metaphor I have suggested above would work against the film’s acceptance. Was it simply that this elegant film really does sizzle? The rawness of Golshifteh Farahani’s performance – she smokes, they fight physically (on-screen touches between men and women is allowed if it is violent, just not tenderness), she argues with her mother, and when we see Ali’s visions of her, she is alluring. There’s also the cynicism of Farahani’s character, the sophisticated Hanieh, reluctantly having to perform for money at charity events, and the portrayal of these, “the poor and the oppressed”, as we see them from her point of view. Farahani is the woman who will bare her breast for French Vogue when she goes into exile a few years later, far from the ideal of Muslim womanhood. And as we have seen, depictions considered insulting to Muslim women are never acceptable on screen. Furthermore, the chemistry between the two leads, Farahani and Bahram Radan, is something that I have only seen in one other Iranian film – between Baran Kosari and Navid Mohammadzadeh in the much later I’m Not Angry (Dormeshian 2014) – also banned for sympathetic portrayal of a Green Movement and “starred” activist. The party scenes, the portrayal of the family – the oppressed brother addicted to legal drugs, their attitude towards and the unsympathetic portrayal of the religious mother, who gasps at a prayer meeting at their home, “I only told him to choose between the house and that damned instrument” – none

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of these are the “desired” on-screen representations and clearly could not even be “tolerated”. This is reinforced by audience sympathy remaining finally with Ali rather than with his dysfunctional, if religious, family.

Changing wheat into bread: transgender screen representations Another subject that can be difficult to handle is that of transgender people. Although homosexuality is illegal in Iran, the Islamic Republic not only allows sexual reassignment surgery but also subsidises it. Hojatol Islam Muhammad Mehdi Kariminia, the cleric responsible for gender reassignment, has stated that such an operation is no more a sin than “changing wheat to flour to bread”. While there have been quite a large number of documentaries on the topic, the fictional features from the Ahmadinejad era do not represent a large group. They are significant enough to be a minor strand of filmmaking. I will mention two well-known films dealing with this topic. Sex My Life (2008), by independent filmmaker Bahman Motamedian, is a documentary/fiction mix which screened at Venice but did not gain a screening permit in Iran. Positioning this film is not straightforward. Naficy categorises it as a “process film”, a kind of sub-category of “Ethnographic and Quasi Ethnographic documentaries” (Social History 4 73). A significant proportion of the film consists of re-enactments, although all of the characters are real and re-enacting their own situations, and the director is quoted on the DVD case of the film as follows: “I tried to remove the frontier between documentary and fiction cinema.” Given the legality of the issue it is difficult to determine the issue at stake here, and the director was unable or unwilling to enlighten me. In 2011, veteran producer Fereshteh Taerpour co-wrote and produced a fictional film on this topic, Facing Mirrors (Negar Azarbayjani). A road movie in the melodrama mode, it follows an unlikely friendship that arises between two young women. One, chador-clad, from a poor and conservative family, has been driving her husband’s cab, unbeknownst to him, to support her family since he went to jail. She picks up a wealthy young woman in male attire fleeing an arranged marriage and the country for a transgender operation. They eventually bond despite class difference and a clash of beliefs. The film screened at Fajr in 2011, winning a Special Jury Prize from the International Jury, of which both Pouran Derakhshandeh and I were members. I observed no problem with the authorities. Then began the rounds of the international festivals. A domestic cinema release seemed unlikely, but Taerpour’s good connections and negotiating skills saw the film release in Iranian cinemas in November 2012, unlike Sex My Life. Furthermore, the film’s release was covered by state-run television and radio. However, as an aside, Shayesteh Irani, the lead actress who plays the transgender role in Facing Mirrors, expressed in conversation with me some concern about her filmography at the time when three films were banned, including Jafar Panahi’s Offside. She emphasised her need to be careful of overstepping any boundaries on- or offscreen, once again pointing to the insider/outsider problem.

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Leaving Iran, fernweh and the underground arts scene The subject of “leaving Iran” became something of a trope in Iranian cinema after 2005. Naficy describes it as a subgenre, using the German word “fernweh” which means “a longing for far-off places” (72). He suggests it as a protest against the regime and uses it for spaces of freedom, both away from Iran and at home in the underground (29). While its permissibility is often remarked upon by Westerners, in itself it is not problematic. Perhaps the example that emphasises this best is Mohammad Rasoulof’s Goodbye (2011). A young lawyer has had her license to practice revoked, metaphorical for Rasoulof’s own situation, and is seeking a visa to leave the country. The film was made with help from Farabi, as an official told me quite clearly, and there is a certain irony that he chose and the government accepted, the topic of attempting to leave Iran, the very thing that Rasoulof himself did not want to do. While a decision about leaving Iran is the catalyst for Farhadi’s A Separation (2011), domestic and/or government criticisms of the film revolved, at least explicitly, around what was perceived as its negative portrayal of Iranian family life rather than it involving “leaving Iran”. Perhaps this is because the cleverly written script polarised even international audiences as to whether the husband or wife holds the moral high ground. Tehran’s thriving arts scene, with its often-forbidden aspects, is a topic that has interested several filmmakers. Naficy claims films set in this underground space also makes for a fernweh film by virtue of providing a space of freedom (29). An early example is Ali Mosaffa’s directorial debut, Portrait of a Lady Far Away (2005), inspired by Henry James’s book, which uses the setting of the arts scene as the background for an examination of the psyche of the central character. An aging architect gets a disturbing message, a call for help, from an unknown woman who claims to have dialled him at random, that she is planning to suicide. Sifting through memory on an evening of traipsing round Tehran, ostensibly with her friend, that ends at an alternative gallery space, he eventually recalls her as part of his past. On its international debut at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival that year, it was hailed in the catalogue as reminiscent of Tarkovsky, with its “mysterious, disturbing atmosphere”. However, the setting is not used to critique the government, as two films well known to Western audiences do – My Tehran for Sale (2009) by Granaz Moussavi, and Bahman Ghobadi’s Nobody Knows About Persian Cats (2009), both of which have as corollaries the theme of leaving Iran. Mousavi’s My Tehran for Sale, the first and to-date only Australian-Iranian co-production, is relevant here as a film from a diasporic director but filmed in Iran using an Iranian cast and subject and producer. The debut feature of a female filmmaker, albeit a well-known poet, My Tehran for Sale was the first major fictional film to use the Tehran underground arts scene as a conflicted site, and the striking similarities with Nobody Knows about Persian Cats show that it was a source of inspiration for Ghobadi, who had been attached as her producer for Australian funding purposes. Moussavi obtained the crucial shooting permit, and the film screened in Tehran. Yet despite precedents for shaved heads in films such as Daughters of the Sun (2000,

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Maryam Shahriar) and Manijeh Hekmat’s Women’s Prison (2002) (which as mentioned elsewhere had other problems), suddenly in 2011 the lead actress, Marzieh Vafamehr, was arrested for this apparent breach of female cinematic appearances. This was two years after the film had been made and screened in Tehran. By contrast, the second part of the portmanteau film Tehran, Tehran (2010), directed by Mehdi Karampour, which dealt with a rock group’s failed attempt to get the necessary permits to hold a concert, was commissioned by the Tehran municipality.

Straying into politics Some filmmakers became more daring in their criticism of state apparatus between 2009 and 2013. Rafi Pitts’ The Hunter (2009), which screened at the Berlinale in 2010, is a slow-burning thriller shot in an arthouse style about a night watchman recently released from prison. His concern, as expressed in the film’s opening, is his difficulty in supporting his wife and child, and it seems that the film will be in the social issues vein. However, when his family is killed in the crossfire at a demonstration during the 2009 presidential elections, he avenges them by shooting the two policemen responsible. Eventually he is hunted down. There are many elements which support a strong political statement. In the opening scene, the Basiji ride motorcycles over an enormous image of the American flag; the night watchman’s crime is never explained, suggesting that it may be political, as perhaps so are the deaths of his wife and his child. Is state surveillance involved, that he is located so apparently effortlessly? Perhaps the biggest clue is that while the Farsi dialogue speaks of “burglars”, the English sub-titles translate the word as “dissidents”, suggesting a way around censorship. Abdolreza Khalani had written and directed two very popular films: Bist (2009) and Hich (2010). The latter was one of the very popular “grocery store dramas” (discussed later), although a few scenes had been cut. In 2011 he made Absolutely Tame is a Horse, which tackled the subject of police corruption in Iran. A policeman travels round on a motorcycle taking bribes all night. The ending, which reveals that he is actually a prisoner on overnight leave, did not disguise the director’s intentions. Unsurprisingly the film was condemned by the Iranian government and refused an international screening permit (Iran Bans Absolutely; Lodderhose). A very controversial film that really pushed political boundaries domestically was Private Life (2012), directed by Mohammad Hossein Farah Bakhsh. It follows the transformation of Ebrahim Kiani from a zealous revolutionary at the beginning of the revolution into a reformist. The film opens with him and a band of Basiji attacking and vandalizing a cinema. Kiani drives a tack into the forehead of a woman whom he considers improperly veiled, but is admonished by his colleagues. By the conclusion of the film, Kiani, now a reformist newspaper editor critical of the conservatives, has entered into a temporary marriage with a modern European-educated Iranian without gaining the permission of his first wife. When he decides to end the relationship, she informs him that she is pregnant. The film tells a familiar tale – there are many in real life whose trajectory from revolutionary to reformist it might in general resemble. But the film reads politically quite

Iranian cinema means the middle classes 65 ambiguously. Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, in identifying specific sources of inspiration, considers it sometimes unclear whether the film is “parodying those who have made this transformation”. It has been suggested that the source for the scene with the thumb tack might well be Akbar Ganji, a dissident exilic writer earlier known as Akbar Poonez, or Thumbtacks Akbar, for undertaking such activities. This would make strategic sense on the part of the filmmakers, as Ganji is intensely disliked by the conservatives and perhaps initial permissions were given because the film was read as depicting the moral decay of the reformists. However, the depictions of Kiani in his revolutionary, pre-reformist stage, which include him supervising torture in an official capacity, were likely to be problematic. Furthermore, as noted, he enters into the temporary marriage ignoring the dictate of gaining the permission of his first wife. The problem of her pregnancy then arises. This is more than likely referencing a highly controversial aspect in the Family Protection Bill, which had been undergoing amendments since 2007. Permission from the first wife was removed as a requirement on 2 April 2012, while the film had first screened in February 2012. Initially the film was considered acceptable. It screened at Fajr where it elicited Best Actor Award for the highly respected Farhad Aslani. It then gained a coveted Nowruz release into cinemas. By 2 April the Tehran Times had announced that it was sharing third place at the box office. In spite of this, just over a week later it was pulled off screens altogether. Private Life (2012), along with Saeed Soheili’s The Guidance Patrol (2012), another of the five Nowruz releases, was withdrawn from screens after clergy in Tehran and Mashad attacked the MCIG for issuing screening permits (movies banned). According to another source this was the result of lobbying from the fundamentalist vigilante group Ansar-e Hezbollah (Sadeghi-Boroujerdi). Guidance Patrol had been described in the media prior to release as a “social comedy” (Iranian Theaters Line-up). This case is revealing of the difficulties facing directors. It is almost heartbreaking to read Soheili’s director statement, which was still present in 2014 on the Farabi website: There is nothing to say about Guidance Patrol. It is just to see without any words. There is nothing to say about the long time I was waiting for the shooting permit. There is nothing to say about several times I rewrote the script. There is nothing to say about the calamities I bore. There is nothing to say about the problems in preproduction and postproduction which were a hundred times bigger than the problems we had during the production. There is nothing to say to the good people of my country, but asking them to watch the film.

The family – the fundamental unit of society The family is defined in the Iranian Constitution as the fundamental unit of society. As in most arthouse cinemas, problems within families have been a favoured topic, ranging from the generation gap to disabilities. A classic made at the beginning of the reformist era is Sadrameli’s, The Girl in Sneakers (1998), a Farabi production,

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and among Naficy’s list of social issues films. The film deals with a fifteen-yearold girl who runs away from home. At the time the content, although an acknowledged social problem, was quite radical as a film topic. As Sadrameli put it: The film and the tale is [sic] a new experience in dealing with the subjective preoccupations of a number of the young people in our society. . . . I don’t know how successful we will be in dealing with this dilemma, but perhaps our sincerity and belief will be of great help. (Farabi Cinema Foundation Website) Naficy, however, considers that Sadrameli’s critique of society is undermined by the film’s conclusion, where the runaway returns home (A Social History 4: 145), supporting Zeydabadi-Nejad’s claim that the negotiation of the radical content through state funding necessarily leads to a compromising of content (55). A rather special film made at the conclusion of this timeframe is Maziar Miri’s The Painting Pool (2013), which deals with a mentally disabled couple, unusual even in an international context in that the issue of marriage between disabled persons and their right to have children is not the issue. Maryam and Reza have established a functioning routine and adore their young son. He does not realise that his parents are different from others till he goes to school. Suddenly a problem develops within what has been a very happy family – he becomes ashamed of them. It becomes a serious issue when the teacher requests that his mother come to the school. Everything finally falls apart when Reza also loses his job. The young son leaves home, moving in with his teacher. But eventually all is happily resolved. There is a very poignant rather than humorous scene where the parents work together to make a pizza, something relatively new for traditional Iranian families, as a treat for their son. They struggle lovingly with what is a huge challenge, producing something that looks barely edible. Clearly the film falls within the parameters of Islamic values, notable as Maziar Miri has had a chequered history of obtaining screening permits. His debut feature, The Unfinished Song, made in 2000, was within the social issues genre, dealing with the ban on singing for women. (There is some similarity to Panahi’s Offside in dealing with a specific constraint on women, and the same trope was taken up by Ghobadi as a sub-plot, equally unsuccessfully in terms of domestic permits in Half Moon (2006), in which a group of Kurdish musicians collects a female singer from a village of 1,334 exiled women singers on the way to perform at a concert.) Maziar Miri’s The Book of Law (2008), an interfaith film in which an Iranian Muslim falls in love with a Christian Lebanese woman who subsequently converts was banned domestically and internationally until some nine minutes were removed. However, The Painting Pool adheres to the formula suggested above – it focuses completely on the nuclear family, its internal dynamics, and its relationship with sympathetically depicted family and institutional carers. The film was produced by the Arts Centre, one of Iran’s most conservative government production agencies, indicating the fluidity of movement possible for directors prepared to conform to boundaries irrespective of their earlier history. Bahram Tavakoli, who apparently enjoys regular full government approval, might be described as embracing both social issues and spirituality in equal

Iranian cinema means the middle classes 67 measure. His allegorical Barefoot in Heaven (2006), mentioned earlier, deals with the ostracisation of the mentally ill; A Walk in the Fog (2009), starring Leila Hatami and Shahab Hosseini, produced by the DEFC, places mental illness inside a marriage and explores the problems for both partners within the limits of Islamic values. Here without Me (2011), inspired by The Glass Menagerie, was privately produced and taken on for international distribution by a government agency (VMI). The character of Yalda, physically disabled and with severe psychological problems, conforms closely to Laura in the Tennessee Williams original. However, the point of interest is the mother. The character has been substantially changed from Williams’s play and is a vehicle, conforming to Islamic values, for the self-sacrificing single-parent mother. She works very hard in a factory to ensure the family’s survival and places her daughter at the centre of her emotional existence. Although the existential difficulties of contemporaneous Iran are hard to miss (it is the same time period as in Tales), the focus is on the family unit and its survival in the face of personal misfortune. A lighter gentle comedy that received some attention domestically and internationally and might be included here was Ali Rafie’s Agha Yousef (2011). Also made in 2011, it has some affinity with Here without Me, but the tone is very different. The film also revolves around sole parenthood, here the relationship between a father, who works as a cleaner, and his beloved daughter. He works for a middle-class family where there is another young woman around his daughter’s age, and this becomes a mechanism to compare the social classes. Moral issues, chiefly relating to the appropriate behaviour of young single women, are presented as cross-class. The film has been included in several Iranian Consul programmed international film weeks. Impacting on the family unit and marriage are the topics of polygamy, discussed earlier in relation to Gold and Copper, and temporary marriage, which I noted earlier was a prevalent topic in 2002, my first year at Fajr. The most prominent of these latter films was Rasoul Sadrameli’s, I Am Taraneh, Fifteen Years Old (2002), listed by Naficy as a prominent social issues film. It portrays the hardships faced by the young Taraneh (in what was Taraneh Alidoosti’s first role) when her temporary marriage fails and she is left as a poverty-stricken young teenager raising a child. This film falls into the category of “women’s issues”, with its profound sympathy for the subject. Ida Panahandeh’s 2015 film Nahid so many years later used the idea of temporary marriage as a device for a woman to retain custody of her child by not officially remarrying. Again, our sympathy is with the temporary wife. The more usual depiction of temporary wives is a more negative one of a minor character. Exemplary of this is in Mohammad Hossein Farah Bakhsh’s Private Life (2012), discussed earlier, where the temporary wife is a second one, and the arrangement is made without the permission of the first wife.

Middle-class family drama As discussed earlier, Seifollah Dad introduced the social issues genre as an attempt to respond to audience taste. He noted many years later in an interview that, “I was explaining to [the filmmakers] that Iranian cinema means the middle classes”

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(Zeydabadi-Nejad 50). In the event the social issues genre had tended to focus on the poor, and in the case of “festival films” the genre was also often very critical of society or the government. While initially welcomed, in the long-term neither direction found favour with the middle classes. More recently what I would argue is a new sub-category and perhaps even a genre within social issues, the middleclass family drama, has developed and found favour at the box office. Films that I place in this category deal specifically with the concerns of the middle classes, with thematic concerns around the clash between traditional and modernity, and can embrace drama or comedy. Spearheading this new trend were the films of Asghar Farhadi, all of which have received screening permits in Iran and have done well at the box office. Farhadi’s trajectory is instructive. His earliest film script, Low Altitude (2002), directed by Ebrahim Hatamikia, about a man who is ostensibly flying his family within Iran to find work, but once in the air attempts to hijack the plane to get the family out of Iran. The post 9/11 film, combining social issues, thriller, and comedy, deals with the working class. After this, Farhadi wrote or co-wrote and directed most of his films with the exception of Tambourine (2009), which he scripted, but which his wife, Parisa Bakhtavar, directed. Dancing in the Dust (2003) and Beautiful City (2004) both dealt with the problems of the working class, but Fireworks Wednesday (2006) is a transitional film in which a young woman sees herself caught up in the domestic dispute of her middle-class boss and his wife. The new genre is fully realised with About Elly (2009), which focuses on the domestic dramas of a group from the middle classes, with astute observations on the social customs of Iranians. While the film is firmly located as a middle-class family drama, as with Low Altitude, Farhadi employs elements of the thriller genre rather than melodrama. A Separation portrays the relationships between the classes but focuses more fully on the middle classes. The Past (2013), the final of Farhadi’s films made under the Ahmadinejad presidency, continues, as with more recent films, the middleclass family drama, with the added complexity of an international setting and set of characters. When asked about his shift to writing about the middle classes in 2014, Farhadi told me that it was a deliberate one, based on his belief that he should write about the class and milieu he knows (An Evening with Asghar Farhadi). His major theme is the hypocrisy of the middle-class mode of living that has adopted modernist ideas but under threat quickly retreats to superficial but traditional values. More recently Godfrey Cheshire gave a more cynical reason: “According to an interview I did with Haghighi in Tehran last year, ‘Fireworks Wednesday’ originated when he went to Farhadi and expressed admiration for this [sic] first two films but noted that they had both directed two films that had been box-office duds. So he proposed that they collaborate on a film that would mark departures in two ways: it would focus on urban middle-class characters rather than the poor; and it would use movie stars rather than the non-actors” (Cheshire). While directors such as Milani and Mehrju’i had situated many if not all of their films within the milieu of the middle classes, this is not the sole characteristic of this newer trend. In Merhju’i’s Leila, for example, the traditional brushes

Iranian cinema means the middle classes 69 with the new as the titular Leila decides to allow her husband to remarry in order to have a child. Milani’s melodramas also tackle patriarchy and traditional ways among the middle classes. The Fifth Reaction, for example, deals with the widow of a marriage not approved by the deceased husband’s family and her efforts to retain her children without having to marry his younger brother. But while these films involved much soul searching in relation to tradition, the newer films are less involved with questioning personal beliefs or the individual submitting to societal values. Rather, these films involve the individual and his or her rights, the stress and worries of everyday life peculiar to the Iranian situation yet readily recognizable as the kind of middle-class angst portrayed in a globalised world that has now reached Iran – a world reflected in Hollywood, European Korean, and contemporary Indian cinema. Mehrju’i’s later Orange Suit too is tinged by this newer model in its portrayal of the domestic environment of the protagonist. His wife is studying in Europe and has left her responsibilities as a mother behind her. Tahmineh Milani, one year after The Unwanted Woman (2005) moved into domestic comedy, located firmly in the middle class, with her divorce comedy Cease Fire (2006). Naficy has classified this as a social issues film (A Social History 4:128), but I would like to position it as a hybrid-comedy and an early example of a narrower and newer genre. There are many examples of films set among the middle class following Farhadi’s lead. Perhaps a film that epitomises the genre is Maziar Miri’s Felicity Land (2011), the Farsi title of which is simply and pointedly a middle-class suburb in Tehran, Sa’adat Abad. Three middle-class couples gather at the home of one of them to celebrate a birthday. The film explores all the angst of the middle classes anywhere. The film had a stellar ensemble cast that brought together the commercial star, Mahnaz Afshar, and arthouse darling, Leila Hatami. Reza Mir Karimi’s, A Cube of Sugar (2011), by contrast, is a nostalgic look at a traditional (and perhaps ideal) family preparing for the marriage of the youngest girl to a Western-educated family friend. The title refers to the beautiful traditional sugarrubbing ceremony. It fits less easily into this category because of the traditional family structure, but it is a little outside of the usual themes of Mir Karimi and can be viewed as a spiritual counter-balance. A sophisticated comedy infused with social issues themes of the environment and family is Mehrju’i’s, The Orange Suit (2011). In this family unit the wife is studying abroad, thereby abandoning both husband and child. Instead of the ambiguity towards emigration shown by Farhadi in A Separation and Rasoulof in Goodbye, Mehrju’i takes a strong critical stance towards the character of the wife. This was considered safe by the government, and, with its middle-class setting, was popular with general audiences. The Orange Suit was in seventh place at the Iranian box office in 2012, taking in $392,000, which equates to some 392,000 paid entrances (email Atebba’i). It indicates not only audience approval but also government approval in allowing it to release in the right cinemas at the right time of year to make this achievable. However, with this genre some filmmakers have pushed the boundaries beyond what would be acceptable to the government. Massoud Bakhshi’s, A Respectable

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Family (2012), was one such film. The film follows a man returning to Iran after twenty years in Europe and deals with familial conflict as the father lies on his deathbed. Yet this is just one aspect of the theme. The film is set in contemporary Iran, in the context of systemic corruption, and strongly references the Iran-Iraq war and the Basiji. The film never screened in Iran and “both director and producer, Mohammad Afarideh who was always one of the film officials, faced serious problems” in Iran (anonymous email). It was selected for the Director’s Fortnight in Cannes 2012, and Press TV reported this. It then travelled to many international film festivals, possible because the film was a co-production with two French producers and a French sales agent. Another way of pushing the boundaries is represented by Kami’s Party (Ali Ahmadzadeh, 2013), a different version of the middle-class family drama, a road movie intended for a young demographic and depicting very wealthy young Tehranis. This kind of wealth is something which has rarely been seen on film, perhaps in this timeframe only in a short segment in Panahi’s Crimson, Gold. A young woman decides to come back from her holiday on the Caspian Sea to go to a friend’s party in Lavassan (a small village on the outskirts of Tehran where the wealthy, including many film industry people, live). She hopes to see her boyfriend there, but little does she realise that he lies dead in the boot of her car. Aside from the provocative title, the film has extensive scenes depicting drug use and indeed little that would endear it to the regime. Furthermore, it is completely nonjudgemental. It is understood that the problem for the MCIG was that according to sharia law, a body must be buried within twenty-four hours of death. As noted elsewhere there are always many reasons why a film cannot get a permit, and it seems likely that this was a very easy excuse for refusing a permit to a film that would have been seen as objectionable in the same way that Crimson, Gold, and Santouri were. Two final films that fall into this category come from quite a radical perspective in relation to Islamic views on marriage, although this is less apparent, if at all, to a Westerner. In writer/director Ali Mosaffa’s sophomore film, The Last Step (2012), with its fractured narrative influenced by one of its sources of inspiration, James Joyce’s The Dead, the protagonist reviews from beyond the grave his relationship with his wife and, as he tries to make sense of some contradictory memories, ponders the identity of a young man his wife loved before they were married. He is also plagued by doubts that she ever truly loved him. The Snow on the Pines (2012), the directorial debut of scriptwriter and actor Peyman Maadi, examines a marriage from the wife’s perspective. A piano teacher who works from home, she discovers that her husband has been unfaithful to her with one of her pupils; in her loneliness she turns to a young man, purely for friendship. Aware of a moral double standard, that adultery is permissible for her husband but even thinking about another man is not permissible for her, she nonetheless decides to discuss the matter with her husband, causing a problem within their marriage. While the content of The Snow on the Pines might seem the very stuff of melodrama, the work is delicate, understated, and filmed in black and white to throw the focus onto the

Iranian cinema means the middle classes 71 woman’s innermost thoughts. Both of these films question the very foundations of marriage and love, focusing on the feelings of the women, feelings usually left unspoken. Neither would appear to an international audience to be in any way controversial. But both experienced some difficulties with release as they do not endorse the official Islamic view of marriage or women, already discussed here in relation to both Bani-E’temad and Milani. Maadi found that in his experience this change of perspective was seen as quite challenging. Although his film won the Audience Award at Fajr, it took some negotiating to get it through the system for commercial release, both domestically and internationally. He explained that it was by involving the wives of government officials and the judiciary in private screenings that he was able to get a screening permit (Q&A Session following film screening, Oct 8 2013, Brisbane). The middle-class family drama is one which the Ahmadinejad government was able to accommodate. While the genre does not deal with the working class or promote specifically Islamic values, acceptable middle-class family dramas were not at odds with these values. The genre drew away from criticising the regime into the territory of introspection or self-examination. Moreover, it was popular with the middle classes, those largely at odds with the regime at a critical time, who could finally see their own concerns mirrored on the screen.

Conclusion The Social Issues category of films, embracing a diversity of topics, from women’s issues through to crime and the law, was encouraged by the reformists from around 2000, with the then minister hoping to increase the popularity of cinema. I suggest that it was the congruence of a range of factors – the introduction of political content into films, the consideration of the international market, and the accompanying international success and awards, along with the official introduction of the social issues genre as part of the reformist agenda, that led to the development of this rich and diverse category. The history of this category and a descendent subdivision, middle-class family dramas, in relation to permits, is more conflicted than other categories. Of the eighty or so films banned under Ahmadinejad, most came from this category, but the reformists also contributed to this count with films such as The Circle. Acceptable social issues films seem to show positive solutions or individualise the problems; problematic social issues films seem to criticise or imply criticism of government action or policy, show the country in a bad light internationally (itself a trickily subjective judgement), or are seen to countermand Shi’ite Muslim ideology or values in some way. Showing social problems as individually or societally caused rather than structural is especially significant, but problematic for the filmmaker in that the boundary between the government, society, and the individual can be difficult to determine. Furthermore, as we have discussed, interpretation of films in Iran is an art in itself. Ultimately obtaining the screening permit lies in the interrelation of many factors of which the content of a film and even the approach taken to the topic are just two. Contemporary political issues

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and government policy also play a role. Connections or “cronyism” have a significant place, and Devictor’s comment that “the ‘moral’ and political guarantees of the director, producer and technical staff matter more than a well-defined project or a good-quality script” (75) was as important a factor in 2013 as when she wrote it in 2002. In what is a very brief survey of films made in this vein between 2000 and 2013 I have attempted to give a sense of recurrent topics, positioning them according to where they fall on the scale of government acceptability, and attempting to deduce what was possibly problematic in films that were banned. Sometimes the problem might be quite different from what a Westerner at least might imagine. It gives a sense of both the unpredictable nature of any individual decision on permits but also some sense of change over the period, change by the filmmakers on the topics they were willing to risk taking on, and by the government in their view towards them – those they desired, tolerated, or banned.

3

New Iranian cinema and the international festivals

Iran was a cinematic “hotspot” on the international festival circuit for about a decade from the mid-1990s to 2005, evidenced by its exhibition and award history. From around 2000, filmmakers began to perceive that, if their work did not conform to the regulations for the Iranian domestic market, the international market alone could be a viable destination for their films. The September 11 attacks further boosted festival interest in Iranian cinema because it was the most interesting national cinema in what was suddenly a topical region. The level of on-screen political engagement among the newer generation of filmmakers after 2000, using either allegory or a more realistic mode, increased exponentially as filmmakers pushed boundaries of what was politically acceptable. Undoubtedly this calculated risk-taking, and social and political engagement was an important factor in making the cinema of Iran appealing to the international market. After 2005 its popularity with festivals waned. As with most New Waves or “hotspots” (such as Argentinian or Korean cinema) outside the traditional world cinema scene, when interest inevitably declined, Iranian filmmakers suddenly had stronger competition for positions in international festivals. Concurrently a number of specialised Iranian film festivals rose, run largely by expatriate Iranians to compensate for the drop in Iranian films that they had become used to seeing featured in international festivals. However, after the contested 2009 Iranian elections, when cinema was transformed into a cultural marker of intense political conflict domestically, international interest in Iranian cinema was renewed. This interest continued throughout the second term of the Ahmadinejad government, growing in direct proportion to the increased constraints placed upon filmmakers. It was compounded by the international arrival of a bright new star, director Asghar Farhadi with About Elly (2009, notably just prior to the elections), A Separation (2011) and The Past (2013). The 2012 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for A Separation catapulted Iranian cinema into the consciousness of a broader general public; although unfairly for Farhadi, his win was inextricably intertwined with the concurrent political situation. This chapter and the next are both concerned with Iranian cinema’s relationship with the West, particularly Europe. In this chapter I will trace the history of film reception and the receiving of awards of Iranian cinema in the West, although

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noted in relation to many individual films, and the consequent construction of the New Iranian Cinema. I do this firstly by giving a brief overview of the general politics of film festivals, then by defining the term “festival film” as an academic, an industry, and a film festival term. I then trace the history of Iranian cinema in terms of international festival exhibition. I examine in detail the International Film Festival Rotterdam, with its emphasis on Asian cinema and on films for general domestic audiences rather than the industry. This makes the Rotterdam festival different from the major European industry or market-oriented festivals with which it will be compared. I will then turn to the smaller specialised Asian film festival, Nantes’ Trois Continents and more general Western festivals, including as an Australian example the Brisbane International Film Festival, where I was Artistic then Executive Director for eighteen festivals, as well as some major Asian festivals. Interwoven with this are the contributions of some key individuals. To conclude this section on international film festivals, I provide an overview of the specialised or national cinema festivals devoted to Iran. Drawing from this, I then look at how and what Western festival programmers select and indeed the appeal of Iranian cinema. Finally, I outline the recent history of festival funding for Iranian cinema. Much of this is drawn from my knowledge as a festival director for over twenty-five years.

The politics and purposes of film festivals Several Iranian academics, including Dabashi and Farahmand, address the connection between foreign film festivals and politics. However, most only deal with the relation to the larger festivals. Coming from a festival background, I believe that the situation is more nuanced than acknowledged and will address this here and in more depth in Chapter 4. Farahmand comments critically of festivals in general, providing me with a useful place to start in terms of it showing how an academic commentary can lack understanding of the nature and character of festivals: [W]hile European festival programmers and film distributors can pride themselves on the discovery of other cinemas, they have also benefited from the cultural and economic returns of the films they promote. This point demystifies film festivals as the profit motive driving them is brought to the foreground. (94) Separating programmers from film distributors, it is true that the profit margins for Western distributors on films from countries like Iran can be large, but they can also be large for the filmmakers. The reality is that a large number of films make little profit and often losses for distributors, particularly smaller foreign language titles. The breakout film is the exception. In relation to festivals, Farahmand’s statement is also a simplification. It ignores the fact that film festivals, like most government-supported events, are non-profit and would not exist without subsidy, but nonetheless are required to be financially viable and thus make compromises.

Iranian cinema and international festivals 75 These compromises are a complex set of factors that mesh together. I will return to this shortly but now will respond to the statement about festival programmers. There are many types of film festivals and correspondingly festival directors and programmers, all with varying aims and objectives. Taking first the individuals, film festival programmers are motivated by a range of reasons; however, irrespective of the organizational brief, most love cinema. Some are ideologically driven to help filmmakers, who often become friends, while others are more careerist in intent. Cultural returns serve both and are an appropriate reward for what is a demanding and often poorly paid career. Farahmand cites the example of Marco Müller who combines film festival directing with producing. This suggests to Farahmand a conflict of interest on Müller’s part. Yet given the overlap in the skill set and knowledge base for each, it is a logical step, and many festival directors have produced or been invited to produce features, as I can personally attest. However, to suggest that the profit motive is paramount and limited to foreigners is to forget both that producing is not always lucrative and the very obvious financial benefits from international distribution resulting from festival exposure that many successful Iranian directors routinely display in their multi-million dollar North Tehrani real estate, not to forget Caspian Sea holiday homes. Ideological commitment and genuine caring are evident in the following statement made by programmers from the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) in 2007 in introducing their Tehran – Hotspot programme with an essay entitled, “Tehran – Making Love in a Missionary Way”. A better relationship [with Iran] seems possible only if we know more of each other. The positive aspects of our relationship with this fairly radical country should be highlighted more. It is mainly for this reason that Tehran qualifies very well as a Hot Spot and that this programme will put this extraordinary city in the spotlights . . . the Hot Spots programme is happy to contribute to a reduction of misunderstandings. (Tehran – Making Love in a Missionary Way 468) (This ideological commitment will be further substantiated in a discussion of the IFFR programme later in this chapter.) If festival programmers misrepresent Iranian cinema, I would suggest that this is more about a lack of knowledge of the context in which it circulates, exacerbated by the substantial difficulties in getting to Iran and in the efforts of many Iranian filmmakers to deliver what they believe Western programmers and media want to see and hear. For his part Dabashi suggests the middle way in discussing the “A” festivals: “cultural institutions like the Cannes Film Festival and the Venice Biennale bring together the financial resources of governmental agencies and multinational corporations to the aid of ‘third World’ artists and in the process give those artists a forum” (Masters and Masterpieces . . . 331). All these truths jostle simultaneously in what, even for an individual festival, is a complex balance of factors creating a successful event. A detailed explanation is

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beyond the capacity of this work, but I will attempt an overview of festivals and their roles and responsibilities. A major role for a successful festival includes satisfying a range of stakeholders with their overlapping and sometimes conflicting interests. These stakeholders include the source or suppliers of films – sales agents, distributors, and filmmakers who are interested in publicity and/or sales; the sponsors, who require acknowledgement in the public arena, usually in relation to more accessible films, and good press; government funding agencies, with their cultural remit and a requirement for some kind of exposure; as well as the media, who require some kind of hook for stories and are the conduit to the intended audience, whose presence is essential for the needs of all other stakeholders. Finally, there is the specific target audience for each of the various types of festivals, which ranges from industry in its broader sense – buyers, critics, and other festivals (Cannes, Venice) – through to the local general public (for example Rotterdam, Sydney, or Kerala, although there are increasingly some industry components to these festivals) to a mix, with both elements of major importance (Berlinale). All festivals consider gaining sales and publicity for films in their programme to be an indicator of their success, even those aimed only at the local public and national critics and with no official market. For some it is simply an ideological commitment to the filmmakers. For those with an attached market, a high level of sales and maximising the amount of media exposure are major goals reflecting the festivals’ success. At the other end of the spectrum is the role of exhibition for the general (and usually local) public. Here the performance indicators are high attendances and usually critical acclaim. While Cannes and Venice are essentially industry-oriented festivals, some festivals combine the two roles in differing proportions. The Berlinale targets both the international industry and the press along with the local general public. There are special screenings for the industry with English subtitles for Competition and Panorama; the public screenings of the same films often have German subtitles. Forum is pitched chiefly at other festivals and locals, and the Kinderfest at German children. The Berlinale also has a major market attached. A variation of this model is practised by the major festival in many countries – Busan International Film Festival in Korea, the International Film Festival India, and indeed in Iran with Fajr. In the same way that the general public uses festival screenings of films as a reference, encouraged by publicists who list these screenings in the publicity material, festival programmers often use sales agents as a kind of reference and quality indicator. Most sales agents specialise in a certain type of material for a particular market – most of their slate will conform to the company’s profile. Thus, for a filmmaker or an international sales agent with territories to sell off, entering a market-oriented festival is to try for prestige but also a sale. To rack up numerous festival screenings around the globe for a film means some income from the film hire fees (although if a sales agent is involved, the filmmaker usually does not receive anything), and works as a reference for the director’s CV and future funding opportunities. While on balance festivals do not benefit all films, they remain an essential gatekeeper for many. This has been especially true for

Iranian cinema and international festivals 77 Iranian independent cinema as is acknowledged by the government support it has been given.

A Western perspective on the festival film Having outlined some of the issues behind the selection by international festivals, I will now attempt to define the “festival film”, firstly academically, then from the trade perspective. The academic concept of the “festival film” has long been in use. O’Regan invoked it in relation to national cinema back in 1996, coining the far-from-pejorative phrase “Australia’s festival cinema”, to describe films such as Breaker Morant and Sweetie (50). Furthermore, he notes that “most national cinemas seek to involve international players” including festivals (55). I would argue that the traditional “festival film” is synonymous with what academics label “art cinema” or “a cinema of formal innovation, a cinema aligned with the latest trends in literature and the fine arts” (Bordwell, 94), where intellectual engagement with the film, or “an operation of decipherment” is required of the audience (Wollen 77). For Western film critics the term does not carry a negative implication. By contrast, Australian critic Andrew Urban in one of his reviews invoked the term as a positive attribute: “a perfect festival film in that it experiments with cinema in its exploration of man’s universe – from a rather doomed point of view” (Urban, my emphasis). Perhaps another characteristic might be a film where the director could be described as an arthouse auteur. Generally, this type of film would be expected to have a relatively small audience in its own territory as well as internationally. The typical pathway for such films might be as follows: a domestic release before or after premiering internationally at festivals, followed by a small international run in arthouse cinemas or at cinematheques, and finally a DVD release or streaming in differing territories as it enters the film canon or not. Aside from the formal or content characteristics, it is clear from the above that a festival film has another defining element. This type of film has a limited domestic and international market. Although the term is not listed in Variety’s famous Slanguage Dictionary, in my dealings with the trade in the West I have always understood the (frequent) use of the term to mean a film for which a standard commercial release may not be economically viable. In trade terms, this does not necessarily carry a value judgment but rather is a categorisation that assists in determining whether or how to handle the sale, distribution, and exhibition of a film. In my negotiations with the Australian trade, they were always concerned about the impact of a festival screening on a new release, considering a festival record potentially damaging to more commercial films. Festivals can also be used in trade strategy for the opposite purpose. Thomas Elsaesser has written that, “The New German Cinema was discovered and even invented abroad, and had to be reimported to be recognized as such” (300). This is quite frequently done with individual films. Australian producer Giorgio Draskovic once told me that he used just this strategy to combat Australian cultural cringe with Rolf de Heer’s Dingo (1991), for which he obtained a Venice premiere, designed to pique interest from the Australian market.

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The term “festival film” in relation to release potential and commercial viability is a relative one and varies according to the territory. The European film exhibition market has a larger arthouse component than Australia or North America. Shirin Neshat’s Women without Men (2009), an international co-production not involving Iran, although the subject matter concerns itself with Iranian history, won the Silver Lion for Best Director at the Venice Biennale in 2009. On the strength of this it was released quite widely in Europe, but it was bought for Australia as part of a package of films by Transmission Films and screened only at festivals, finally selling for broadcast only in 2012. It is this factor of perceived low commercial viability when attached to quality films that gives an added meaning to the concept of “festival film”. With the general decrease in the number of arthouse cinemas, the nature of exhibition has changed significantly since the 1970s. With the rise of multiplexes, single and even twin screen cinemas have been all but driven out of business; the duration of film runs is now dependent on the opening weekend figures; platform releases (a limited release strategy, where a film opens in only a few theatres, then gradually expands to more theatres, dependent on good word of mouth) are a rarity; and publicity for individual films at the local level has diminished. As digital cinemas and streaming increase, this is exacerbated. The “majors” in the business concentrate on fewer films. Concurrently – and to fill this gap in commercial exhibition – the last thirty years have seen the burgeoning of international film festivals of all kinds. Each has its own particular needs, audience, or market ranging from the traditional cinephilic and/or industry orientation to cultural diplomacy, cultural tourism, mass entertainment, or a combination of these factors. Even traditional film festivals have been required to expand their target demographic in a bid to expand the general audience and the commercial viability of their events in relation to the box office, government funding agencies, and sponsorship potential. This diversity of festivals and their intended demographic proscribes any attempt at finding any common denominator in style or content in films screened at festivals. Nonetheless, the proliferation significantly increased the need for a product and changed the market. The festival circuit has become a self-contained exhibition platform which feeds into sales considerations, largely because the sum total of the audience through festivals over a wide geographical spread can often provide significant revenue. Along with this increase in the number of festivals there came a major change in the relationship between festivals and their suppliers – the international sales agents, international and domestic distributors, and the filmmakers. Originally festivals did not pay film hires. Festival marketing, publicity, and word of mouth were considered the benefits of a festival screening, with much jockeying by film rights’ owners for best positioning within the festival. Since the early 1990s, as the demand for films rose, international sales agents such as Fortissimmo, Celluloid Dreams, Flache Pyramide, and MK2 (all of which have Iranian films in their slate) began to view festivals without a significant market as an alternative exhibition platform and introduced screening fees to most of the festivals on the circuit.

Iranian cinema and international festivals 79 To service the increased administrative burden, most sales agents introduced the role of a “Festival Co-ordinator” into their business. Gradually many filmmakers working directly with festivals also began to demand a screening fee. For festivals it was a new and expensive budget line. The impact of all this has expanded the concept of a “festival film” to accommodate an audience demographic broader than cinephiles. Increasingly festival fare now includes what is called in industry parlance “soft arthouse”. Baseline characteristics are that the film is formally conventional, not too tough, that it carries a strong emotional appeal, and often showcases the landscape, culture, or milieu in a readily consumable form. Such a spectrum of films is produced by most national cinemas, from France through to Iran, and can be characterised as suitable for the international (festival) market. However, the difference between Western and many Asian cinemas (excluding Japan and India) is that in most cases films from Western countries are aimed at a domestic market (although they may or may not receive a limited release), as well as at an international market. Filmmakers from non-Western countries often aim their “festival film” at an international audience alone. The Iranian circumstance of a festival orientation for a part of its production slate is, then, not unusual.

Festival audiences So what does the festival audience want from a non-Western film? Defining “cinephilia” is as difficult as defining “arthouse”. However, in general I would suggest that apart from those who specialise in particular national cinemas, the provenance of films and the context of production are of secondary interest. This is the traditional festival audience for the traditional festival film. Kiarostami, as an auteur, could and did make a film in Italy or Japan for cinephiles. For the newer festival audience, I suggest a parallel with travel. In writing about the “tourist gaze”, John Urry suggests that “places are chosen to be gazed upon because there is anticipation . . . of intense pleasures . . . constructed . . . through a variety of non-tourist practices such as film . . . which construct and reinforce that gaze” (222). I would argue that the soft arthouse sub-category of “festival film” not only constructs that gaze but in many cases also satisfies it as an armchair substitute, as Australia’s long-running SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) slogan, “Bringing the world back home”, encapsulated. That festivals also recognise this and deliberately seek the connection is indicated by the kinds of taglines or publicity they adopt. Issa, in an interview with Furlong, defended her choice of Iranian films for the 2006 Berlinale in precisely those terms. “All the current issues of daily life in Iran are reflected in their [Rafi Pitts and Jafar Panahi] work. Those who go and see the films will have a better view of what life is like in Iran today” (Furlong). While Urry quotes Culler in suggesting that tourists “are fanning out in search of the signs of Frenchness . . . or exemplary Oriental scenes” (222), I would posit from countless discussions with festival-goers at the Brisbane International Film Festival that this is precisely what many soft arthouse viewers seek in their festival film-going experience. Urry also notes that “a substantial proportion of the

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population of modern societies engages in . . . tourist practices; new socialised forms of provision are developed in order to cope with the mass character of the gaze of tourists (as opposed to the individual character of ‘travel’)” (222). This difference between “traveller” and “tourist” is analogous to the sub-divisions in the “festival film” that I am positing – a serious intellectual engagement with art cinema versus an easily consumed form of exotic packaged entertainment. For a Western programmer the festival film could be defined as either hardcore arthouse/experimental/avant-garde/auteurist or one of the following (not mutually exclusive) armchair tourist activities: • • •

escapism in the form of an exotic background for a familiar story or a story that conforms to a Western genre escapism in the form of pleasurable armchair travel with location/culture foregrounded education in the broad sense

Expanding on this last category, I believe – again from years of discussions with film festival patrons – that many Western viewers expect from such films an alternative perspective or truth. Films are seen as direct sources of information about countries, unmediated by Western (or any) media. They are therefore regarded as more accurate or more evocative. The filmmaker’s eye is seen as a superior substitute for the tourist’s own eye, one that gives a more vivid and/or accurate account of historical or current events. Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa also notes this aspect in relation to Iranian cinema, stating: One of the attractive elements of Iranian films for non-Iranian audiences abroad is the locations used. On a safe, visa-free tour they can ‘visit’ parts of Iran and construct a mental map of the country and its culture. At times, watching these films confirms pre-existing images of the place as an exotic land of mystery [ancient mythical Persia] and misery [terrorism and poverty]. (Location 200–201) Tapper notes, citing Naficy, the paradox between the Western perception of Iran as backward and its maltreatment of artists, and Iran’s production of a “world cinema”. He continues “this apparent paradox at least partly explains the recent international fascination with Iranian cinema” (Tapper 2002, 2–3). To illustrate the typical pathway of an Iranian festival film I will trace the path of Kiarostami’s, The Taste of Cherry (1997), which has been highly influential on Iranian filmmakers seeking an international audience. After premiering in Cannes and winning the Palme d’Or, it travelled the festival world, chalked up international theatrical, broadcast, and non-theatrical sales, and finally a DVD release. The obvious omission in this list was its lack of any legal domestic screening. The Taste of Cherry was either refused a domestic screening permit in Iran on the grounds of content, or Kiarostami did not apply for one – opinions vary – making it a film which has only screened internationally.

Iranian cinema and international festivals 81 This muddles the concept of a traditional festival film in the Western sense. In the Iranian context (and in other countries, largely Asian, with strict censorship practices), a “festival film” has the further qualifier that it generally describes a film that will be seen internationally (largely in festivals) but not domestically, except by illegal DVD. When this type of film, one that would only reach a small audience in any country, is routinely banned or not screened in the country of production, the directors do not develop a local audience because of lack of exposure. It has thus become routine to hear the films and directors dismissed by their countrymen as “festival films” and “festival directors” whether or not the director has pandered to foreign taste. In summary, an Iranian film screened internationally at a festival might be defined by one of the following three possibilities: •

• •

a true arthouse film – of the kind that is unlikely to have a large domestic audience anywhere and therefore possibly not commercial enough to obtain a domestic release, irrespective of whether or not it might obtain a screening permit. Kiarostami’s work fits this category, with the exception of A Taste of Cherry, with its taboo topic a film deliberately designed to appeal to Western sensibilities or interests – possibly with ethnographic or exotic elements (an example here might be Mamad Haghighat’s Two Angels (2002)) a film with content unlikely to get a domestic screening permit. The filmmaker may anticipate and therefore tailor it more to foreign interest. When Panahi made The Circle, he was expecting a domestic screening permit. However, by the time he made Offside it was unlikely that he believed the film would receive a screening permit

With this preliminary discussion of the festival context in mind, let’s now turn our attention to a history of the international festival exhibition of Iranian cinema.

The introduction of Iranian cinema to the West: 1962 to 1979 The term the “New Iranian Cinema” was formulated outside of Iran and appears to have been first used by Roy Armes in 1987, who dated its inception to 1970, but Iranian cinema entered the European film festival scene in the 1960s (Armes 191). Viewed retrospectively, it perhaps started with Forough Farrokhzad’s The House is Black (1962), which won a Grand Jury Prize at Oberhausen in 1963 and also screened at Pesaro three years later. Although “only” a twenty-two-minute documentary short, its importance is disproportionate to its length. It is now widely recognised as an important precursor to the Iranian cinema of the 1980s and 1990s. Championed by Jonathan Rosenbaum in the West, the film’s impact is also acknowledged by Mohsen Makhmalbaf and many other Iranians (Rosenbaum, Radical). Cannes screened Farrokh Ghaffari’s Night of the Hunchback in 1964 and Fereydoun Rahnama’s Siavash in Persopolis (1964) in 1965; Darius Mehrju’i’s The Cow (1969) debuted internationally at Venice in 1971, and The

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Postman (Mehrju’i, 1970) went from the first Tehran International Film Festival to Cannes where it was screened as part of the Directors’ Fortnight, followed by the 1972 Berlinale, receiving the Golden Plaque of the Jury and the Interfilm Award Forum of New Cinema. In 1974 the Berlinale highlighted Sohrab Shahid Saless with A Simple Event (1973) in its Forum section and Still Life (1974) in Competition, and in 1976 Parviz Kimiavi’s Garden of Stones (1976) won a Berlin Silver Bear. In the same year Cannes responded with an Iranian Film Week that included the international premieres of Bahman Farmanara’s first film, Prince Ehtejab, and Bahram Beyza’i’s The Stranger and the Fog. Iranian cinema seemed to be blooming with both domestic and international success. However, the year 1975 “witnessed an alarming decline” in quality and quantity. There was a huge drop in production between 1976 and 1977–78 from “over eighty feature films” to “no more than five or six” (Brief Survey 11–12).

Post-revolutionary Iranian cinema and the international scene The interval after the revolution corresponded to a general lack of filmmaking. The first film screened internationally after the revolution was Amir Naderi’s The Runner (1985), today a classic, at Nantes in 1985 where it was awarded a prize. The following year it screened at the London and Sydney film festivals; in 1987 it screened at a further three festivals. Four films made in 1986 also travelled internationally. The most successful of these was Frosty Roads (Maud Jafari Jozani), which screened in Berlin, Montreal, Tokyo, and Hawaii as well as Hong Kong, along with The Runner. Alireza Shojanoori, then in charge of the international arm of Farabi, has singled out the screening of Frosty Roads in the thirty-seventh Berlinale, 1987, as the first major international attention to post-Revolutionary Iranian cinema (Interview). Mohsen Makhmalbaf began his foray into the international scene in 1988 when The Peddler was screened at the London Film Festival. In 1989 Locarno screened his Marriage of the Blessed. Real success could be said to have begun in 1989 when Kiarostami’s Where is the Friend’s House? (made in 1986 and first screened at Nantes in 1988) received a “modest” Bronze Leopard and four other awards at the forty-second Locarno International Film Festival. Farahmand specifically attributes the “escalation in the presence of Iranian films abroad” to this (94). It certainly drew attention to Kiarostami. His next two films roused little attention, but Through the Olive Trees was nominated for a Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1994, marking the beginning of what would be known as the ‘golden era’ of Iranian cinema. By 1997 when The Taste of Cherry won the Palme d’Or at the fiftieth Cannes International Film Festival, France alone had already honoured Kiarostami with the Career Award of the Prix Roberto Rossellini at Cannes in 1992 and made him an Officier de la Légion d’honneur in 1996. Whilst Kiarostami and Makhmalbaf, both special cases in their own ways, were the first to receive this level of international recognition, there was much else happening concurrently on the Iranian scene internationally, driven perhaps by the initial interest in these two future giants of world cinema. There was a sudden

Iranian cinema and international festivals 83 leap in international exhibition in 1990, with “230 films in 78 international festivals, winning 11 prizes” (Naficy, Islamizing 51). Around 1991 a large number of events driven from Iran itself and bearing the title “Festival of Iranian Films” sprang up around the globe. They consisted of a one-off collection of sixteen internationally award-winning films made available on 16mm prints for festivals and cultural events through Farabi. This traditional method of increasing interest in a national cinema, employed by many governments, was highly successful for the Iranian government, with events held across the world. In Australia the festival was screened in Sydney and Melbourne under the aegis of the Australian Film Institute. Festival interest continued to build, along with limited commercial interest. Flashing forward to the late 1990s, we find that “No respectable festival could be without at least one film from Iran” (Tapper, Screening Iran). International awards proliferated from 1995 with Panahi’s Camera d’Or win, The White Balloon, followed by Kiarostami’s Palme d’Or for The Taste of Cherry (1997), and Panahi’s Golden Leopard for The Mirror in 1998. In the same year Majid Majidi’s first feature, Children of Heaven, was the first Iranian film shortlisted for a Foreign Oscar. In 2000 Samira Makhmalbaf won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes for Blackboards and the Camera d’Or was shared by Hassan Yektapanah (Djomeh) and Bahman Ghobadi (A Time for Drunken Horses); Panahi received a Golden Lion at Venice for The Circle. This exceptional achievement for Iranian cinema was a kind of spring following the 1997 election of a reformist government. It prompted Hamid Dabashi’s witty comment that, “for reasons that have nothing to do with the dawn of the third millennium, because Iran follows its own version of the Islamic calendar, the year 2000 marks a spectacular achievement for Iranian cinema” (Close Up 259). He saw Iranian cinema at a “critical juncture” and predicted an exciting engaged future following the “death of ideology in Iranian political culture” (245). His prediction was regrettably far from the mark. I will now look at some festivals and key individuals instrumental in the international success of Iranian cinema. The large market and industry oriented “A” festivals, Cannes, Berlin, and Venice, had embraced isolated examples of Iranian cinema, but it is traditionally the work of the smaller festivals to do the groundwork – locating promising new areas of national cinemas or new directors and following up with retrospectives, focuses, highlights, and the lesser films, giving context to national cinemas. Cues of their engagement can often be found in the retrospective, awards or funding parts of such festivals. Of those individuals outside Iran, but not Iranian, who contributed to developing an audience, perhaps most noteworthy are Marco Müller, Simon Field, the Jalladeau brothers, Rose Issa and Sheila Whittaker in Europe, and Alissa Simon and Barbara Scharres in the U.S.A. Their roles will be noted largely in relation to the events with which they were connected. This will, I hope, show the importance of the smaller festivals in establishing the broader festival relationship with Iranian cinema. As already noted, in 1989 at the Locarno Film Festival, not then a FIAF A list festival but still a major one, Kiarostami won his Bronze Leopard for Where is the

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Friend’s House? and Makhmalbaf’s Marriage of the Blessed also screened under the festival directorship of David Streiff. When Marco Müller left the International Film Festival Rotterdam to become the director of Locarno (1991–2001), he continued to pay attention to Iranian cinema. He was the first to screen Milani’s debut, The Legend of Sigh in 1991. He brought two more classics of Iranian New Cinema to world attention: in 1994 Ibrahim Foruzesh won a Locarno Golden Leopard for The Jar; and in 1997 Jafar Panahi was awarded one for The Mirror. In 1998 Müller invited Abolfazl Jalili to Locarno. Jalili had previously been nominated for a Golden Lion in Venice in 1991 and awarded a Silver Lion in 1995; he received the Silver Leopard for Dance of Dust in 1998, and only a month later a Silver Seashell at San Sebastian for Don. In 1995, before Kiarostami’s Palme d’Or win, Müller presented the first ever “virtually complete” retrospective of his films at Locarno, along with an exhibition of his photographs of landscapes and two paintings (Rosenbaum, From Iran with Love). It is undoubtedly Müller to whom Farahmand is referring when she speaks of the conflict between festival directing and producing. While director of Locarno, Müller produced Samira Makhmalbaf’s aforementioned Blackboards, which won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes 2000 and Babak Payami’s Secret Ballot, which won an award for screenplay in Venice in 2001. Yet it is notable that these won awards in festivals larger than, but still competing against, Locarno. The festival which showed to my mind the largest and most enduring commitment to Iranian cinema over the period is the IFFR. IFFR extended significant support for Iranian cinema under the directorship of Simon Field (1996–2004) and its two successive directors. According to its 2012 website, IFFR had become “one of the largest audience driven film festivals in the world, while maintaining its focus on innovative filmmaking by talented newcomers and established auteurs.” (IFFR Official Website 2012). Iran had some success in IFFR’s Tiger Awards Competition, which focuses on “promoting young talent in filmmaking from around the world” (IFFR Official Website 2012) with Ramtin Lavafipour’s Be Calm and Count to Seven (2009). In 2013 Mohammad Shirvani’s Fat Shaker (2013) shared the award with two other films under a jury that included Motamed Arya and Ai Weiwei. More significant has been the Hubert Bals Fund for cinema from developing countries, where Iranian filmmakers received hefty funding support over the years. Moreover, Field, who came from London, introduced London-based independent curator Rose Issa to IFFR. A specialist on Iranian and Arab cinema and art, Issa worked in Rotterdam from 1996–2002, after which she moved to the Berlinale (2003–2007). For Field, aside from assistance with general programming, Issa curated a Filmmaker in Focus on Abolfazl Jalili in 1999. A closer look at IFFR’s Iranian content in the 2002 festival, just four months after the September 11 attacks, demonstrates its serious political engagement. The co-directors, Simon Field and Sandra den Hamer, wrote in the introduction to the catalogue: In early 2002, we are . . . presenting the festival in a world that has been rocked by September 11 and subsequent events. And in this world the question of

Iranian cinema and international festivals 85 ‘what cinema’ takes on additional force. Is there now an even more urgent need for a socially responsible cinema, for a new political cinema? In this regard, we strongly believe that a festival like Rotterdam becomes even more important as a necessary platform: showing films from different cultures and different perspectives and as a meeting place for people from all over the world. (IFFR Catalogue 2002 12) IFFR’s traditional engagement with Iran saw the integration of an unprecedented nine Iranian films across the programme that year. Peter van Hoof, programmer of a section called The Desert of the Real for IFFR, wrote in his segment introduction: The Film Festival Rotterdam was originally for many a cultural and ideological breeding ground where ‘politics’ and ‘cinema’ were inextricably bound up with each other. Film was a weapon in the struggle against imperialism and class struggle, and the aim of awakening a political consciousness. People took up arms against the dominance of Hollywood: its dominant film language, financial colonialism and repressive tolerance. Ideologies such as socialism, liberalism and nationalism have made way for more realistic and pragmatic varieties of capitalism. . . . Western cinema follows meekly. (IFFR Catalogue 2002 13) It was clear that he was introducing a highly political segment in a festival that had an ongoing commitment to serious political engagement. Milani’s The Hidden Half was positioned among the fifteen films in The Desert of the Real programme segment alongside two monumentally long works, Peter Watkins La Commune (Paris, 1871) (345:00), Anand Patwardhan’s War and Peace (170:00), as well as, among others, Spike Lee’s A Huey P. Newton Story and John Gianvito’s The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein. That year’s huge “Main Programme Features” (122 titles) included Bani-E’temad’s Under the Skin of the City (a Farabi production) and Majidi’s Baran. Another segment entitled What (is) Cinema? was explained by a quote from André Bazin “Every new development added to the cinema must, paradoxically, take it nearer to its origins. In short, cinema has not yet been invented” (Carels). Amongst the nineteen films from directors as diverse and distinguished as Jean-Luc Godard, Gustav Deutsch, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Eric Rohmer, David Lynch, and Michael Snow were Kiarostami’s A.B.C. Africa and Reza Mir Karimi’s Under the Moonlight, discussed earlier. Another three inclusions had been recipients of funding from IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund. These were the aforementioned Secret Ballot, a first film directed by Babak Payami and produced by Marco Müller whilst at Locarno; Delbaran, from the (then) mid-career director Abolfazl Jalili who had been one of IFFR’s Filmmakers in Focus the previous year; and Killing Rapids from veteran filmmaker Bahram Beyza’i. As the instances of Müller’s producer roles and the Hubert Bals Fund indicate, the involvement of festivals with Iranian cinema went beyond screening and giving awards.

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This integration of Iranian cinema within the various segments demonstrates powerful programming, both in its totality and the two individual themed segments, and admirable funding on the part of the Hubert Bals Fund, only noticeable when analysed in this way. Its importance in promoting Iranian cinema internationally is also larger than it might appear. Although Rotterdam prides itself on the size of its local audience, it also attracts many international film programmers, giving rise to Jafar Panahi’s description of the festival as a “souk” – despite there being no official market at Rotterdam (Jahed, Introduction 8). The festival’s reputation for quality programming ensures that most films screening there would travel perhaps to festivals that may select only one or two Iranian films in any year. The Rotterdam commitment to Iranian cinema can be further illuminated through a comparison with the programming of other festivals in that year (2002) post September 11. The Berlinale, held in February straight after Rotterdam, had its eye firmly on East Asia. Iranian content across all sections of the programme included two shorts in Panorama and an obscure children’s feature, Chick by Javad Ardakani in Kinderfest. Cannes, which runs in May, did not explicitly mark the nation or the post-2002 climate, screening Kiarostami’s Ten in Competition, Dariush Mehrju’i’s Bemani and Bahman Ghobadi’s Songs from my Mother’s Country (2002) in Un Certain Regard. Locarno, which runs in August, and by then under the directorship of Irene Bignardi, placed its emphasis in 2002 on Indian cinema with thirty Indian titles screening. Of the twenty-two films screened in competition, one was Iranian – I’m Taraneh, 15 by Rasoul Sadrameli, which was awarded the Special Jury Prize and the Best Actress Award from a jury that included Jafar Panahi. Rakshan BaniE’temad’s Our Times, about the presidential elections and screened in a section titled Filmmakers of Today, shared the Netpac Award with two other films. In September 2002, Venice made a bigger statement. It premiered 11’09”01, the omnibus of eleven films by eleven directors of eleven different nationalities that, in eleven minutes and nine seconds each, consider the events of September 11, 2001. Three West Asian countries were represented: Egypt with veteran director Youssef Chahine, Israel by controversial mid-career director Amos Gitai, and Iran by the young Samira Makhmalbaf. Perhaps predictably, the film won the UNESCO Award before travelling round the globe. The screening of 11’09”01 seemed tokenistic in some festivals. However, in 2002 The Times of India reported Festival Director Aruna Vasudev’s announcement that, “The 10-day ‘Fourth Cinemaya Festival of Asian Cinema’ will have seven sections including a special section on ‘tolerance’”. She had added that, “The tolerance section was deliberately selected to be a part of the festival as it was felt to be the need of the hour. Egypt will be [the] theme in this year’s festival” (Asian film festival in Delhi). In the same year, when I was Artistic Director of the Brisbane International Film Festival, I presented a focus on West Asian Muslim nations, 1001 Voices, in response to Australia’s heightened intolerance of Muslims; I commented in the catalogue for that year, “if a festival considers community relevance to be a vital part of its brief, then this year a more than cursory glance at the Middle East and the Islamic World seems mandatory” (BIFF Catalogue 2002 5). Of the

Iranian cinema and international festivals 87 twenty-four fictional and documentary features selected to show daily life, nine were from Iran. BIFF had a brief from its inception in 1991 to carry a strong emphasis, more than many international festivals at the time, on Asian cinema in both current and retrospective material. (This was in addition to the usual European and U.S. independent films.) However, the major emphasis had been on East Asia; from this time on I felt an ideological obligation to maintain a significant representation of West Asia in the festival. My Singaporean colleague, Philip Cheah, clearly felt the same way. In May 2003 11’09”01 screened at the sixteenth Singapore Film Festival (SFF) among “a selection most distinctive for its politically and religiously controversial films” (Hollywood Reporter). Philip Cheah, then director of SFF, has said that he “marked [the September 11 attacks] by starting the focus on Arab cinema” (Interview). The response or lack of it to the September attacks by the various festivals suggests “the contradictory politics of film festivals” that Farahmand had already noted in 2000 (104). At this time a line was drawn between big market-driven festivals and festivals aimed at the general public. Although many smaller festivals were shocked into acknowledging contemporary politics in their programmes, the larger festivals were not concerned at this time to take any kind of public political stance, focusing solely on cinematic excellence. This changed radically in 2010 with the arrest of Jafar Panahi, when Cannes and the Berlinale competed with each other to show who was more committed to the rights of filmmakers. First Cannes left an empty chair on the jury for him in 2010; Juliet Binoche became the spokeswoman for Kiarostami, present at the festival, and Panahi was awarded the Carrosse d’or (Golden Coach) Prize, an annual tribute for the innovative qualities, courage, and independent-mindedness of a filmmaker’s work. The Berlinale repeated the gesture in 2011 with another empty jury chair. Jury president Isabella Rossellini read an open letter from Panahi at the opening, and festival director Dieter Kosslick continued to note his absence throughout the festival, whilst a truck circled the Potsdamer Platz, the festival venue, with a signboard asking, “Wo bleibt Jafar Panahi” (Where is Jafar Panahi?). In 2011 Cannes screened Panahi’s, This Is Not a Film (made despite his having been banned from filmmaking, and ostensibly smuggled out of Iran in a cake). In 2013, Cannes world premiered Farhadi’s The Past and Rasoulof’s Manuscripts Don’t Burn, while Berlin screened Closed Curtain, rumoured to have been rejected by Cannes. Returning to IFFR, Iranian cinema remained prominent in the programme after Field left in 2004. Although, as noted by Panahi in an interview with Jahed, Iranian cinema was experiencing a decline in representation internationally; in 2006 IFFR introduced a segment called “hotspots” (Jahed, Independent Cinema15). The rationale behind the hotspots was explained as, “To discover specific filmmakers and audiovisual artists, we are looking for the particular environment in which their work originates, the local scene” (Brienen). Iran featured in that first year, 2006. Drawn together were twenty short films, documentaries about cinema, music, and Tehran, along with features, including Rafi Pitts’ It’s Winter and Jafar Panahi’s Offside in the general programme. The now well-known musician, Namjoo, gave his first performance outside Iran.

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Figure 3.1 Jafar Panahi at home with “Iggy”, the chameleon featured in This is Not a Film, 4 March 2011.

After Field left IFFR to work freelance, he commissioned and executive produced six films for Peter Sellars’s New Crowned Hope Festival (2006, Vienna), celebrating the 250th birthday of Mozart. One was Ghobadi’s Half Moon (2006), for which Ghobadi subsequently received a Golden Seashell from San Sebastian. Rotterdam continued to screen Iranian films and in 2013 presented a special focus, Signs – Inside Iran. The emphasis was on underground and exilic work. Among the thirty-six shorts and features were three well-known features from three well-known directors – A Modest Reception (Mani Hagighi), which had premiered at Berlinale the previous year, and two exilic works, Makhmalbaf’s The Gardener, which had premiered in 2012 at Busan International Film Festival, and Ghobadi’s Rhino Season, which had premiered at the previous year’s edition of Venice. Abdolfazl Jalili’s Darvag received its world premiere. The notes by the curators, Bianca Taal and Gertjan Zuilhof, indicated that in preparing the programme, both had visited Iran for the first time. Taal’s comments, published as “Imprisoned in an unwanted vacation”, read like an exotic traveller’s tale (Taal). On the other hand, the gallery installation work was a valuable element, reflecting the kind of space where many Tehrani experimental filmmakers do indeed screen their work in Tehran. Sheila Whittaker, in her capacity as Director of the London Film Festival (1987–1996), was instrumental in promoting Iranian cinema. She had brought

Iranian cinema and international festivals 89 Makhmalbaf’s The Peddler (1987) and Darioush Farhang’s The Spell (1987) to London in 1988. She continued to support Iranian cinema, often in conjunction with Issa, who consulted for the London International Film Festival (1987–2003) and the British Film Institute (1988–1995) prior to working with IFFR. Groundwork was also done by smaller specialised European-based film festivals such as the Festival des Tres Continents at Nantes, France, established by Philippe and Alain Jalladeau in 1979. Amir Naderi received recognition there in 1985 with the top award, the Golden Montgolfiere, for The Runner and again in 1989 for Water, Wind, Dust. Abolfazl Jalili received the same award there in 1996 and 2001, prior to his IFFR tribute and funding from the Hubert Bals Fund. Lest the contribution of these smaller festivals be dismissed, I am aware from discussions with French producers of Asian cinema that they are considered good launching pads for the French domestic market and awards are eagerly sought after. This in turn leads to future production funding and international attention. Müller, Issa, Whittaker, and the Jalladeau brothers were travelling to Tehran regularly. It should be noted that many of those promoting Iranian cinema were working with Asian cinema in general. Field and Alain Jalladeau, for example, were distinguished with the Korean Cinema Award at Pusan in 1996. While most major Iranian filmmakers and producers preferred to premiere in the top European festivals, until 2015 this also related to the February timing of Fajr. The International Film Market attached to Fajr finished around the same time that the Berlinale starts, allowing for an international premiere there or in Cannes in May. Up to 2013 the chronological order of festivals considered the best launching pads following Cannes was Locarno, Venice, Montreal, and Busan. North American festivals have also embraced Iranian cinema with enthusiasm. In 1995 the prestigious Telluride Film Festival had opened with Jafar Panahi’s Camera d’Or winner, The White Balloon, where Werner Herzog introduced it with, “What I say tonight will be a banality in the future. The greatest films of the world today are being made in Iran” (Khazeni). Often films which had missed a premiere in one of the European A festivals were held back for the Montreal World Film Festival (WFF) in late August or Busan International Film Festival (BIFF, previously Pusan International Film Festival), in early October, which was preferred over WFF by at least one sales agent (Atebba’i email). However, WFF has a solid record for attracting premieres. WFF president Serge Losique noted of Jafar Panahi’s appointment to the jury in 2009, that “the appointment fits the festival’s long history of championing Iranian cinema” (Seguin). Majidi’s The Children of Heaven (1997) won WFF’s top award, the Grand Prix of the Americas in 1997. (Children of Heaven was a landmark as the first and longest only Iranian nomination for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.) Majidi loyally returned with The Color of Paradise (1999), and Baran (2001), each of which also took the award. Other Iranian successes in WFF have included Leila Hatami’s Best Actress award for The Deserted Station in 2002 and Fatemeh Motamed Arya’s win for Best Actress prize in Here Without Me in 2011. The Toronto Film Festival has also screened its share of Iranian cinema, including the

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world premiere of Bahman Ghobadi’s Rhino Season (2012). The New York Film Festival and the Lincoln Center under Richard Pena also showed a commitment to Iranian cinema in the form of substantial retrospectives. Many Asian film festivals have a different ideological perspective from Western. While there are Asian festivals more concerned with providing the “Cannes” experience, many Asian programmers and festivals (such as Busan, Hong Kong, Kerala, and the former Osian’s Cinefan), along with other elements of the industry, are also ideologically concerned about combatting the exoticisation of Asian film for the Western market. This is more than a commitment to regional views. They encourage Asian filmmakers to resist the lure of the West, both in terms of adapting style or content to Western taste and in the filmmakers’ preferring Western premieres and success over Asian. In 1989 the Hong Kong International Film Festival, arguably the major Asian festival until the advent of the Pusan International Film Festival, and always quick and keen to embrace new currents in Asian cinema, screened The Peddler (Mohsen Makhmalbaf ) and Frosty Roads (Massood Jafari Jozani), following their international premieres in London and Berlin, respectively. They have continued to screen key Iranian films. Although the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) established in 1996 has always been a platform for Korean cinema including the recovery of its history, through a series of unique initiatives it also encourages and promotes other Asian cinema. Iranian cinema has had significant representation and recognition in the various sections of the programme. Among the many Iranian films screened, there have been a number of awards. The Fipresci Award has twice in the period from 2000 to 2013 been won by an Iranian film – Deep Breath, Parviz Shahbazi (2003), and Mourning, Morteza Farshbaf (2011) – and three times in that same period, the New Currents Award has gone to a new Iranian director – The Day I Become a Woman, Marziyeh Meshkini (2000), Alireza Armini’s Tiny Snowflakes (2003), and Morteza Farshbaf’s Mourning (2011). Mohammad Ahmadi’s Poet of the Wastes received the CJ Collection Award in 2005. In 2003 Makhmalbaf accepted the first annual Filmmaker of the Year Award, concurrent with a retrospective of his work. Makhmalbaf (in 2007) and Kiarostami (in 2010) have both held the position of Dean of the annual Asian Film Academy programme, “an intensive educational program for up-and-coming Asian filmmakers which brings together during the festival promising Asian filmmakers, both to foster them and to create a multicultural network among them” (Busan). Iranian filmmaker and scriptwriter, Parviz Shahbazi was Directing Mentor in 2012. The International Film Festival Kerala (IFFK)’s distinctly Third Cinema programming regards its intended audience as local, but it has national and international impact among Asian cinema cinephiles. It has had a strong commitment to Iranian cinema, and Iranian guests and jury members over the period under discussion have included Kiarostami, Panahi, Motamed Arya, Karimi, Akhbari, Samira Makhmalbaf, and Rasoulof. Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema had a similarly distinctive record of representing Iranian cinema. The older Singapore International Film Festival, grounded in similar ideological

Iranian cinema and international festivals 91 territory for its first twenty years under its Founding Director Philip Cheah, also strongly supported Iranian cinema. Finally, there is the Iranian-themed film festival model, of which there are two variations. The first is the academic model. The United States is home to several long-running Iranian specialised festivals run out of universities. The oldest is the Annual Festival of Films from Iran run by the Gene Siskel Film Center attached to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. This small but venerable festival which started in 1989 under Alissa Simon, followed by Barbara Scharres, both of whom attended Fajr for many years, incorporates wide consultation with the Iranian intellectual community around the school, including filmmaker and academic Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa. The demographic of the audience is a mix of expatriate Iranians, academicians, and the general public. Academician, Hamid Naficy, “helped launch” the (ongoing) festival run out of the UCLA Film and Television Archive in 1990 with the then Head Geoffrey Gilmore and a Houston-based festival through Rice University and the Museum of Fine Art (Naficy, Social History 4: 243). Newer is the independent “Iranian Film Festival” model, usually established by and pitched more at the diaspora. The timing of the founding of these national film festivals is significant. Although this model coincided with a re-ignited interest in Iranian cinema after Farhadi’s rise to international prominence and the concurrent Green Movement, as I noted earlier, I contend from personal experience that it was a response to the cooling of the general enthusiasm for Iranian cinema (allowing for a short gap between realising the problem and establishing such a festival). The London Iranian Film Festival, started in 2010, is targeted essentially at Iranians, although it has non-Iranians on its board – Richard Tapper was involved for some years. The Edinburgh Iranian Film Festival, also known as the Iranian Film Season, is held under the auspices of the biennial Edinburgh Iranian Festival, established in 2009; in celebrating Persian culture in general, it aims for a broader demographic. The San Francisco based Iranian Film Festival “was established [in 2008] to support the Iranian film and culture in the Iranian-American community of the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond” (Festival website). The Noor Iranian Film Festival, founded in 2005, has a slightly different set of goals befitting its Los Angeles base. It describes itself as: an international event, with the goal of educating and informing the nonIranian community about the culture and heritage of Iranians around the world through the medium of cinema. The Festival also cultivates and promotes Iranian-American talent in Hollywood, (Noor Official Website) This suggests that its emphasis is equally on Iranian and non-Iranian audiences. The Iranian Film Festival Australia, established in 2011 by me and my Iranianborn colleague, Armin Miladi, was designed to target both non-Iranians and Iranians, with a general cultural brief in line with our respective ethnic backgrounds and a goal of improving cultural understanding and tolerance.

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Figure 3.2 Navid Mohammadzadeh, and far right Amir Jadidi with Festival co-Directors, Armin Miladi, far left, and the author at the Iranian Film Festival Australia.

From this history of festival exhibition of Iranian cinema since the 1960s it can be seen that the rise of Iranian cinema in Western festivals since the 1990s has coincided both with a changing festival landscape, one that requires more soft arthouse films, and with the ongoing topicality of the domestic and international political situation. A festival audience for Iranian cinema has developed, and festivals have risen to meet this audience demand. In order to explore the phenomenon of the Iranian “festival film”, I will first outline the general process by which programmers choose films and intervene in the market. I will assume at this point the Western definition that all films screened at festivals can be termed “festival films”.

The international selection process for a festival film International festival directors and programmers, international sales agents, distributors, and exhibitors select films for, respectively, festival screenings, acquisition, distribution, or exhibition. This order reflects the chronological progression through the system for a film with no pre-sale. Although not all films will take all these steps – so a festival screening may or may not precede local acquisition but will generally precede a local release. Thus, the festival sector of the industry mediates between what is available and what audiences are shown and presumed to want.

Iranian cinema and international festivals 93 In general, festival selectors or programmers attempt to achieve a balance between both proven directors and actors, and new filmmakers, movements or indeed new national cinemas. As gatekeepers, the exhibition and distribution arms of the industry (which includes festivals) create markets – they “make discoveries” and find “hotspots”, as festival people euphemistically describe the process, then develop audience taste to embrace these new trends through various marketing and publicity measures. This process is supported by critics and scholars. An audience or market can only be manipulated within given parameters, and the existing market for a particular “product” also needs to be satisfied. This ensures that the process operates both ways. This is true of film production everywhere – Hollywood with its use of test screenings is perhaps the ultimate example of the process. As Rothstein notes, “dissecting audience tastes becomes the art” (Rothstein). In terms of “arthouse” films (the category into which cinema-screened foreign language films fall by definition) this involves being able to balance the requirement for the known and favoured with the need to inject the new and different. Festivals and international sales agents seek to meet audience demand initially by selecting from what is available. Once they become aware of a new cinema or director with a potential for the Western market, they begin to work by intervention. It may be a request for a “first look” with independent filmmakers or domestic sales agents from the countries concerned. Alternatively, independent international producers, sales agents, or festivals may assist with funding, bringing conditions relating to style and/or content. Over time this interventionist practice results in many filmmakers attempting, consciously or unconsciously, to produce in accord with international demand. This is a universal situation, whether the filmmakers in question are Australian or Iranian. It means that many filmmakers on these festival circuits are inevitably adjusting and calibrating their filmmaking in relation to festivals’ dynamic trends, concerns, and priorities, turning their films into a kind of extended international conversation on and with the cinema. The issue is more the scale of the impact on a national cinema than its existence, and it is exacerbated in a country where filmmakers have difficulty screening their films domestically.

Post-revolutionary Iranian cinema and its international appeal I have thus far discussed the development of an international audience for Iranian cinema in terms of the extrinsic factors – the international film festivals’ need for more products, coinciding with the political topicality of Iran. As Naficy has written: “Iranian art (or arthouse) cinema deeply impressed Western critics and audiences; there are many reasons for this, some internal and others external” (Social History, 4: 175). Now I will turn to their internal appeal. Naficy continues that Iranian cinema is “counterhegemonic politically, innovative stylistically, and ethnographically exotic” (Social History, 4: 176). Novelty or exoticism is a factor in the appearance of any hotspot. Laura Mulvey acknowledged as much in 2002 when discussing the popularity of New Iranian Cinema in the West, observing

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that “there is no point in denying an element of the exotic in attraction between cultures” but emphasised that the attractiveness for non-Iranian audiences of “the sense of strangeness . . . is just as much to do with an encounter with a surprising cinema as with the screening of unfamiliar landscapes and remote people,” and, very correctly, that “[t]he exotic alone cannot sustain a ‘new wave’” (256). Chaudhuri and Finn argued slightly differently a year later: “The appeal of New Iranian Cinema in the West may have less to do with ‘sympathy’ for an exoticised ‘other’ under conditions of repression than with self-recognition. The open images of Iranian film remind us of the loss of such images in most contemporary cinema, the loss of cinema’s particular space for creative interpretation and critical reflection” (Chaudhuri and Finn 56). In considering the international appeal of Iranian cinema it must be stated that what is under discussion coincides largely, although not entirely, with that small proportion of the Iranian national cinema labelled the “New Iranian Cinema” by Tapper, “Art-cinema under the Islamic Republic” by Naficy and with what a western festival director might describe in a positive sense as “suitable for festivals”. I will take as a starting point the characteristics described by Tapper in 2001, when Iranian cinema was considered “not merely . . . a distinctive national cinema but as one of the most innovative and exciting in the world” (Screening Iran), adding other writers as appropriate. Tapper noted the increasing acclaim for Iranian cinema at international festivals and perceived its appeal as follows: Iranian movies have drawn international attention by their neo-realism and reflexivity, their focus on children and their difficulties with the portrayal of women. In an age of ever-escalating Hollywood blockbusters, part of their attraction [like that of much ‘Third World’ cinema] comes from shoestring budgets and the use of amateur actors. Many successful films have had strikingly simple, local, small-scale themes, which have been variously read as totally apolitical or as highly ambiguous and open to interpretation as being politically and socially critical. (Tapper, Screening Iran) This was written at the beginning of the period with which I am dealing. The landscape of Iranian cinema, including what is seen internationally, changed significantly between 2000 and 2013. All national cinemas are dynamic and subject to trends and changes in audience taste. Iranian cinema is also subject to an additional factor, changing government policy and regulation which, as we have observed, can be determining. The continuing applicability of Tapper’s observations is worth testing in order to explore Iranian cinema’s recurring appeal. Tapper’s description starts with the “international attention [for Iranian movies attributable to] . . . their neo-realism and reflexivity”. A plethora of papers and books have been written on neo-realism in Iranian cinema, evinced perhaps initially and most famously with Kiarostami’s Close-Up (1990) and taken up by, among others, Panahi in The Mirror. It was also a feature of Makhmalbaf’s

Iranian cinema and international festivals 95 work. Already in 2003 Chaudhuri and Finn were referring to “those who oppose the ‘hackneyed’ references to neorealism in discussions on Iranian cinema” (my emphasis, 39). The academic fascination translated to a general one through the other characteristics Tapper adds, most of which are characteristics of neorealism. More recently reflexivity has been less frequently seen, although Panahi’s post-arrest films, arguably of necessity, have continued to use this form. “Shoestring budgets” are still an undeniable feature of most Iranian films, although the low cost of production in Iran and the volatile international exchange rate do need to be taken into account. Moreover, between 2009 and 2013 much larger budgets were being extended to a range of government films, as detailed in Chapter 6. In itself, although perhaps intriguing, it seems an odd characteristic for international appeal. Perhaps this assessment of its significance refers to the tendency of journalists to note excessively small film budgets as a positive point of difference when writing up films. However, it does lead directly to some of the other factors considered appealing, such as the use of amateur actors and location shooting, also characteristics of neo-realism. The use of amateurs and children (also usually amateurs), was an Iranian solution relating to a large extent to complications that arose straight after the revolution. Just as the representation of women was difficult, so was the use of professional actors. After the revolution, “Many above-the-line personnel . . . found themselves sidelined, banned, arrested, deprived of property, or exiled” (Naficy Social History 3: xxiv). Not only was there a shortage of trained actors straight after the revolution, but many carried baggage that made them unacceptable. They were simply banned from the screen by a regime that seemed ideologically unable to separate the on-screen role of an actor from the private persona. Naficy gives a sobering example of this relating to the actors in Iraj Qaderi’s commercially produced Sacred Defence film, Living in Purgatory (1980), which as mentioned earlier was such success at the box office. The five stars of the ensemble cast, including the director, were pre-revolutionary stars. Naficy notes, “One reviewer called it a ‘shameful’ film, since it had transformed the actors who were symbols of the previous regime’s ‘infamy and decadence’ into heroes of ‘Islamic epics’” (31). He also describes what befell the famous actress, Susan Taslimi, when making Madiyan (Ali Zhekan) in 1986. Upon viewing the rushes it was decided, “This woman has become too powerful”, and she was assigned a government minder who was to ensure that this too-attractive woman did not look into the eyes of her male counterpart, dictated an ugly camera angle, and ordered that her original colourful costumes be made dull (41). I would contend that the use of amateur actors, which had a precedent in many New Wave cinemas as well as neo-realism, was initially more a pragmatic solution to the sorts of political problems described above than some kind of unwritten dogma-like manifesto. Kiarostami is perhaps the director best known for his use of non-professional actors. This is about more than performance, as they often inform the narrative. In 2008 he went to the opposite extreme with Shirin, which on one level is an homage to more than one hundred Iranian actresses, including some prerevolutionary ones (plus, of course, Juliet Binoche). Subsequently, Kiarostami,

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along with abandoning self-reflexivity, went to the extreme of casting Binoche, one of the greatest French actresses, in Certified Copy, for which she won the Best Actress award in Cannes. Jafar Panahi has used a mix of professional and non-professional talent as required by the film; for example, in The Circle all the lead women were professional actors, and there was a mix in Offside. The lead actor in Crimson Gold was non-professional and returned to his original milieu after the film’s completion. However, all his post-arrest films feature professional actresses. Of other veteran directors popular internationally, Mehrju’i never abandoned professional actors; Bani-E’temad, in addition to Motamed Arya in Gilaneh, has largely used professional actors, including her own daughter, Baran Kosari (in Mainline). She has commented in an interview, “It happened in one film I used non-professional actors, but that depends on the film” (Laurier). More recently, Farhadi, who comes from a theatre background, uses only professional actors and an extensive rehearsal process, as do many contemporary fictional feature directors. A flourishing theatre scene has continued to exist, supported by the Fajr Theatre Festival. Many actors cross between the two arts, especially when they are banned from appearing in films. Fajr Film Festival extends awards for best actor and actress. The names of some of Iran’s biggest actresses (more so than for actors) are well known in the West – Niki Karimi and Fatimeh Motamed Arya are regularly invited to international film festivals outside Iran; Leila Hatami sat on the 2014 Cannes jury; and many actresses have won international acting awards. Despite the official attempt to dismantle the star system, it has been rebuilt, with Iranian audiences as keen on “name actors” as anywhere else. Milani, who has long used stars such as Karimi and Mahnaz Afshar, has made a film called Superstar about an egotistical film star (played by real-life star Shahab Hosseini) points very clearly not only to the existence of professional actors but to a fully fledged star system used by contemporary directors. All of the films that I have cited in relation to acting were screened as current titles after 2000 at international festivals, suggesting that the use of non-professional actors is no longer prevalent, nor was it more than a minor factor in the appeal of Iranian cinema after 2000. The use of children “cast . . . as majestic statues of men and women, and sometimes as everyone’s alter egos”, as asexual characters involved in ostensibly apolitical actions was another solution to dealing with government regulations (Sadr, Children in 228). It also helped stretch shoestring budgets. However, it was also a concern very much of its time. Panahi produced what is perhaps the most widely known internationally of all the Children Cinema (sic) films, The White Balloon. Ostensibly the film is concerned with a small girl’s quest for a goldfish, during which she encounters a range of outsiders, including a young Afghani boy selling balloons. It is he who finally helps her get her goldfish, although he does not really stand out more than any others – till the final heartrending shot. While the young girl runs off home, delighted to have her goldfish, the camera freezes onto the lonely young balloon-seller who will have no Nowruz celebration. That last shot shows traces of what Panahi would develop into full-blown social issues films beginning with The Circle, just five years later. This shift by Panahi, which

Iranian cinema and international festivals 97 included a move from using child actors to a mix of non-professional and professional adult actors, is indicative of the trend of using child actors as a whole. Indeed ‘Children Cinema’, peaked with and then gradually declined after Panahi’s The White Balloon (1995) and Majidi’s Children of Heaven (1998). Thus, while it could well be argued that films such as The White Balloon were instrumental in establishing international popularity for Iranian cinema, the declining number of such films after 2000 belies this characteristic as accounting for the enduring appeal of Iranian cinema. Tapper mentions “difficulties with the portrayal of women” as part of the appeal of Iranian cinema to the West. It was around 1990 that women started to occupy a place on the screen. In a footnote relating to the restrictions and challenges imposed through “Islamic” dress codes, Farahmand notes that the loosening of the restrictions in the late 90s encouraged the development of the cult of stars inside Iran “and enhanced the exoticism resulting from Iranian film exports” [emphasis added]. This coincides neatly with the initial Western interest in Iranian cinema. Shahla Lahiji quoted a contemporaneous (1999) Iranian journal article on the recent Iranian films at Fajr in 1999. “‘Essence and dramatic forms of most of the films shown derived from the struggle between the sexes which imposed itself on the audience irrespective of the underlying motivation or ‘instigation’”. She continued, “one of the current criteria for evaluating a cinematographic piece of work is the filmmaker’s attitude to women” (Lahiji 215). The “difficulties with the portrayal of women” continues, as I can personally attest, to fascinate the West and find favour with festivals, non-Iranian audiences, and the media, perhaps feeding some kind of self-congratulatory sense of being better. Of the major award-winning films on the festival circuit in the West between 2000 and 2013, many feature strong female leads and focus on women’s issues, including The Circle (2000), The Hidden Half (2001), Ten (2002), Women’s Prison (2002), Gilaneh (2005), Offside (2006), The Unwanted Woman (2006), Shirin (2008), Three Women (2008), About Elly (2009), A Separation (2011), Goodbye (2011), Here without me (2011), and A Modest Reception (2012), as well as the diasporic films Women without Men (2009), and Circumstance (2011). Of these, the majority had issues with getting a release. Audiences outside Iran have always demonstrated strong interest in female filmmakers (although it should be acknowledged that female directors from most national cinemas attract attention, often unwanted, on the basis of their gender). Seven of the films listed above were also directed by women. Milani’s films have attracted additional Western interest on the basis of her strong feminist stance, despite her use of melodrama, a mode not as popular with Western festival audiences. Finally, a small distasteful quote from a Variety review of The Paternal House cements the point: “A family’s honor killing haunts multiple generations in vet helmer Kianoush Ayari’s disappointingly flat ‘The Paternal House.’ Lacking the power of his earthquake drama “Wake Up, Arezoo!” the pic is a standard-issue sudser without enough of a prowoman message to propel it beyond home territories” (Weissberg, my emphasis). In terms of using real locations rather than studios, this tendency too has decreased with time, remaining largely – as everywhere else – a feature of the

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low-budget films of first-time directors. Iran does have film studios, although there is an acknowledged shortage, and producers will often take over other spaces and convert them to temporary studios. For example, City of Mice 2 (Marzieh Boroumand) was shot in a former aircraft hangar in South Tehran. Real locations, too, can also be rejected on the grounds of budget. Producer Mohammad Nikbin has described how they had to create a restaurant for one of Milani’s films. Initially they had found a suitable restaurant, but it was too expensive so they built a set (Interview). The final part of Tapper’s statement notes the success of “strikingly simple, local, small-scale themes, which have been variously read as totally apolitical or as highly ambiguous and open to interpretation as being politically and socially critical.” The latter part of this has already been largely addressed. Briefly, this also no longer holds true. Many films are overtly political, and the metaphors seem hard to miss. Nonetheless, Tapper’s reference to the use of allegory and metaphor holds true as an ongoing trademark of Iranian cinema. This stems from censorship but also from Iran’s strong literary tradition, which, according to Dabashi, of all the artforms, has most strongly influenced cinema, aligned as the two were with modernity (Close Up 12). This echoes Elsaesser’s argument that “one function of auteur cinema before the advent of television was to transcribe features of a nation’s cultural tradition as figured in other art forms (the novel, theatre, opera) and to represent them in the cinema” (1994:26). Although Iran has television, it is state controlled and does not transcribe the cultural tradition, as argued earlier. Thus, this statement holds true as a function of Iranian cinema. The appeal of “strikingly simple, local, small-scale themes” is one with which with Naficy concurs. He writes of “the small and humanist topics and the often deceptively simple but innovative styles” with which he suggests films celebrate individuality under modernity (Social History, 4:175) and conform to the “short story paradigm” (177). Naficy is not alone in invoking the characteristic of “humanism”. Saeed Talajooy notes the tendency of critics to “extol the poetic qualities and the ‘humanitarian’ treatment of [a] subject”. Along with the related trait of non-violence, it is often invoked in relation to Iranian cinema internationally. Issa identifies within what she describes as “Iranian low-budget auteur films” a “new, humanistic aesthetic language, determined by the filmmakers’ individual and national identity, rather than the forces of globalism” and considers it part of the appeal of Iranian cinema, creating “a strong creative dialogue not only on homeground but with audiences around the world” (Real Fictions). She defines this “humanistic aesthetic language” as one “that champions the poetry in everyday life and the ordinary person by blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality, feature film with documentary” (Real Fictions). Jahed invokes humanism (along with poetic qualities) as one of the success factors both internally and externally for “Children Cinema” (Introduction 8). Jonathan Rosenbaum has described Iranian cinema as “among the most ethical and humanist” (Saeed-Vafa and Rosenbaum 2), but elsewhere he cites and takes to task a critic for Sound and Sound, Simon Louvish, who in reviewing The White

Iranian cinema and international festivals 99 Balloon, draws a comparison with “Cold War Soviet cinema, [where] filmmakers take refuge in a broadly based humanism which highlights the daily solidarity of ordinary people while being able to comment obliquely on persistent social problems” (Rosenbaum Toddler’s Time). In summary there is general accord that the appeal of that part of the national cinema that was seen in the West could largely be attributed to simplicity of plot (deceptive or not) and “humanism”. Naficy, however, adds a comment with which many diasporic Iranian academics (and I) would agree: “The Islamic republic’s severe censoring and its periodic banning and imprisonment of the filmmakers . . . further whetted the curiosity and appetite for these films” (Social History 4: 176). This point is particularly important because Iranian filmmakers are extremely aware of and responsive to it. Throughout this work I have suggested Farhadi as a turning point to a new model for Iranian filmmakers on several fronts. In the previous chapter I suggested his role in introducing a new trend, the middle-class family drama, which changed content and structure. If one considers the important films made after 2009, the use of the short story paradigm for narrative also no longer really holds true. If one were to note a specific film as the last of this type it might be Majid Majidi’s quest film, Song of the Sparrow, with its colourful and surreal imagery, which screened to acclaim in the 2008 Berlinale, one year earlier.

International festival funding for Iranian cinema Earlier I looked at international festival exhibition of Iranian cinema and discussed how festival participation may lead to sales or at least develop interest in filmmakers for future films. Sales are a crucial part of sustaining most filmmakers’ careers. For established filmmakers with an international reputation there is often the security of an international sales agent. In the case of Iranian cinema this was limited to Kiarostami, linked with the major French sales agent, MK2 from 1997. While all of Panahi’s films, with the exception of This is Not a film, have been represented by the same French sales agent, Celluloid Dreams, in 2013 Panahi told me that this agent had never offered him a pre-sale. The Makhmalbaf Film House largely undertakes its own distribution. Farhadi, for whom funding has taken a different path, is discussed in more detail below. However, with About Elly, he began with Nasrine Medard de Chardon, the French based Iranian distributor but quickly formed what has been an ongoing association with Memento. It is undoubtedly the relative security of these relationships, along with the small budgets involved, that encouraged these filmmakers to embark on their films, despite knowing (with the exception of Farhadi) that they often had little or no chance of release in Iran. It is beyond the scope of this work to examine how festivals have led to commercial sales. However, despite Farahmand’s previous comments on the profitability of festivals, there has been discussion within festival circles for at least thirty years about how festivals can benefit filmmakers beyond profile-building

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and attendance at the festival screenings. In that time festivals have taken on an increasing role in film funding, largely though not solely, for films from “developing countries”, and there are increasing alternative funding routes through festivals. The oldest is the Hubert Bals Fund for cinema from developing countries, attached to IFFR, already discussed. It has supported a number of Iranian projects, although these have usually had producers resident outside Iran attached. Busan’s various support programmes include Asian Project Market (APM, former Pusan Promotion Plan), a pre-market based on the Rotterdam model which connects Asian filmmakers and producers with potential co-producers and investors. Busan also has an Asian Cinema Fund which supports independent film productions at various stages from script development through to post-production. Makhmalbaf received post-production support from it in 2012 for The Gardener. There is a perception among Asian filmmakers and programmers that this fund, administered by Asians, is less interventionist than its European counterparts and that it perhaps demonstrates an understanding of a more “Asian” way of storytelling. Berlinale World Cinema Fund established in 2004 awarded over US$200,000 in 2014 to five projects. In Australia the Asia Pacific Screen Awards awarded script development funding (of $25,000 each) to three Iranian projects between 2010 and 2013, including A Separation. The Adelaide Film Festival gave $22,000 towards the funding of Granaz Mousavi’s My Tehran for Sale (2007). There are many other festival sources for script development and other production funding.

A Separation and the case for festivals I will draw together here details relating to the funding, distribution, and exhibition of A Separation as it demonstrates a mix of festival and international support, and the potential value, beyond awards, of festivals to filmmakers. IMDB lists an estimated production budget of $500,000, but Iranian insiders have estimated it as $300,000, which is credible for the date of production. The film, which received all the necessary permits (despite one political problem, detailed further on), had an industry screening at Fajr in February 2011 attended by over two thousand people. After winning the Golden Bear at the Berlinale in the same month, it won the international competition at the Sydney Film Festival with its attached prize money of $60,000 (June 2011). The film had already received a script development award of $25,000 from APSA (October 2010). Thus, its Australian wins alone ($85,000) covered almost a third of the budget. It was supplemented by distribution funding from the Berlinale World Cinema Fund in July 2011 (E7,500). At the Berlinale the U.S. rights to the film had been bought from the German sales agent Memento by Sony Pictures International, which had acquired the only other Iranian film ever nominated for the Foreign Oscar, Majidi’s The Colour of Paradise. By this time the film had lost its original English language title, Nader and Simin.

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Figure 3.3 Asghar Farhadi in his office with the author in 2011.

A Separation received domestic and international releases, took over $10 million in international sales and performed well at both box offices. Its Sony Pictures acquisition paved the way for the 2013 Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Although the film was nominated from Iran, without a company such as Sony Pictures backing a film, it is difficult to mount the necessary campaign for an Oscar win. As an example of sales in individual territories, A Separation was bought for Australia in Berlin straight after viewing and before its Golden and Silver Bear wins were announced, by Frank Cox of Hopscotch Films. In the early 90s, Cox had bought one of the few other Iranian films distributed in Australia, Gabbeh. The release strategy for A Separation was undetermined when in April 2011 I was successful in negotiating it for IFFA in early August. In June it won the Sydney Film Festival Prize, giving it good coverage in Australia. Nonetheless, months passed with no release date known, and word in the industry was that it probably would not be released. In an exchange of correspondence with Troy Lum, Managing Director of Hopscotch, owner of the Australian theatrical rights, he indicated to me that releasing the film was a labour of love. Subsequently it became clear to me that they were gambling on its Oscar nomination, with a campaign mounted by Sony Pictures, from early on. After its win it had a most successful national release in Australia, taking in $1,480,142 at the box office (email from distributor). When I was in Cannes in 2014, Farhadi’s new film, The Past, was in competition, and I was acutely aware that several international buyers were prepared to acquire it sight unseen on the strength of his previous film, if the price was right.

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The case of A Separation, although completely atypical, combines a unique set of factors and satisfies all parties. In 2000 Farahmand attributed the Iranian filmmakers’ search for international markets to an ongoing economic crisis (87). Despite the age of the comment, this was again true (if it was not ongoing) with the devaluing of the rial against the dollar from 2010. To this must be added the political difficulties experienced by filmmakers after 2009. Yet given A Separation’s domestic acceptance, international critical acclaim, and its commercial success in both domestic and international markets, it became an aspirational model for young Iranian filmmakers, replacing the earlier models provided by Kiarostami and Panahi.

Conclusion A survey of the history of Western festival exhibition of Iranian cinema since the 60s shows that although there was a flowering just before the revolution, between 2000 and 2013 its popularity rose considerably overall. Iranian cinema was showered with lions, leopards, bears, coaches, palm leaves, seashells, and Oscars. But fickle festival interest waxed and waned. Initially popularity was intrinsic to the films themselves, as the cinema became a new hotspot. Panahi’s star rose with this first post-revolutionary increase in popularity; by the second wave of interest it was attributable to a combination of political considerations along with the rise of another major new auteur, Farhadi, who would be awarded Iran’s first Oscars in that time. The importance of international reception lies in its impact on the cinema itself. The loosening of the reformist era led to filmmakers testing boundaries and discovering a market beyond the Iranian border. Resultant was the rise of a group of films seen only or largely internationally and known domestically derogatorily as “festival films”. The existence of this market must be viewed in the context of the changing landscape of film exhibition and the impact of this on festivals, with the increased need for products and thus the nature of “festival films”. The non-commercial sector of the West, having found a suitable source of products, ensured supply through the incentives of awards, sales, and funding. The films themselves changed significantly over this period. An investigation of the applicability of Tapper’s 2002 characterisation of the factors underpinning the international festival success of Iranian cinema revealed that in recent times most of these characteristics are no longer applicable. The use of allegory and the kind of magic realism that had been prevalent and popular also remained but was less foregrounded, as international festivals apparently began to tire of these apparently exotic films. However, metaphor and allegory, a legacy of Iran’s rich literary tradition and intrinsic to the culture, rather than just a pragmatic solution to other problems, will remain a part of this cinema. In the next chapter I will look at the Iranian perspective on this international success.

4

Film festivals and festival films An Iranian perspective

The issue of the “festival film” assumes great importance when considering the efforts of independent filmmakers and distributors to position their work in the West. While the positives of operating in a globalised market are obvious, there are many negatives. This chapter reverses the perspective of the previous chapter by considering Iranian official and unofficial participation in the non-Arab international festival marketplace. It moves from the definition of a “festival film” for Western audiences, festivals, and sales agents explored in the previous chapter to examine the concept of the “festival film” from various Iranian perspectives, developing a set of descriptors, not mutually exclusive, that might describe the festival film from the Iranian point of view. Finally, Iranian government policy in relation to the film industry and the West suggests the importance of the export market in official circles, but contradictory positions are often evident. We begin here with some discussion of this, with further discussion about the Iranian government position on festivals evident after 2009 in Chapter 5.

Exporting Iranian cinema The export market for cinema has long been officially and publicly regarded as important for its role in cultural diplomacy and its economic value. Iranian film policy makes this clear. Yet as Langford comments, there is a major contradiction within Iranian government policy reflecting the ideological differences between the government and the judiciary, and the fractured division of political power in all sectors – the insistence that Iranian cinema conform to an “Islamic” model alongside the seemingly incompatible goal of penetrating the global market (Displaced Allegories). Between 2009 and 2013 this expectation, which will be discussed in more detail in chapter 5, became even more pronounced. Since the early days of the IRI, a distinctive component of film policy has been the support given to the international arm of the Farabi Cinema Foundation, established not only to control imports but also as the central point for developing Western markets through festivals and sales. Farabi officials were active in promoting films to Western festivals early in its history, although the West was initially unresponsive. However, from around 1989, the year Kiarostami won his Bronze Leopard, the West began to demonstrate interest. Farabi and the National

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Film Archive of Iran (NFAI) collaborated to capitalise on this, circulating a package of award-winning films to international film culture bodies. It was important enough as an initiative to be documented as an article about foreign exhibition of Iranian cinema to 1988 in NFAI’s first English language bulletin published in 1989 (Brief History). Farabi has long maintained a presence at the major international film markets, organizing a stand at Cannes and Berlin and regularly sending representatives to Busan and other major Asian festivals. Until around 2009 it undertook festival liaison on behalf of most government distributors and many independent producers (although the two major independent sales agents, SMI and Iranian independents, had been active in the field for more than a decade). As the system became less centralised, other government organisations, such as DEFC, IRIB, and in more recent times VMI and Soureh Cinema, began to handle their own films internationally, attending at the very least the Cannes market.

The Iranian international film market The Iranian International Film Market (IFM) was organised as a sidebar to Fajr by the international arm of Farabi from its establishment in 1998 until 2019 (with the exception of 2013) Fajr itself for the period covered by this book ran in February. (It has subsequently been divided into two parts, and the IFM runs with the international section in April.) The IFM is a key element in the official international promotion of Iranian cinema. It is comprised of two components: (1) the physical site with booths for domestic and international companies offering films and other services to the industry, organised similarly to most international film markets, and (2) the associated market screenings of new Iranian films with English subtitles or simultaneous translation offered to invited international guests. Although many festivals such as the Berlinale showcase their national cinema, the IFM version is unique in my experience and I will describe it in some detail. Numbers of guests and stands varied from year to year, but to give some idea of size, in 2004, a high point for the IFM, there were 132 domestic and foreign attendees listed in the market guide, and there was a palpable sense of business being transacted at the event. Attendees, many of them invited foreign delegates, included exhibitors, buyers, production companies, festivals, cultural organisations such as the Goethe Institute, and journalists. There were twenty-one Iranian stands, many of whom had “real business” to do with the international market. Forty-seven foreign festivals were also represented, including delegates of Cannes, Berlin, Karlovy Vary, Locarno, Thessaloniki, Moscow, Montreal, San Sebastian, Chicago, Cairo, Tokyo Filmex and Kerala – a truly international selection with many A-list festivals. Foreign distribution companies in that year included Celluloid Dreams and Arte France, who had market stands at their own expense, indicating strong commitment. Variety was represented. There were forty representatives from Asia and the Middle East, and of those, twenty-nine were from “Muslim countries” from Malaysia to Lebanon.

Film festivals and festival films 105 For festival programmers the most important aspect, aside from making contacts with Iranian sales agents and filmmakers, was the opportunity to view new Iranian films. In those years many film directors scheduled their film productions around the timing of Fajr, which fell at the beginning of the international festival cycle. Fajr overlapped the Berlinale, and the IFM finished as it began. The film selection for the foreign guests, who had their own special screenings for many years, was drawn from the general festival pool of Iranian films, and although politically important films needed to be included, it was generally based on what the astute Farabi officials considered might appeal to Western programmers. (The selection shown to foreign guests in 2013, when the event was organised by VMI, not Farabi, was markedly different and appeared to be aimed at showcasing Muslim cinema, rather than the best arthouse films, which many from the local industry considered had been overlooked.) Many films which are seen in Western festivals did not screen. There were two reasons behind this. The films may have had permit issues, or in later years, if they had already been selected by a major international festival, they may have screened at Fajr but only in public screenings for the domestic audience. Between 2001 and 2013 no Kiarostami film ever screened, although Panahi’s Offside did screen at Fajr before being banned. Neither Farhadi’s About Elly nor his A Separation was screened for foreign guests. The screening of About Elly was delayed for political reasons, finally screening at Fajr at about the same time as its international premiere at the Berlinale. By then most foreign guests had left Tehran for Berlin. The first screening of A Separation, which I attended, also occurred after most of the guests had left; without subtitles, it was for the extended Iranian industry. It also was then screened at the Berlinale. If one of the aims of the screenings for international guests was a direct introduction of films and directors to festivals, the other was to give Farabi guidance as to the international appeal of titles so they could focus on their promotion. Prior to 2009 this latter aim was achieved by a crucial feature of these special screenings – guests were asked to anonymously assess each film viewed. Because Farabi was interested in premiering films in A-list festivals, officials were keen to discuss placement of films with guests from such festivals. For the remainder of us, it was our feedback that was valuable. Both Farabi and independent distributors were keen to discuss changes to films that might make them more suitable for Western taste. A key example of international “intervention” is Bani-E’temad’s Farabi-funded Gilaneh (2005), as discussed earlier. A short form of Gilaneh originally screened at Fajr in 2004 as one section of a tri-partite portmanteau film. The other two sections were unexciting attempts at recreating war at the front, while Gilaneh showed the impact of war on the mother back home. Many international industry personnel at Fajr that year were keen to screen just this section of the portmanteau film. Instead, the following year Gilaneh had been expanded into a feature. Independent sales agents were also keen to have Western responses to films. Foreign festival directors were very direct gatekeepers, and sometimes very detailed discussions took place. All of this was popular with younger filmmakers as it often resulted in exposure that they could not otherwise obtain. I recall that Theresa Corvino, then

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representing Locarno, had detailed discussions with the sales agent, SMI, for Farhadi’s first feature, The Beautiful City, resulting in a desirable Locarno screening. Alireza Armini’s first feature, Letters in the Wind (2002), screened in Brisbane after my Fajr viewing, and he was happy to win his first award, the Netpac award. However older filmmakers were not so impressed with this kind of assessment. Majidi, whose films Baran (2001) and The Willow Tree (2005) screened for foreign guests in years when I attended Fajr, expressed his understandable displeasure to a mutual Iranian colleague at his films being subjected to this kind of evaluation. From the perspective of the government there was also a less desirable aspect to Fajr and foreign guests. Individual filmmakers used the opportunity for private screenings. Over the years, in the company of other foreign guests and Iranian directors and actors, I viewed many films this way, including Mania Akbari’s Twenty Fingers (2004), rejected by Fajr, on the wall of an artist’s home, and Niki Karimi’s directorial debut, One Night (2005), at Panahi’s house. After the 2009 election, Iranian filmmakers called a boycott on Fajr, asking foreign guests not to attend the 2010 IFM. This was very effective, and, although in 2011 the number of attendees listed had increased to 160, this had been bulked out with thirty-seven Iranian stands. Significantly the two major Iranian independent distributors, Iranian Independents and SMI, were absent. Of the forty-eight international festivals listed, most had little relevance for Iranian cinema, and I had not even heard of some of them. The exceptions were Karlovy Vary and Pusan, from whence there had been regular attendance since 2004. The number of representatives from Islamic countries had increased from forty to seventytwo, reflecting new government priorities (which will be discussed in the following chapter). A few years later, in 2013, VMI appears to have attempted to increase attendees from non-Islamic countries, but these were drawn largely from small festivals. The domestic sales agents were concerned about drawing attention to this. Two regular attendees at the market, one an Iranian distributor, the other one of the few Europeans present, told me in 2011 that attendance for them was largely diplomatic, with little business occurring. However, a canvasing in 2013 of those attending from neighbouring countries such as Lebanon and Turkey elicited the overall impression that attendance was considered worthwhile, delivering a small amount of business, largely television sales, in either direction. This change in balance reflected not only a shift in government policy but also a change in Western perspective. In addition to heeding the boycott, there was a general feeling amongst festivals that Iranian cinema was less interesting overall. This was reflected in a statement made by programmers of the IFFR in 2013, “After all, about 15 years ago, Iranian cinema was among the best in the world” (Taal and Zuilhof). But the major factor was that filmmakers and sales agents had by now direct contact with the major international festivals, some of whose representatives made their own trips to Iran. The most interesting films were often no longer to be seen at Fajr or could be seen elsewhere. From Fajr itself there were few “finds”. Politics, too, were never far from the minds of guests. When Bush

Film festivals and festival films 107 declared Iran part of the “axis of evil” in 2002, guest numbers dropped and those of us attending speculated sadly that it might be our last visit. After 2009 many invitees queried the personal risk involved in attending, and visa issues became even more difficult. Finally, there was also a well-founded fear for Western festivals of backlash and disapproval from diasporic Iranians.

International festivals and awards – the government view Among the apparent contradictions of the government is its conflicted attitude to international prizes and festivals. As English notes, “cultural prizes are said . . . to create a forum for displays of pride, solidarity and celebration on the part of various cultural communities” (25). For the Iranian government they should also demonstrate to the populace that the government is on the right track. Already in 1992 Supreme Leader Khamenei complained of the politics of the international film festivals, questioning why no award had ever been given to an IRI revolutionary film (Naficy, Social History 4: 251–251). The government has on occasion been pro-active in seeking international acclaim for films, even for those films not permitted to screen domestically. Farahmand writes about the “curious admission” of Kiarostami’s The Taste of Cherry into Cannes in 1997, citing the journal Gozaresh-e Film (Farahmand 95). Initially banned both at home and from entering Cannes, it missed the deadline. The government apparently changed its mind – this was “the year that Khatami was elected Iran’s president, and was concerned to bolster his image as a moderate leader circulating in the Western media”. Farahmand claims that after intervention by the then foreign minister, who apparently considered it would give a good impression in the West, Gilles Jacob was able to accept it for Cannes. Panahi, when questioned about the government’s attitude to festivals while on bail in 2011, angrily replied that the government loved international festivals when they screened and awarded government-approved films (Interview). The material evidence was, as ever, difficult to interpret. The government “tolerated” the display in the Cinema Museum of all international awards received by all Iranian directors, including awards for banned films and even exilic directors. Quixotically the awards were all removed in 2013 as a result of Makhmalbaf, then long in exile, attending an Israeli film festival to present his film, The Gardener, about the Bahai’i movement, shot in Israel. The combination of these four elements, Makhmalbaf, exile, Israel and Bahai’i, moved Shamaqdari to publicly threaten the removal of his awards (Dehghan). Ultimately all awards were removed shortly before the election of Rouhani. The government media, especially Press TV, dedicates significant space to all international awards for any Iranian film, including controversial films and relatively minor awards. The Final Whistle (2011), Karimi’s earlier discussed controversial film about Qisas provides an example of both. After it was finally permitted an international screening at Vesoul in 2012, the film received three relatively minor awards. This was nonetheless widely reported from Press TV to the Tehran Times (Niki Karimi’s “Final Whistle” wins).

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Unsurprisingly, given the government’s attitude to Hollywood, the Academy Awards have caused conflict and controversy on a number of occasions, some of which are discussed in Chapter 6. However, politics can arise with the participation of Iranians on international juries. Panahi chaired the Asia Pacific Screen Awards Jury in 2007 when the Israeli film, The Band’s Visit (Eran Kolorin) was selected for the UNESCO Award for outstanding contribution to the promotion and preservation of cultural diversity through film. When Panahi returned from Australia, he was called to account for his support for an Israeli film, and when arrested in 2010, among the charges against him was his support for a film from a Zionist country. It is not uncommon for such situations to arise.

Festivals and the festival film – an Iranian industry perspective As filmmakers started to target international festivals strategically and many films screened only internationally rather than domestically, the term “festival film” became transformed beyond its neutral international industry and academic use into a derogatory appellation by much of the Iranian industry and general public. There is not only the term film-e jashvareh’i (festival film) but also the synonymous film-e sefareshi (film to order) and sinema-ye golkhanehi (hothouse flower film) (Zeydabadi-Nejad 152). Firstly, I will draw together some opinions on this from academicians and writers of Iranian ethnicity and then move on to the views of the filmmakers themselves. Film critic and writer Ahmad Talebinejad noted in 1995 in relation to arthouse cinema, “That effort reached a deadlock when the original aim of intellectual films was forgotten for the sake of financial issues and winning a greater audience” (The New Wave in Iranian Cinema). In 1999 Sadr casually headed a section of an article “Kiarostami and festival filmmakers” (“Contemporary Iranian Cinema” 42). He noted the impact of Kiarostami’s international success, including the “financial rewards”, on other Iranian filmmakers (42) and concluded, In the 90s the situation seems to be that, for purely economic reasons, many of Iran’s finest filmmakers are gradually distancing themselves from the domestic market and setting their eyes on the international scene. The fact that e.g. Makhmalbaf’s Silence, Kiarostami’s The Taste of Cherry and Jalili’s films have been screened outside Iran prior to any domestic screening indicates a substantial watershed in Iranian cinema, one which will undoubtedly have a profound effect on its future place. (43) In 2000 Farahmand had identified three categories of filmmaking in Iran – the two that Naficy had described (the state-sponsored, ideologically defined film, and the popular cinema concerned with contemporaneous social issues) – and a third “trend” – “that of making art films targeted towards festival reception”

Film festivals and festival films 109 (105). She also noted the mutually beneficial history of international festivals (and festival directors) and Iranian filmmaking since the 1990s (94). From the filmmakers’ perspective, she wrote, festival success can mean not only foreign sales for a current title, but potentially also foreign funding or pre-sales for the next film. This has already been discussed in a general way in the previous chapter and will be revisited in relation to the festival experience for filmmaker Rafi Pitts discussed later in this chapter. Pezhman Lashgaripur wrote in 2002 that the wide circulation in the West of Panahi’s The Circle was “culturally colonizing a segment of our cinema” (Naficy Social History 4: 25). In 2005 Mottahedeh continued Farahmand’s arguments in relation to the gatekeeping role of international festivals. She summarised, “The film festival encounter with difference and the shaping of knowledge in that experience are governed fundamentally by decipherability, profitability, and festival politics” (Mottahedeh, Displaced Allegories 147). In 2006 “insider” film critic Masoud Ferasati produced the television series Cinemaye Jashnvareh’i (Festival Cinema), consisting of a series of debates and interviews between filmmakers, critics, and policy makers, cementing the term and its negative meaning in the Iranian environment. This was probably a response to government policy. Moving to the filmmakers, unsurprisingly, Panahi, whose whole success has revolved around international festivals, is unconditionally supportive of festivals. He has regularly attended festivals as a juror, with these festivals affording him support in his political activism. However other well-known filmmakers take alternatively a more cynical, critical, or considered stance. Back in 2000 Dabashi had elicited, in an interview, the following comment from Makhmalbaf, “You can say, ‘I want to make a film that will sell in Iran’ or ‘I want a film with a world market’” (Close Up, 159). When Dabashi sought clarification, Makhmalbaf confirmed that an art film could be made in this formulaic way. This confirms Sadr’s comments above that even before 2000 some filmmakers were differentiating film content and/or style for the domestic and for the foreign market and that suggests that he might be one source of the concept of the “festival film”. Nonetheless, Makhmalbaf attends and strongly supports festivals. He was, for example, Busan’s first “Filmmaker of the Year” recipient in 2003 and Dean of their Asian Film Academy in 2007. By 2003, Bahram Beyza’i, one of Iran’s most acclaimed directors domestically, was more critical. Unfortunately, the cinema that is supposed to address the nation is now addressing festivals. . . . Our directors are expected to maintain the cliches demanded by international festivals, so they have to disguise themselves under a mask of intellectuality that is both strange and unfamiliar to our people. (Modarresi, Back in Cannes) For his part Rafi Pitts has had two films (It’s Winter, 2006; The Hunter, 2009) nominated for a Golden Bear at the Berlinale. His thoughts on public record about

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film festivals reflect this experience. He stated in the publicity in Berlin for It’s Winter: These festivals are a podium which help these films exist. They’re a podium that enable you to show a problem that might exist in a certain section of the world – to reflect that place. It gives me the right to talk to you as we speak. So Berlin is oxygen for cinema. (Iran films return) It’s Winter was an all-Iranian production sold after completion to a French production company, Celluloid Dreams. He returned to the Berlinale with The Hunter. Although made in Iran, The Hunter had a mix of international funding and was supported by, among others, the Berlinale World Cinema Fund. International sales were through the Match Factory (Simon). After more experience with Western funding, production, and distribution, Pitts pointed to the same problem that Makhmalbaf and Beyza’i had suggested. He claimed that “There is a political correctness in the world that thinks only a certain thing can sell”, that Western funding carried with it a kind of economic or market censorship, whereby funding sources require script or other changes (Eddy). To another interviewer he gave an example of what the interviewer summarised as “potential producers seeking artistic compromises based on cultural stereotypes” (Jaafar). Pitts was quoted in the same interview: One big European producer asked me to change one of the female characters to a prostitute. This kind of thing can be very dangerous. I’m worried that within five years, because of the economic situation in Iran making budgets go so high and no government subsidies to help, it might not be possible to make arthouse cinemas. There is a danger from both sides. (Jaafar) Pitts’s experience – his success with It’s Winter at the Berlinale leading to international funding for The Hunter – confirms the observation made many years earlier by Farahmand that film festivals “both reflect and produce a set of concerns that gradually and retroactively affect the film production and distribution process” (Farahmand 87). Between these three very different filmmakers, Makhmalbaf, Beyza’I, and Pitts and their statements, we see that filmmakers do see themselves as either complicit or compromised in making films for the West, using festivals as the intermediary. Makhmalbaf made a statement more recently contrasting the worlds of Hollywood and Iranian filmmaking. In his 2010 address upon receipt of an Honorary Doctorate of Cinema from Nanterre University, France, he used the same argument I heard from Erika Richter, a filmmaker and academician from the former German Democratic Republic in the early 90s in relation to filmmaking in the FDR, economic censorship:

Film festivals and festival films 111 If the Iranian filmmakers are crushed under ideological censorship in their own country, they are crushed by the money censorship in the free world. It has been more than half a century now that Iranian independent filmmakers, like other independent filmmakers worldwide have been fighting against Hollywood’s industrial cinema, a Hollywood where art has changed to an industrial article, such as McDonalds. (MFH Official Website) Farhadi has likewise taken advantage of his esteemed position to make strong statements both domestically and internationally. Before he won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2012, he made a very considered statement. My wish for it would be Iranian filmmaking moving in a direction other than festivals and critics, that the public at large in Iran should wish to go see Iranian films. The role of festivals should be a link between filmmakers and the general public. To feel the ceiling, in terms of cinema, is festivals is a joke [sic]. Cinema is not soccer, in that competitions give us a sense of satisfaction. We appear to be forgetting the point of festivals and why they were created. Festivals were created to be a link in the chain between audiences and films, to raise the level of awareness of films for the public, and to connect the public to the films. (Cody) Discussions with Iranian filmmakers are often peppered with complaints about the need to conform to Western taste to obtain festival screenings. I had very direct experience of this perception when participating in a panel for young filmmakers held at the House of Cinema in November 2011. Rather than a discussion of the process of getting films out internationally, all questions directed at me related to the kind of films that would appeal to the Western market. While most filmmakers would be keen to place their film in Cannes, this desire is dominant among Iranian filmmakers who from their first film set this as their major goal, considering, as Dabashi also observes, Cannes, not Tehran, as the “center of the creative universe” (Close Up 262). All national cinemas are subject to the same kind of selection process by festivals, yet the impact of this process varies between national cinemas, depending on the ability of filmmakers in particular countries to raise funding and make the kinds of films they choose, without government interference. That success at Cannes is considered such an important marker by Iranian filmmakers; it indicates a kind of two-way process between festivals and Iranian filmmakers. The filmmakers’ participation in this process, that is to say the supply aspect of the equation, remains largely unexplored and unacknowledged. With Iranian cinema having received relatively limited international production funding during this period, independent Iranian filmmakers were far less subject to the constraints of

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foreign production funding than many other non-Western filmmakers. Rather it has relied on international sales through the festival intermediary.

The general Iranian domestic audience A consideration of Iranian audience perceptions of “festival films” adds a useful dimension to our analysis. Local audience perceptions are, perhaps, more forthright than those given by filmmakers. According to Dabashi, “A common reading of Iranian cinema [by Iranians] is predicated on the demagogic claim that many of the so-called auteur or art films which are internationally acclaimed are in fact locally irrelevant and inaccessible” (Close Up 276). Dönmez-Colin recalls a conversation at the film museum in Tehran where the guide claimed in front of a poster of The Circle that the film “did not portray a true picture of Iranian life” (Cinemas 38). Here they are demonstrating the thinking that leads the Iranian cinema-going public, both domestic and diasporic, to label films derogatorily as “festival films”. This is not unique to Iranian cinema. It is a common complaint in Asian countries, even among cinephiles. However, in my experience of festivals I believe that it is far more widespread among Iranians than among other nationalities. This is due, I believe, to the combination of a number of factors. While many Iranians (especially Tehranis) in my experience are highly cine-literate and can generally access most so-called “banned” films, the lack of free critical dialogue around these so-called festival films has limited real film culture to within relatively few circles. Although there are a number of television programmes dealing with film culture, these are subject to censorship and are usually fronted by “insider” critics. “Festival Filmmakers” cannot present their films or give interviews to talk back to the weight of public discourse against them. This absence of a crucial element of screen culture dialogue capable of giving context deprives Iranian film culture of proper audience development to the detriment of the filmmakers.

The exilic/diasporic audience and the “festival film” As anywhere in the world, the larger proportion of both diasporic and domestic general audiences want to see commercial films rather than arthouse films. My own understanding of the complex and contradictory view of the Iranian diaspora on the Iranian “festival film” is informed by my experience as director of BIFF and as co-Director of the Iranian Film Festival Australia. Readings by Iranian audiences take into account many factors apart from the film content. Diasporic audiences in my experience attend festivals both to see films that they cannot download or otherwise access and also as a social occasion to celebrate their own culture. Thus, there are special problems that arise in relation to many diasporic audiences at film festival screenings. When they are confronted by films critical of their country, they often do not respond in the same way that those outside the culture might, or indeed that they themselves might if in Iran. There are two different and contradictory responses. One is concern about negative depictions of Iran that will reinforce already negative media

Film festivals and festival films 113 stereotyping. Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa notes, “there has been much debate among Iranian audiences abroad about what constitutes a true, authentic, undistorted representation or image of the homeland, Iran, and what should be shown in films . . . in order to avoid a negative image of Iranian culture” (Saeed-Vafa 201–202). Here I would like to recount some personal experiences illustrating this. Introducing a screening of The White Meadows (Rasoulof, 2009) in Adelaide, I carefully explained for the non-Iranians in the audience that the film was an allegory. Within half an hour of the commencement of the screening, I found a male Iranian audience member in the foyer in tears. He believed that “Australians should not see this film” because they would consider it real and a very negative image of the “backwardness” of Iranians. Another strong memory of audience response is from a screening of Babak Payami’s previously discussed film, The Silence Between Two Thoughts (2003), about an honour killing. The audience at the screening that I attended in Vienna was almost exclusively Iranian, and the screening ended in an uproar, with real audience anger vented against the director, who was present, despite the obvious veracity of such events in remote parts of Iran. My experience of screening Ayari’s The Paternal House was of a stony-faced Iranian audience; Iranians, ever polite, asked me cautiously afterwards why I had chosen the film. Conversely expatriates also protest strongly about filmmakers not criticising the country’s regime strongly enough. In 2006 an article written from the Berlinale reported that expatriate Iranians were protesting the inclusion of Panahi’s Offside and Rafi Pitts’ It’s Winter “because there [was] no clear condemnation of the Iranian regime in them” (Furlong). Some were present in the theatre at the beginning of the screening of Pitts’s film that I attended. It was difficult for me to believe that these protestors had actually seen either film, given their very different but equally strong condemnation of aspects of the Iranian government. A further problem concerns the possibility of an “insider” film slipping past a Western programmer. Of the film about a young clergyman who has to take on a second wife, Gold and Copper, discussed in Chapter 2, the Variety review reflected a general Western perception that it was “above all a call for compassion, and as such it doesn’t reject religion so much as the cold, unfeeling spirit in which so much religion is practiced” (Chang). However, the film’s provenance, discussed earlier, added another layer of complexity to its reception by Iranians internationally. The use of polygamy to resolve the narrative was controversial for Iranians. I screened the film at IFFA, aware of both of these issues, and a predictable, mixed reaction by Iranians followed. The anonymous voting forms distributed after each session and general feedback indicated a positive response, but the audience was lower than average, suggesting that many had stayed away for this reason. Tapper summarised these various positions. Although lengthy it is worth quoting in full: Given such contradictory expectations and interpretations, manifested in any number of film reviews in both the popular and intellectual press, it is

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Film festivals and festival films not surprising if Iranians abroad themselves show confused reactions to and understandings of foreign audience responses to cinematic images of their country. The mixed – and often heated – responses of Iranians abroad to the new Iranian cinema [and other aspects of Iranian culture and politics as viewed in the West] reflect not merely their different politics, but different assumptions about what foreign viewers look for, and see, in these films. Diaspora Iranians often claim that films shown abroad distort the reality of Iranian society and hide the strict censorship that operates in Iran. They variously expect that films about Iran, even if supposedly fictional, should be politically and socially critical; that they should give information about Iranian culture and society, as if they were documentaries; and that, whether fictional or factual, they should be “positive”, i.e., propaganda for a particular construction of Iranian culture and social reality.

I find his conclusion all too familiar: “The film-makers can’t win: if they show prosperous middle-class life, they are criticised for being too optimistic; if they focus on poor, rural people, they are ignoring the great civilisation of Iran; and if they idealise peasants, they are accused of hiding the realities of oppression” (Screening Iran). Of the international festivals themselves, Naficy notes some negative perceptions by the Iranian diaspora, that they give the Iranian government a platform. He personally concludes that “they [do] not whitewash the Islamist regime; in fact they provided venues in which its practices could be discussed and critiqued” (Social History 4: 256).

The festival film: a taxonomy from the Iranian perspective In the previous chapter I defined the “festival film” using the work of Tapper as my reference point to investigate Western economic imperatives and audience appeal. In the first part of this chapter I have discussed the concept of the festival film from the perspectives of Iranian academics, government, and industry. A further observation made in 2002, around the same time as Tapper’s writings, came from Dabashi. The principal predicament of the Iranian filmmakers of the last generation is that they have brought the nativist disposition of their creativity to global attention. If those who control the international film festivals at Cannes, Venice, and Locarno favor aggressive exoticization of the so-called Third World, so that these festivals become cinematic version of National Geographic, that nativism can obviously be as politically catastrophic as creatively effervescent. (Close Up, 259) In the absence of any analysis of the Iranian situation from inside, I have developed in what follows a kind of taxonomy of the festival film to reflect this

Film festivals and festival films 115 perspective. It is based on a list of categories developed by Chinese cinema expert Shelly Kraicer for a talk to Chinese film industry professionals about the “use and abuse” of Chinese cinema by Western film festivals. The relevance to Iran, another victim of a-territorial colonialism, of his key question, “What functions – political, commercial, and cultural – does Chinese cinema serve in the western festival and distribution system?” is striking (Kraicer). The commonalities between Iran and China strengthen the comparison. Both operate under systems that reject their immediate past and their dynastic rulers in favour of a theoretically classless society. They share a history of using film as propaganda for the regime, controlling the imagery through strict censorship, yet or perhaps because of this, both countries have been hotspots in Western festivals and share a remarkably similar festival exhibition and awards history. China has yet to win an Oscar but had two nominations (in 1990 and 2002), while Iran had a nomination in 1998 and wins in 2012 and 2016. China shared a Palme d’Or for Farewell My Concubine in 1993 and Iran for Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry in 1997; at the Berlinale Iran has won a Golden Bear for A Separation in 2011 along with several Silver Bears; China has won two Golden Bears (2007 Tuya’s Marriage and 2014 Black Coal, Thin Ice). A comparison of the awards dates shows China’s position as hotspot was followed by Iran’s a few years later. In re-developing Kraicer’s taxonomy of festival films for Iran, I attempt an Iranian reading of the Western perception of Iranian cinema based on the observations by critics, academicians, and filmmakers discussed earlier in this chapter. The six non-generic and not mutually exclusive categories I suggest here are: “Safe but exotic spectacle”, “Ethnofiction”, “Exemplary Iranian independent art cinema”, “International art cinema master(s’) works’, “Films that confirm Iran’s backwardness” and “Banned in Iran”. Safe but exotic spectacle: this first category is drawn from Kraicer’s category of “exotic, colorful diversion . . . familiar images of an exotic other, all put on display for our delectation and comfort.” The wuxia films and Zhang Yimou exotica that Kraicer mentions seem a long way from Iran, but I would parallel them with many early examples of New Iranian Cinema, irrespective of the latter’s “shoestring budget”, non-professional actors and simple settings. They are opposites of the same type. The so-called “quest films” of “Children Cinema” were popularly embraced in the West because they were different, charming, and non-threatening. Ebrahim Forouzesh’s The Key (1987) was very successful at festivals, and it was easy to identify with the anxiety of a small child who spent the film inside his home looking for the front door key. This and his next film, The Jar (1992), which won a Golden Leopard at Locarno, although both before the timeframe of this work, were among those which largely fuelled general and commercial Western interest in Iranian cinema. I would argue that the pinnacle of this genre was Panahi’s The White Balloon (1995), also made earlier. Its South Tehran setting displayed an exotic (to Westerners) lifestyle that embraced snake charmers on street corners and a ‘quaint’ tradition about buying goldfish. My own esteem for this film is based on the final shot – the Aghani boy selling balloons referenced in the title.

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That he will spend Nowruz alone, which I always find heartbreaking, is apparently overlooked by many viewers from the evidence of general public feedback on Rotten Tomatoes. The most commonly used adjective is “cute”, confirming the descriptor of “safe” and the judgement and business acumen of the discriminating French-based sales agent Hengameh Panahi of Celluloid Dreams in acquiring it for international distribution. Films such as Mamad Haghighat’s Two Angels (2002) or Rasoulof’s Iron Island (2005), with simple stories such as forbidden love among tribal or nomadic or simple village people, and culturally specific backgrounds, were just as accessible. Although some might consider that the allegorical elements in Rasoulof’s film preclude its grouping here, I believe that these elements can be readily absorbed or overlooked by a Western audience. Majidi’s The Song of Sparrows (2008) was a late example of these kinds of films. When it screened at the Berlinale in 2008, I recall feeling that the film felt “old-fashioned” and “exotic”. It contained many elements more typical of the earlier New Iranian Cinema – it was a quest film where the main character was desperately searching for a missing ostrich, reminiscent of the equally desperate searches in The Key and The White Balloon; it was set among the rural poor; and finally it contained striking surreal imagery such as a scene where hundreds of goldfish are spilled onto the ground, and another where the main character carries a bright blue door from one home to another on his back. It was the last quality film of its kind that I saw. Where successful, the profit margins made these low budget films highly profitable for smaller international agents, occasionally larger distributors, and the filmmakers. These films were all made prior to 2009 and conform to many of Tapper’s characteristics of New Iranian Cinema. Ethnofiction: another of Kraicer’s categories is “National Geographic style documentaries”, defined by him as “anodyne travelogues of life in China, made readily consumable through a Western style approach to filmmaking that privileges exotic spectacle and narrative excitement” (Kraicer). Iran, like China, is not homogenous. Both countries have a large number of ethnic and tribal minorities, with language variations and customs which have not been fully integrated in the majority ethnic group. There has been an emphasis on recording these various cultures through both documentary and ethnofiction by government organisations and also independent filmmakers. The category is used by Iranian filmmakers and officials and understood by local audiences, who often find the portrayal of ethnic tribes with their customs as fascinating as Westerners do. Nonetheless, this Iranian equivalent of Kraicer’s category in relation to films which function for Western audiences is readily consumable, a Western-style approach, exotic spectacle, and narrative excitement is the documentary/fiction hybrid, which I would term ‘ethnofiction’ and define as fictional film with a strong, foregrounded ethnographic component. The positioning of ethnofiction in terms of its intended market is quite complex. I discovered this when I served on a jury with two senior directors, Ibrahim Foroozesh and Rasoul Sadrameli, who were prepared to excuse flaws in

Film festivals and festival films 117 specific ethnofictional films because of what they perceived as the importance of their documentation and respectful orientation to their subject matter. This indicates that while ethnofiction has often been used by filmmakers to provide the international market with the exotica that it seeks, it is an area where international and domestic needs can overlap. One early and prominent example of ethnofiction which received international funding as well as festival and commercial success – making its international success stronger than its domestic achievement – was Makhmalbaf’s Gabbeh (1996). The film portrays an almost extinct nomadic tribe from the steppes of southeastern Iran, renowned for weaving gabbehs (carpets). In following the story about a young woman who has stepped out of a carpet, the audience comes to understand something of this particular tribal culture. Its genesis was a documentary. It screened at Fajr in 1996 but was then banned, presumably because of the romantic longings of the titular lead female character. It premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, then had a very successful international festival and commercial release in many territories. This is mirrored on a U.S. release poster headlined with the quote, “one of the top ten films of the year”, which is vaguely attributed simultaneously to Time Magazine, The Village Voice, and Film Comment on IMDB. It did eventually release domestically, but I understand that it was received only “reasonably well” in Iran. Gabbeh’s classification as a festival film is strengthened by Makhmalbaf’s statement to Dabashi, cited earlier, about making a film for the international market. Furthermore, this was a French/Iranian co-production made through MK2. The information on the MFH (Makhmalbaf Film House) website indicates how the film is pitched to Western audiences. Gabbehs “served both as artistic expression and autobiographical record of the lives of the weavers. . . . Spellbound by the exotic countryside, and by the tales behind the Gabbehs, Makhmalbaf’s intended documentary evolved into a fictional love story which uses a gabbeh as a magic story-telling device weaving past and present fantasy and reality” (MFH website). Thus, I would also position it here as the seminal and perhaps the most successful example of ethnofiction aimed at Westerners. A rare and successful example, in my opinion, is Farhad Mehranfar’s Paper Airplanes (1997), which slightly pre-dates my selection period but which was popular domestically and which travelled internationally for several years. In this family film a young Tehrani boy goes on a trip to a remote part of Iran with his father, who is screening films for the nomadic tribes. The film contrasts the lifestyles of the young urban boy and his new tribal friends with subtlety and elegance. For example, the rites associated with the tribal marriage of a young girl (his new friend) are as strange to the young Tehrani boy as they are to us. The tribal children struggle to comprehend the need for traffic lights or the point of reading, giving the audience, both domestic and international, a real understanding of the remoteness of tribal life and the difficulties associated with its encounter with the modern Iranian world. An example that I would position as “ethnofiction” from the timeframe under consideration here is Ghobadi’s Half Moon (2006), a quest film about an old

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Iranian Kurdish musician organizing one final concert, in Iraqi Kurdistan. This film was commissioned for an international audience at the Viennese festival to celebrate the 250th Mozart Anniversary, making the musical theme an obvious consideration. The film’s content embraces the familiar issues of working around government-imposed constraints – obtaining the necessary permits, and the issue of female singers (it is forbidden for them to sing in public) – as well as impressive scenes such as the surreal image of the allegorical Village of Exiled Female Singers; it features the wide vistas of Iran, the colourful Kurdish attire, customs, and humour, and symbolism related to Mozart’s Requiem. While his earlier films were also set in Kurdish territory, this film was designed, successfully, for a Western audience, to portray Kurdish music and the way of life. A less traditional definition of ethnofiction would embrace My Tehran for Sale (2009) by Granaz Moussavi, and Bahman Ghobadi’s No One Knows About Persian Cats (2009), both examples of the overlay of a fictional story onto documentary material filmed within a particular (contemporary) sub-culture – the Tehran underground scene. They exploit Western curiosity about the Tehran underground arts culture and its fascination with the performance of the forbidden in Iran. (Naficy also categorises the latter as a “process film” under “Ethnographic and Quasi Ethnographic Films” (Social History, 4 73).) The other categories I am adapting from Kraicer are, by contrast with the categories examined immediately above, more straightforward. Exemplary Iranian independent art cinema: Kraicer defines “Exemplary Asian independent art cinema”, as a “rarified, sophisticated form” of the exotic and somehow essentially East Asian. Here, he says, “Chinese-ness” is derived from its roots in the Chinese pictorial tradition. By substituting “literary” tradition – poetry and tazieh – for “pictorial” then this category becomes an apt descriptor for the work of Kiarostami and Beyza’i, both of whom, as is extensively noted in the literature, often use the literary tradition as a springboard. International art cinema master(s’) works: the next of Kraicer’s categories is “International art cinema master(s’) works”. Kraicer considers such works to have a symbiotic relationship with “Exemplary Asian independent art cinema” and defines it as “global art [that] belongs to ‘Us’, not to its incidentally ‘Other’ creators”. The categorisation of individual filmmakers is somewhat subjective, and like Kraicer I have some difficulty in separating this category from the previous one, although also like Kraicer, I see it as distinct. Kiarostami, of all the Iranian filmmakers, is a world figure who belongs to all of “Us”, although he is also the filmmaker that “outsider” Iranian cinephiles universally admire. This is confirmed by his ability to make films outside Iran which successfully circulate internationally. This is now true of Farhadi, as he proved with The Past (2013), shot in France. Another filmmaker whom I would place in this category is Panahi, who is not widely admired among Iranian cinephiles. Films that confirm Iran’s backwardness: is Kraicer’s sixth category. It describes Chinese filmmakers’ dilemma in making critical films. This resonates with the Iranian experience. Kraicer’s example, “the frequently told Chinese indie tale of alienated losers who drift through disillusionment, crime, prostitution, and

Film festivals and festival films 119 self-destruction” could almost have been written to describe Panahi’s The Circle, dismissed by many Iranians as a “festival film”. My examples earlier in this chapter relating to the Iranian diasporic audience response to “festival films” (Payami’s Silence Between Two Thoughts, Rasoulof’s The White Meadows, and Kianoush Ayari’s The Paternal House) further support this as a relevant descriptor. Zeydabadi-Nejad has quoted an interview with a filmmaker who stated that the only social problems that it was appropriate to show were “those which we share with modern societies” (155). These examples establish that “Films that confirm Iran’s backwardness” is indeed a category, with the major topics being criticism of sharia law, the position of women, and honour killings. Banned in Iran: Kraicer’s final category, “Banned in China” has its immediate Iranian equivalent, in “Banned in Iran”, although this is complicated by two factors – the earlier noted inability to get a screening on commercial grounds rather than lack of a permit, and that films may receive an international but not a domestic screening permit. As a category consisting of films that are actually refused screening permits, it overlaps significantly with the previous category, Films that confirm Iran’s backwardness. The category of “banned in Iran” has found some ongoing favour with Western festivals (and distributors), which use this characteristic to promote the films to their audiences and to promote their own values of cinematic free speech (stemming in part from the film festivals’ notable role over many decades in combating film censorship). However, access to such films became more difficult after 2009, as the government managed to enforce the requirement for an international screening permit and filmmakers became less willing to flaunt it. Khalani’s Absolutely Tame is a Horse (2011) released domestically but was refused a permit to screen at WFF (Montreal) and Abu Dhabi and has subsequently not screened internationally. Consequently “banned in Iran” has less force than it once did even though at times in this period the circumstances in Iran were much worse for some filmmakers than they were previously.

Conclusion For political reasons, producers, directors, and writers from Iran, unlike many other developing countries, have received relatively limited funding assistance or pre-sales through international government or festival funds or commercial sales agents. Where it has been received, such funding has released them from the pressure of political censorship and, as Chaudhuri notes, co-productions with European partners are more likely to receive distribution in the West (3–4). However, several Iranian filmmakers have discussed the negative side to reaping the rewards of international funding, and maybe distribution – the requirement to adapt content or aesthetics to Western taste, with the resultant impact on style and content that can amount to a kind of economic censorship. In the previous chapter the characteristics of Iranian cinema that Tapper considered intrinsic to its appeal in 2002 were considered. In this chapter we examined

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a kind of schema with not mutually exclusive descriptors of types of films of appeal to festivals. Two of those categories, “Safe but exotic spectacle” and “ethnofiction” were prominent in the earlier years covered by this work. However, as discussed in Chapter 3, they were no longer much in evidence by 2009. Rather, the newer kind of Iranian cinema, as exemplified by the films of Farhadi, are far closer formally to Western arthouse cinema. It might be argued that the absence of this earlier kind of filmmaking, along with less access to the “Banned in Iran” category of films, explains why Iran is no longer a cinematic hotspot. Instead it has come of age, and its major directors, such as Kiarostami and Farhadi, hold their ground alongside European arthouse cinema and their directors rather than as a kind of “other” cinema. As a consequence of this, the gap between “festival films”, held in such contempt by the general Iranian audience, and films which perform well at the domestic box office, has decreased. However, this all still sits uneasily beside the Iranian government’s conflicted position towards international festivals and markets.

5

Cinema is a weapon Combatting the soft war

In 2010 Third Text published a special issue entitled Cinema in Muslim Societies under the guest editorship of the Pakistani-based academician and journalist, Ali Nobil Ahmed. In his introduction, “Is There a Muslim World?” Ahmed explored the responses of those he solicited to contribute, pointing to the problems in determining what – if indeed it exists – a Muslim cinema might be. His correspondence with an anonymous Professor X is worth quoting at length. First Ahmed cites his own letter of invitation, requesting “a sort of historical piece on the historical contribution of Muslim film-makers to cinema” (1). The professor responded the very next day. I could give you a diplomatic answer, pleading lack of time . . . however . . . the real reason why I am less than enthusiastic . . . is because the issue’s very frame of reference assumes that there is a cinema specific to the Muslim world, ie that religion plays a determining role in cultural classifications or demarcations. Even if I were to contribute an essay contesting this notion, it would still be appearing within an overall context that overwhelmingly affirms the very thing that I would want to argue against. (1–2) Ahmed in turn replied that he considers the professor’s suspicion of the project healthy. He noted, outside of the correspondence, that within the ensuing collection “religion as a determinant of cinematic productions barely figures, and remains largely within the background of the essays” (7). The various contributors grappled with the topic in different ways. Dönmez-Colin, for example, argued against the importance of religion to cinema and concluded that “the situation for women in Turkish cinema – regardless of ethnic or religious background – remains a state of invisibility” (105). The responses indicated not only the reluctance of academicians in this field to engage with a controversial topic, at least at that moment, but also, as with the concept of the “festival film”, the wide gap between academic usage and general parlance. Naficy, for example, refers in his ten-part taxonomy of Iranian cinema to “Official Islamist cinema” and “Popular Islamicate cinema”. Despite, as Ahmed noted, no suggestion by contributors of homogeneity of the Muslim world, for

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him the project was vital in the context of contemporary Islamophobia (7). There exists (and existed then) significant evidence that the term “Muslim filmmaking” is embraced outside of academia. However, this is not in the context of Islamophobia; it enjoyed frequent usage in contemporaneous Iranian government policy and the rhetoric. In terms of infrastructure, international organisations with names such as the Union of Muslim Filmmakers and the Union for Short Filmmakers of Muslim Countries, both emanating from Iran, and Muslim film festivals had existed for several years. Not surprisingly, the concept of Muslim filmmaking had a very strong political overtone. Thus, despite Naficy’s use of the words “Islamist” and “Islamicate”, embraced widely by academicians, I will explore the perhaps less sophisticated term, “Muslim Filmmaking”, as the one supported by IRI government usage, particularly after 2009. Another concept which has appeared in the rhetoric since 2009, particularly in Khamenei’s speeches, is that of a “soft warfare” being conducted by the U.S. against Iran. This is drawn from Joseph Nye’s theory of soft power, “the ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes one wants through attraction rather than coercion or payment. A country’s soft power rests on its resources of culture, values, and policies. A smart power strategy combines hard and soft power resources” (Nye 2008). Gholamzadeh notes that the idea under different names has been used by Khamenei over three decades, although usage of this specific term can only be traced back to 2009. Clearly the concept of the soft war has a straight lineage from the well-known concept of ‘Gharbzadegi’, the pejorative Iranian term translated variously as “Westoxification,” “West-struck-ness” “Westitis”, “Euromania” and Occidentosis”. The term derives from a book of the same name, Gharbzadegi (published in 1962) written by Jalal Al Ahmad, an Iranian writer, social critic, and son of a Shi’ite clergyman. Al Ahmad was critical of the passive and uncritical adoption of social reforms and attempts at modernisation based on Western models. What makes Gharbzadegi so powerful and pervasive is that it was an important ideological commonality between the Iranian left and Shi’ite clerics at the time of the revolution. Al Ahmad has also been highly influential on the thinking of Khamenei, Supreme Leader since the death of Khomeini (Ganji). If Gharbzadegi, which seems to inform Khomeini’s famous statement made in 1979 about the corruption of Iranian youth by Hollywood films, was brought to the fore by Ali Shariati as a crucial element in building an ideology after the revolution, it has appeared in relation to film re-garbed many times since. In 1991, the right-wing faction of the government claimed “the weapon of ‘cultural transmogrification’” was being launched on it by global imperialism (the United States) (Naficy 4, 307). Naficy writes of the “Cultural invasion” debate from this era and the reformist government’s resultant “launching [of] a combination of soft and hard powers not only against foreigners but also against its own people” (Naficy 4, 306). In 1992 Khamenei used the rhetoric in another garb when claiming the lack of recognition for revolutionary films at international festivals as cultural invasion (Naficy 4, 252). However, as Gholamzadeh had noted, along with Blout, it was during the 2009 presidential election and its aftermath, that the term ‘soft war’ came into common

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usage not only by the Supreme Leader but also state broadcast media. The concept of the ‘soft war’ as the heir to Gharbzadegi’ was the underpinning for the government’s much more aggressive and better co-ordinated battle against cultural invasion by any other name. The strategies for what was both a soft- and hard-war approach to reharnessing the film industry were many and diverse, from a hardwar type constraint of filmmaker activism to a soft war including rhetoric, film production, and exhibition, ensuring the right values in film, the use of cultural diplomacy, down to appropriate and readily accessible sell-through DVDs. In this chapter I will trace, as a priority in the Iranian government domestic and external policy, the resurgence of the phenomenon of “Muslim filmmaking”, developed to deal with the conservatives’ long perceived problems in relation to the film industry. I will briefly outline the hard war in relation to the film industry as it was waged both domestically and internationally, drawing together threads from earlier chapters of the state of play between filmmakers and the government, then follow with an analysis of the Fajr Film Festival programme between 1983 and 2013 as a barometer of changing emphases. The focus will then move to the post2009 attempts to re-harness Iranian cinema to Islam using the concept of Muslim filmmaking, and to establish Iran as the centre. Throughout I provide an overview of the rhetoric and the concept. I follow this by discussing public manifestation of Muslim filmmaking through the various domestic festivals as showcases for Muslim cinema and the international marketing. Of course, none of this could be possible without the support of appropriate production. Government production and productions will be considered in the following chapter.

Muslim filmmaking and the politicisation of filmmakers Opposition to cinema by parts of the Iranian clergy has existed since cinema’s introduction to Iran. To recap on the post-revolutionary situation: Khomeini, although opposed to cinema whilst in exile, publicly embraced it immediately on his return to Iran as a potentially powerful propaganda tool for the promotion of Islamic values. Devictor noted in 2001, “the main goal of the IRI’s policy on cinema has been neither artistic nor economic, but rather the achievement of an ‘ideological project’” (66). What is clear both from reading the rhetoric, quotes, and interviews, and from discussions with informants, is that the scope of the “ideological project” under Ahmadinejad was broader than developing domestic Muslim filmmaking, infused with Islamic values. It also encompassed the vision of positioning Iran at the centre of global Muslim filmmaking, a vision which would appear to have also begun with Khomeini. Pak-Shiraz notes that Khomeini’s rhetoric implied his belief that “he was the Moses of his time, who was to free the people from the enslavement of the unjust rulers . . . so that the Muslim community and umma could be preserved” (131). Khomeini’s “ideological project” for cinema was surely designed to contribute to these ends. However, the IRI, as Salman Rushdie once colourfully observed, is a “many-headed ecclestiastical [sic] Gargantua [with its] many and contradictory mouths” (450). This made implementing its ideological project less than straightforward. Some of the

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contradictions I have already discussed – ongoing opposition to cinema by some of the clergy, differing interpretations by the clergy and government ministers and officials; attempts by government officials to make changes from within the system; and changes in government with the pendulum swinging to the reformist win in 1997 and then back to conservative rule in 2005. World politics and sanctions have also played their part. Although the initial goal was to transcend national boundaries by embracing the umma, this was complicated by that ancient story, the divisions within Islam. An early, unforeseen interruption to the ideological project came in the shape of the Iran-Iraq War, which began only some eighteen months after Khomeini’s endorsement of cinema in his famous first speech on his return to Iran, at the Beheshti Cemetery. The war pitted Muslim against Muslim and destroyed the umma. The Iranian cinematic response to the war was the development of the Sacred Defence cinema. This new genre’s emphasis shifted after the war, but it remained the primary approved genre, providing some kind of metaphor for Iran’s place in the world. Naficy notes that when Khomeini died one year after the cessation of the Iran-Iraq war, the official discourse changed from Islamic community (ummat – e eslami) to Islamic nation (mellat – e eslami) (A Social History 3: 182). Upon its election in 1997 the reformist government attempted to bring film policy more in line with public thinking while retaining the form and character of the ideological project. Continuing a recapitulation of previous arguments, in 2000 Ali Reza Haghighi wrote that although Iranian cinema was heavily affected by politics, film content could not reflect political issues (Haghighi). Golmakani noted shortly after that this had changed, and by 2009 Makhmalbaf, Panahi, Ghobadi, Rasoulof, and many others had entered the world stage with highly political films. After 2005 film became the international cultural marker of internal conflict, precisely what the government had indicated was not acceptable. Government acceptance of this was short-lived even under the reformist regime. In 2003, two years before Khatami was replaced as president by Ahmadinejad, one commentator was already noting, In Iran’s uncertain political climate, the freer hand and more relaxed censorship measures that directors have enjoyed since moderate President Mohammad Khatami came to power in 1997 may not last much longer. Khatami’s election was key in securing more space for directors to deal with political and social issues of relevance to Iranian audiences, and enabled them to push the limits of the strict Islamic rules their films must conform to. But recent setbacks for the reformist camp, notably failed bids by Khatami to increase his presidential powers and reduce those of key conservative institutions, have also taken their toll on Iran’s film industry. (Modarresi, Back in Cannes) Indeed, this was a prescient statement. Shamaqdari, Ahmadinejad’s deputy cultural minister during his second term, some years later claimed that “banality in

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film making started under reformist government” [sic] (Iranian press highlights). Both the policy and rhetoric of the Ahmadinejad government looked back to the ideological pronouncements of Khomeini for guidance, thus confirming the view that politics in Iran are largely defined by attempts to claim Khomeini’s legacy, which provides an internal yardstick for evaluating governmental and other social and cultural performance (Eshraghi). Reclaiming lost ground on the Muslim film project was not easy for the new government when it came to power in 2005. During Ahmadinejad’s first term, the government trod gently, indeed so gently that in 2006 he came under criticism from Majles that the films released during his first year were “not significantly different” from “Khatami-era films” (Atwood 167). While perhaps somewhat unrealistic to expect much change in film production to be affected within a year, change was afoot. The election of 2009 was marked by the struggles with the Green Movement and the film industry’s significant participation in it. Following Ahmadinejad’s victory, constraints quickly became stronger and more unpredictable in their operation, and the rhetoric, reports, speeches, and media reports came thick and fast. A statement by Hosseini, Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance in Ahmadinejad’s second cabinet, made in his final year as minister, 2013, summarised the belief under which the regime worked: “Cinema is a weapon, given to a warrior, provides security: and given to a drunk leads to viciousness” (Fajr Film Festival Catalogue 2013 8). This resonated with Khamenei’s references to the “soft war” from 2009. Within the Political Division of IRIB an internal document discussing the problem of the film industry from the regime’s perspective was prepared in October 2009, shortly after the elections. (It should be borne in mind that IRIB reports directly to Khamenei.) It stated that, nowadays Iranian cinema is witness to the production of underground films that are produced outside of the official system and without government supervision. Filmmakers don’t get official permission to get their films produced and create them secretly and find possibilities of showing the film internationally and by doing so, attract foreign capital; to the point where we can now discuss the formation of an underground cinema in Iran. One of the most important characteristics of this Iranian cinema is its lack of regard for official criteria and rules. (Internal State Document Exposes) The report continued that “underground cinema, like underground music, literature and other unofficial forms of art and information in Iran, is formed parallel to the production of official films with government ties and provokes the interest of international film festivals”. This perception of underground film is notable, and the sense of what is underground differs somewhat from a Western concept. I will not analyse the use of “underground” in the West, but “avant-garde”, “experimental”, “transgressive” and “low-budget” might

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be connotative terms. By contrast, for filmmaker Moslem Mansouri “the main topic of underground or ‘guerilla’ cinema is ‘the regime itself and the consequences of its presence’”; “underground cinema aims at the source of poverty and it fans the fires of social revolt” (Naficy, Social History 4: 68). This is an important nuance of the term, approaching the Third Cinema movement, and it refers to a stream of Iranian filmmaking often accomplished with extreme difficulty and with some risks for the filmmakers concerned. It also points to the commonality between the kinds of concerns that this filmmaking often has and the concerns evidenced in the Social Issues category of filmmaking discussed earlier. Naficy’s already-cited definition of that category embraced films with themes “beyond the plight of individuals to critically comment on society”, and earlier I noted Esfandiery’s claim about the popularity of early Islamic cinema as a voice for the poor. It is in the phrasing, “aims at the source”, that the difference between underground and social issues filmmaking lies. By contrast, acceptable Muslim filmmaking acknowledges social problems (such as poverty) sympathetically, but the cause is social or historical, not the government. Weeks after the preparation of the IRIB internal document, in late November 2009, Khamenei addressed the Basiji, laying bare the problem of the soft war as he perceived it. Everyone today understands and knows that the confrontation between the Arrogance [United States] with the Islamic Republic is no longer like the confrontation of the first decade of the revolution. In that confrontation they exercised their power, and were defeated. That was a hard confrontation. . . . However this is not the priority of the Arrogance for confronting the Islamic regime. The priority today is what is called soft war; that is war using cultural tools, through infiltration [of our society], through lies, through spreading rumors. Through the advanced instruments that exist today, communication tools that did not exist 10, 15, and 30 years ago, have become widespread. Soft war means creating doubt in people’s hearts and minds. (A speech to a large crowd) The Iranian government’s long-held view on filmmaking critical of the regime was re-articulated in 2010. A contemporary media article summarised it as follows, which should be read in light of the above: making critical films would be ‘worse than espionage,’ and termed it as ‘cultural betrayal’ that some Iranian filmmakers were just exposing ‘the dark sides of Iran’ in their films. The Iranian culture ministry prefers to invest its budget in films which would show a more positive image of Iran and expose the country’s achievements. According to Shamaqdari, as the US was using cinema as a tool to ‘impose its own culture on the world,’ Iranian cinema should do the same for Iran. (Iranian Filmmaker Barred)

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This statement clearly demonstrates the government perception of the category defined in the previous chapter – “Films that demonstrate Iran’s Backwardness” – and the government’s implacable opposition to them. By late 2012 the Islamic Republic had announced the creation of a “soft war headquarters” for the strategising and execution of its soft-war approach. Its necessity was explained by Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, deputy chief of the Islamic Republic of Iran Armed Forces General Staff: The enemy, by making attractive and presenting the Western lifestyle and upbringing, by its scientific and educational monopoly, and by spreading Western social behavior and the production of deviant values and beliefs, carries out its strategies in the soft war (The formation of a soft war headquarters).

Defining “Muslim filmmaking” One the clearest indicators of a renewed emphasis on Muslim filmmaking post 2009 appeared on the MCIG website. Below is the (self-explanatory) full list of roles as it appeared on the website in 2010. It was relatively free of ideology in explaining its role. • •

• •

•

Supervising the cultural, art and propagation activities of the religious ministries who are official[ly] recognised in [the] country’s constitution . Issuing the required permission for entry and exit of audio-visual equipment, artefacts, newspapers and other publications, all suspicious cultural and propagation items. The judgment to distinguish the suspicious works from authorised items would [be] base[d] on a directive which would be approved by the cabinet. Drafting the rule of procedures and regulations for holding of festivals, art and cultural fairs and films and literary contests within the country and abroad. Issuing license of banning the activities of cultural, press, news, art, cinema, audio-visual, publications and propagation institutions in the country and overseeing the activities of publishers and bookshops in the frame of relevant regulations. Leading and supporting film making centres, script writing, movie theatres, film screening centres, photo shops and producers of audio visual cassettes and issuing licenses and with drawing them for such institutions and foreseeing their activities.

By early 2014 it had changed substantially. Along with an expanded set of responsibilities the following set of objectives had been added. A-Objectives 1 2

Promoting the moral values based on faith and piety. Cultural independence and protecting the society from influence of alien cultures.

128 3 4 5 6

Cinema is a weapon Promoting the public awareness in various areas and fostering of talents and spirit of research and study, innovation and Islamic art and culture. Acquainting the people of the world with the principles and objectives of Islamic Revolution. Promotion of cultural ties with various nations and Islamic and oppressed nations in particular. Preparing the ground for unity among Muslims.

The first two of these objectives are simply yet another re-working of the 1982 regulations. Most interesting are the last three, which are proactive rather than defensive statements.

Foreign policy and cultural diplomacy Just as Iran’s cinema industry is so closely connected to government domestic policy, the Iranian government, like many others, extends its foreign policy to foreign cultural diplomacy. After 2009 this was increasingly evident, when the latter term became all but synonymous with its policy on the soft war. It is therefore important to ground discussion of the post-2009 situation in relation to film and the soft war with a brief note about Iranian foreign policy and its connection to foreign cultural policy, the traces of which emerge in several places. These include the programming of Fajr and IRI government-controlled international exhibition strategies, discussed further on. Iran places its major emphasis on its relations with other Muslim nations, demonstrated through its commitment to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), established in 1969, and according to its website the second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations. Another alliance of mainly Muslim nations is the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) “an intergovernmental regional organization established in 1985 by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey for the purpose of promoting economic, technical and cultural cooperation among the Member States” (ECO website). Other members are the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Republic of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Republic of Uzbekistan. Iran has particularly strong connections to Lebanon and Palestine through the umma. The series of revolutions and riots that began in late 2010 and known in the Western world as the Arab Spring were also co-opted. Iranian authorities and news media branded this the Islamic Awakening and quickly incorporated it into foreign policy in line with the early Khomeini speeches “advocating the ‘export of the Islamic Revolution’” (Naficy, Social History 3 10). Iran cultivates its relationship with China and Russia for trade purposes. The rhetoric emphasises a connection with the former as ancient civilisations at either end of the Silk Road, but the trade impetus has increased dramatically with the Belt and Road Initiative announced in 2013. The latter is a more recent historical connection which began after the Bolshevik Revolution. Put simplistically, Soviet

Cinema is a weapon 129 Russia extricated itself from the Anglo-Russian imperialist rivalries for Iran and established an ongoing re-alignment with Iran. Another important alliance is the Non-aligned Movement (NAM). NAM, established in Belgrade in 1961, was conceived by Jawaharlal Nehru to help the so-called Developing World resist both American and Soviet efforts to enlist them in the Cold War. This concept resonated with Khomeini’s famous slogan of “neither East nor West” and Iran joined NAM in 1979, straight after the revolution. The sixteenth NAM summit was held in Tehran from 26 to 31 August 2012, after which the presidency was handed to Ahmadinejad, ex-officio.

Halal and haram: Moqavamet and Hollywoodism In 2010 two more concepts became increasingly prominent in the government film rhetoric, “Moqavemat” and “Hollywoodism”. A deliberate part of the strategy toward achieving the ideological project of a Muslim cinema, they formed a kind of moral dualism, paralleling that between halal and haram and drawing some of their force from these terms. “Moqavemat” is the Arabic word for “resistance” and is used, for example, with reference to the Palestinian struggle. It began to selectively replace the term “Sacred Defence” which had, as we have seen, strong connections with the Iran-Iraq War. By 2013 Shamaqdari could state firmly that the Iran-Iraq war was against Saddam Hussein, not the Iraqi people (Interview). “Sacred defence” had gradually metamorphosed into “Resistance” as Iran allied itself even more firmly with the entire Muslim world (and NAM) and against the United States and Israel. “Hollywoodism”, for its part, was coined as the name of a conference, but it meant more as demonstrated by Shamaqdari’s response to a 2013 question about the meaning of the term. Asked whether the term meant anti-Hollywood, anti-colonialism, or anti-imperialism, his response was that this was “on the right track” without explicating more (Interview). Here I will elaborate a little further using a variety of contextual information to show that it did, indeed, mean a combination of these different senses of the term. A relation to Hollywood is a common defining feature among national cinemas. Tom O’Regan has suggested that all national cinemas “partake of a broader ‘conversation’ with Hollywood and other national cinemas. They carve a space locally and internationally for themselves in the face of the dominant international cinema, Hollywood” (1). Crofts talks, as already discussed, of “European and Third World entertainment cinemas which struggle against Hollywood with limited or no success” (44). While a number of European and Asian countries have taken a stance against Hollywood dominance in the interests of protecting their own national cinemas, on economic grounds, and/or from an ideological or cultural basis, boycotting or limiting imports, the IRI’s opposition has been perhaps the most hostile. This is line with its foreign policy which maintains a clear binary opposition between those it sees as its allies and the West, most especially the U.S.

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While Hollywood’s connections to the White House are undeniable, my personal observation from many discussions and observing the written demonstration of this antagonism, is that the IRI bases its understanding of this connection on its own direction and control over the Iranian film industry. It does not see the separation of powers intrinsic to the U.S. and other Western countries dealings with their film industries. This is because “separation” is not stated as such nor constitutionally guaranteed; rather it is a messier and much more governmentally imposed and authorised negotiation is the norm. Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, its leaders understood the political implications of Hollywood’s global market dominance as both economic and ideological (or spiritual) problems, and cultivation of a specifically antiHollywood attitude has been consistent except for the brief moment of Khatami’s attempts at rapprochement. Early in his presidency, in 1998, there was a meeting in Cannes between Iranian and U.S. officials for the ‘US-Iran Cinema Exchange’. With the help of the House of Cinema, a second such meeting was arranged for 1999. Points agreed upon were not only the standard exchanges of film industry personalities but also the possibility of the U.S. building multiplex theatres in Tehran (Farahmand 97). Little seems to have resulted from this. The first signs of a heightened antagonism towards Hollywood post-Khatami occurred in 2007 when the government registered a complaint with the United Nations about racial stereotyping in 300 (Zack Snyder, 2007), a film about a battle between the Greeks and the Persians in 480 BC. This was initiated by Shamaqdari, then an art advisor to the president, who claimed the film as “part of a comprehensive U.S. psychological war aimed at Iranian culture”. CBC Arts reported, “Even some American reviewers noted the political overtones of the West-against-Iran storyline and noted that it comes at a time of increased tensions between the U.S. and Iran.” Nonetheless, those familiar with the work of Frank Miller, the author of 300, will recognise that the extreme polarisation of good and evil is a regular formula in his work. Sin City, a film based on another of his graphic novels, positions the Roman Catholic Church and the city mayor as the epitome of evil. The Islamic Republic then took issue with The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008) for the naming of a character “the Ayatollah”. Ahmadinejad also rejected a request by Oliver Stone to make a documentary about him despite Stone’s documentaries about Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat. Government antagonism was only to intensify. In early 2009 it had seemed that there might be some scope for a rapprochement. The House of Cinema hosted the Iranian side of an exchange with Hollywood in which Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Sid Ganis and a Hollywood industry group held talks with Iranian industry representatives on bilateral cooperation. However, the official, publicly aired response to the visit was negative. Shamaqdari announced that “[Iranian] cinema officials will only have the right to have official sessions with . . . Hollywood movie-makers when they apologise to the Iranians for their 30 years of insults and slanders,” and that “[t]he Iranian people and our revolution have been repeatedly unjustly attacked by Hollywood. We will believe Obama’s policy of change when we see change in Hollywood too, and if Hollywood wants

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to correct its behaviour towards Iranian people and Islamic culture then they have to officially apologise” (Tait). When the return visit came up, of the ten Iranian participants, actress Motamed Arya and documentary filmmaker Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (who later co-directed This is not a Film with Panahi) were barred from leaving the Islamic Republic, ostensibly because of their political activism. That this visit had not been viewed positively by the regime became even clearer in January 2012 when the Hollywood visit was one of several incidents cited as justification for the closing of the HOC. This renewed government positioning of Hollywood as the tool of the U.S., “the Great Satan”, saw an even more aggressive expression in a conference entitled Hollywoodism, introduced as part of the 2011 Fajr Film Festival. The term “Hollywoodism” seems to have been coined by Neal Gabler in An Empire of Their Own: How The Jews Invented Hollywood, which Simcha Jacobovici turned into a documentary in 1997 entitled, Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies, and the American Dream. This film traces the rise of the Jewish movie moguls in a positive way, which film critic Gerald Peary described as “Jewish boosterism” (Peary). The term was inflected with new meaning however at Fajr’s two-day international conference, which was chaired and organised by the filmmaker Nader Talebzadeh. This filmmaker had been a constant in the development of the concept of Iranian spiritual cinema. Now he was at the forefront in the renewed positioning of Hollywood as the nemesis of a spiritual cinema. The masthead of this conference website featured an undated quote from the Supreme Leader, “Most of the companies and industries in Hollywood reflect a united political will behind the American political scene, and sometimes even go beyond [the political objectives] of passed [sic] government” (Hollywoodism Website). The advertised discussion topics were Hollywoodism, Terrorism, Pentagon & CIA; Hollywoodism and Zionism; Hollywoodism, Anti Iran and Anti Islam; Hollywood and American Lifestyle. Participants included some thirty invited guests from, among other countries, Bulgaria, Romania, France, Iraq, and the Czech Republic. Many of the guests were filmmakers, and it was clear that from the Iranian side co-productions and “appropriate” location shooting were also on the agenda. The Tehran Times reported Iranian funding possibilities in connection with some of the international delegates (Let’s make Iran the Mecca). I attended a few sessions, and my discussions with international filmmakers revealed general bewilderment at the political agenda. The conference was repeated in 2012 and 2013, with more reports of forthcoming productions coming out of them. One, to have starred Val Kilmer and Sean Stone, with the working title of Airbus, was to have been about the Iran Air flight 655 shot down by the U.S.S. Vincennes over the Persian Gulf on 3 July 1988, but there has been no trace of anything eventuating (Iranian, U.S. Companies). The 2013 agenda, following Argo’s Oscar win, was heavily weighted with topics relating to the stereotyping of Iranians. (The Hollywoodism conference was dropped after the election of Rouhani.) The Academy Awards was a major source of angst for Iranian officialdom in this period. The low-budget Sacred Defence film, Farewell Baghdad (Mehdi Naderi),

Figures 5.1 and 5.2 Collateral for the Hollywoodism conference held annually at Fajr International Film Festival between 2011 and 2013. Poster, February 2011 and banner, February 2013.

Figure 5.1 and 5.2 (Continued)

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Iran’s Foreign Language Film nominee for 2011, was the subject of controversy. According to the HOC, the film was selected directly by the MCIG rather than by the traditional selection process conforming to the rules of the (U.S.) Academy of Motion Pictures Sciences and Arts. (House of Cinema Newsletter). A contemporary article goes some way to explaining why the MCIG took this unusual step. Shafi Agha Mohammadian, then head of the DEFC, the funding organisation of the film, is quoted as saying, “Farewell Baghdad’s ‘anti-American content’ might help its chances of winning an Oscar. . . . The Oscars set a new policy every year and usually other countries are not aware of these policies. . . . We believe there is currently a policy of opposing the deployment of US military forces around the world – a sentiment also shared by Hollywood” (Iranian Film on). This rationalisation might not seem persuasive to a Western reader and also seems at odds with the regime’s contemporaneous attitude to Hollywood. Does the overruling of the HOC by the MCIG to select a low-budget film that they feel had a chance of winning indicate positivity towards the Oscars, or that the IRI was testing Khamenei’s earlier cited statement, that revolutionary films never win international awards (Naficy 4, 252). In the following year Iran’s hopes were rewarded when Farhadi’s, A Separation, already the recipient of a number of high-profile international awards, became the first Iranian film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The official Iranian response to this was mixed. This was hardly the kind of film that Khameni had in mind in 1992 when he complained of lack of acknowledgement of Iranian revolutionary films. Instead it dealt with divorce because the wife wanted to leave Iran for the future of her daughter, and the husband wanted to stay to acknowledge the past in caring for his father, suffering from dementia. Some considered that the film showed negative aspects of Iran and that it was rewarded for that reason. “Insider” Iranian film critic, Masoud Farasati, already mentioned in relation to “festival films”, made a connection that no Western critic ever would: “on the one hand they [the U.S.] impose sanctions against us, and on the other they give awards to our film, to send us a positive signal” (Social History 4, 260). While Western film writers have long pondered what they consider the contradictory situation of the “humanistic” Iranian films from a country with a poor human rights record, from a Western perspective the connection between sanctions and an Oscar is a nebulous irony rather than a government-determined one. Notably the film’s quality was not discussed. Lenziran, an external news service, reported with obvious bemusement that Cinema 7’s cinema programme Haft had deliberately ignored reporting Farhadi’s return to Iran from the Oscars, ironically scheduling a debate about Kiarostami, whose films are not screened in Iran. When one of the panellists turned the conversation around, Ferasati tried to discredit the award and Farhadi (Subject of Debate Changed). Furthermore, a ceremony in honour of Farhadi was cancelled by the government. Payvand Iran News, a U.S.-based Iranian news service noted with bemusement two responses. It stated, “That [A Separation] had won over the Israeli entry, Footnote, garnered much attention,” illustrating this with quotes from Shamaqdari (“This is the beginning of the collapse of the influence of the

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Zionist lobby over American society”) and noted Iranian state television’s report that the Iranian movie had “left behind” a film from the “Zionist regime” (Tehran Calls Oscar Win a Victory Over Israel). All this feels like an adjunct to cultural diplomacy. The issue of negative representations of Iranians reared its head again with Ben Affleck’s Argo and its 2013 Oscar win (Iran Divided). This film, with its many inaccuracies about the real event, was widely offensive – to Canadians and New Zealanders as well as to Iranians everywhere. That, unusually, Michelle Obama presented the award seemed particularly provocative. The Iranian government pursued the issues of representation to the point of considering litigation and announced that Iran would be making its own version, with the working title of The General Staff (Iran Considering Lawsuit).

Showcasing Muslim cinema from 1983 to 2013 through the Fajr International Film Festival A crucial public cultural site is the Fajr International Film Festival, “Iran’s most important film presentation and competition” (Fajr Intl. Film Festival 2013). An analysis of the major programming strands from its inception in 1983 to 2013 strongly evidences the connection between foreign and cultural policy, demonstrates the government’s long-term commitment to its ideological projects, and shows the modulations within the programming as paralleling the different presidencies. The festival has several ends. It is a domestic showcase for Iranian cultural policy, a vehicle for cultural diplomacy, and a site for political struggle by the industry. It can be assumed that from the government perspective a major role for Fajr is to showcase Iranian cinema. This showcasing does not encompass the totality of Iranian national cinema. Indeed, as at most international film festivals, popular cinema is largely excluded. Neither is it fully inclusive of what the West considers appropriate festival fare from Iran, although there is some overlap. There are examples of films screening at Fajr only to be later banned (e.g. Offside), and conversely the screening of films previously refused screening permits (e.g. Payback). However, the selection generally demonstrates compatibility with “the current national and Islamic values” (Iranian New Cinema, 3). The festival is therefore something of a barometer and a space for the articulation of the state of play with respect to cultural policy, cultural diplomacy, and filmmaker influence. A politically contextualised overview of the Fajr’s programme in terms of its titles, its programme sections, and its section titles taken from the catalogues and the English language publications for its international arm over the period from 1983 to 2013 reveals more than these showcasing ends. Rather it demonstrates how the changing emphases and policies of Fajr between 1983 and 2013 reflect the changing governments, and particularly the increasing emphases on Muslim filmmaking and cultural diplomacy after the 2010 edition (the first since the 2009 election). It also underlines my discussion of film as a political marker in the struggle between the filmmakers and the industry.

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My analysis focuses initially on the festival as an event and then moves to consider the rhetoric surrounding it. The international films at the first five festivals (that is, between 1983 and 1988) were largely drawn from Asia, NAM, ECO, politically motivated cinema movements such as neo-realism and Cuban, and the spiritually inclined Tarkovsky. In the seventh festival, 1989, a more Eurocentric selection was presented as the festival tentatively embraced international cinema. This coincided with the end of the Iran-Iraq War in August 1988, although before the death of Khomeini later that year. The interrupted project of Muslim cinema and other cultural diplomacy alliances re-emerged tentatively with “Palestinian Cinema, Aspects of Resistance” (1992, seventeen films); in 1994 “International Congress of Muslim Filmmakers” (twenty-seven films) and “Cinema in ECO countries (twenty films), and in 1995 “Filmmaking in Islamic Countries” (ten films). When Khatami and his reformist government entered the scene in 1997, the emphasis on Muslim countries, NAM, ECO, and the Third Cinema was less prominent in the programme section titles, but “practically one third of all the movies” screened in 1998 belonged to the Sacred Defence genre (Naficy Social History 4: 41). Naficy noted the almost immediate impact of the reformist government on the 2000 Fajr programme. “The impact of these [diasporic] filmmakers is growing as indicated by the 2000 Fajr festival roster, which for the first time included films from three such returnees” (Making Films 43). In 2001 Khatami’s presence was very obvious. He had developed the concept of “Dialogue Among Civilizations” in response to Samuel P. Huntington’s theory, “The Clash of Civilizations”, first promulgated in 1993. Khatami’s concept gained international support to the extent that the United Nations proclaimed the year 2001 as The Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations, and the cover of that year’s Fajr Film Festival catalogue bore the statement, “The Year of Dialog [sic] among Civilizations”. Along with tributes to Iranian filmmakers, the usual international cinephile retrospectives had already become standard fare in Fajr since Khatami’s election. The 2001 programme was balanced differently. Non-Hollywood Western programming included tributes to Ken Loach (present at the festival as a jury member) and neo-realist filmmaker Roberto Rossellini. This more international approach remained under new festival director, Mohammad-Mahdi Asgarpour, in 2002 when Elia Kazan and Sidney Poitier were featured. There were two other segments of particular interest for this analysis – Cinema in Afghanistan (Muslim cinema) and In Pursuit of Peace, very much a part of the Khatami rhetoric. As discussed in the first chapter, in 2003 an Interfaith Award, intended “to single out films which dramatise values which are common to Islam and Christianity”, was introduced. At the 23rd festival, in 2005, the controversial “Competition of Spiritual Cinema”, which included Theodoris Angelopoulos’ The Weeping Meadow (2004) and the Iranian/Tunisian production, Bab’ Aziz (2006), was introduced into the international section. Concurrent with the introduction of the “Spiritual Cinema” award was the re-introduction of an Asian cinema section with its own award. It is a truism that spirituality is considered a characteristic more likely to be found in Asian cinema than Western cinema. In, for example,

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the introduction to When Strangers Meet: Visions of Asia and Europe in Film, a publication from the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema, the (Asian) editors write, “It’s been said before and perhaps it’s worth saying again – the essence of the Asian aesthetic is its spirituality. The search for the eternal and the embrace of it is a way of life that’s been lived for centuries” (Vasudev and Cheah 5). That Farabi should concurrently introduce the two awards suggests an alignment, also congruent with the position of the largely Asian constituency of the Non-aligned Movement. The next festival, in 2010, was the first to follow the contested election and reflected the hardening government attitude. The Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, wrote in his introduction to the catalogue, “The cinema of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the offspring of the Revolution. This cinema is the soul-mate of the Revolution and perhaps its twin entity” (Fajr Catalogue 2010 4). This was the year in which Iranian filmmakers campaigned for foreigners to boycott the festival. Ken Loach, who had been a juror at Fajr in 2001, was invited by the organisers to head the international jury, undoubtedly a political move on their part because in 2009 Loach had pulled his film, Looking for Eric, from the Edinburgh and Melbourne International Film Festivals in response to their accepting Israeli cultural funding. In a widely reported move, Loach (along with Peter Brooks), declined, noting his support for the filmmakers’ boycott (Sandels). While the Asian cinema category and its competition remained, as did the Interfaith Award, the singling out of spiritual cinema disappeared from Fajr after the appointment of Shamaqdari as the Deputy Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance for Cinema and Audio-Visual Affairs. His opposition to the concept of a ma’nagara, or spiritual cinema grouping, noted earlier, was on the basis that this should be a characteristic common to all Iranian cinema. Instead of the spiritual section there were the competitive Quest for Truth and Justice and the noncompetitive Cinema of Oppression sections, both of which only figured in that year’s programme. The government resumed its usual tactic of loosening up a little in the face of the strong industry protest and screened some previously banned films. Among them was Milani’s film Payback, banned by then for three years. Milani subsequently chaired the International Jury and her film received one of the sought-after slots in the Farabi slate for the Cannes market screenings. In the Color of Purple (banned for five years) by Ebrahim Hatamikia, “the most prominent director of fiction war films” was another (Naficy Social History 4: 26). The film depicts a romance between an Iranian intelligence agent and the daughter of a leader of the illegal Muhadjadeen movement. According to newspaper reports in 2010, In the Color of Purple had been “withdrawn from the screening schedule of the 2005 Fajr International Film Festival by Hatamikia due to the objections of the Intelligence Ministry” (Iran Culture Ministry). One report noted that the producer, Jamal Sadatian, wrote directly to the president, asking him to remove the screening restrictions on the film (Iran Culture Ministry lifts ban). The film synopsis in the Fajr catalogue in 2010 rather coyly omitted any mention of political affiliations: “Story of the birth of an emotional relation between a young couple – the same eternal story of mankind”

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[sic] (Fajr Catalogue 2010 14). Ironically Color subsequently won Best Film at Fajr and Hatamikia the award for Best Director. In 2011 the local industry continued its boycott; as foreign guests who did attend were breaking it, the “fringe” screenings at filmmaker homes no longer took place. Most of the budget for guest programmers had been allocated to the already-discussed Hollywoodism seminar. The overtly political priorities were clearly ascendant over film industry concerns and priorities. By 2012 the Fajr programme had absorbed and reflected the 2011 “Arab Spring” or the “Islamic Awakening” as the government had branded it. Held under the theme of “Morality, Awareness, and Hope”, Fajr 2012 retained the Iranian and international productions grouped as World Panorama (Competition of International Cinema) and the Eastern Vista (Competition of Asian Cinema) and added a new category, the Cinema of Salvation (Competition of Muslim Countries Cinema) (Fajr Catalogue 2012 5). Yet despite the addition of the new category, the call for entries for the World Panorama – International Competition also took Muslim issues into consideration as one of its criteria: This section is organized with the principal objective of discovering and evaluating films concerned with man and aspects of his capabilities and capacities which determine his unique position in the entire creation, emphasizing

Figure 5.3 At the opening night of the Fajr International Film Festival, 8 February 2011.

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the necessity of fighting injustice, pursuit of justice, observing human rights and reflecting Islamic awakening among nations. (Farabi website) Another award, the Golden Phoenix Prize of Asian Cultural Affinities reinforced the ongoing importance of the Asian connection. By 2013 it seemed to me that the MCIG of Ahmadinejad had the festival it wanted. A new festival director had been appointed. Mohammad-Reza Abbasian had made some documentaries, was formerly with IRIB and CMI, and allegedly had strong connections with the deputy minister. At the time of his appointment, he was already the head of the longstanding VMI. The organisation of both the festival and the market was passed from Farabi, responsible for the previous thirty years, to VMI. The whole frontispiece to the catalogue was devoted the following statement by Ayatollah Khomeini: “Cinema is one of the epitomes of civilization that should be at people’s service to train them” (Fajr Catalogue 2013 2). Elsewhere was an explanation of its ongoing relevance by Khamenei: “Today, the key to the country’s progress lies in your hands . . . what you do today can tomorrow help the youth have confidence in themselves and develop faith in their Islamic and national values and identity.” This very important latter statement from Khamenei connects Khomeini and the past to the present and the future in one continuous line, and at the same time connects Islamic values and nation. Hosseini’s introduction in the Fajr catalogue that year continued the theme: “Islamic awakening has conquered the hibernation and Arabic spring has revealed. Filmmakers can be the leader of world Islamic movement caravan” (Fajr Catalogue 2013, 8). The formula of the sections in 2013 was similar to the previous year, the “Competition of Islamic World’s Filmmakers” was drawn from the “Cinema of Salvation” section; the “World Panorama Competition of World Cinema” once again made Muslim filmmaking part of its brief, promising the “Festival Director’s Special Award to the Best Film on the Islamic Awakening.” An interesting inclusion in the Iranian section was Golden Collars or Golden Leashes, by Abolqasem Talebi, an official version of the unrest that erupted after the 2009 presidential election. It was reportedly screened at about 3:00 a.m. on a Friday morning because of concerns of oppositional protests (Sacred Defense Shines). The film was later given a coveted Nowruz release and led the way at the box office. The programme also included “Spotlight on China”, a nod to one of Iran’s allies, with senior Chinese official filmmakers in attendance, along with a selection of 3D films, designed to showcase recent Iranian forays into the area. A revival of “Films from the NonAligned Movement Member Countries” acknowledged Iran’s recent assumption of the chairmanship of the NAM. Prior to 2013 the screening programme organised for foreign guests consisted of films most likely to appeal to their taste and requirements, although a few of the big-budget Islamic films were included. However, in 2013 it showcased government approved contemporary filmmaking, most of which strongly foregrounded Muslim themes. Many industry colleagues considered the best films

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were withheld. While “Hollywoodism” had been a sidebar to Fajr between 2010 and 2012 because, as a Farabi insider told me, Farabi had refused to include it in the main programme, in 2013 the conference was a fully integrated highlight of the festival, with more than fifty international guests and extensive media coverage. The Deputy Minister, Shamaqdari, displayed his pleasure in the newly constituted festival with a prominent presence. His unprecedented speech at the traditional reception to welcome international guests was very political, discussing the sanctions and conflating the work of young nuclear scientists and young filmmakers (personal transcription). The Minister, Hosseini, said in his festival wrap that, “The 31st Fajr Film Festival was much better than its previous editions both in terms of quality and quantity of the participated films” (Fajr Intl. Film Festival 2013 names). However, on 20 February Iranian television reported a meeting between Supreme Leader Khamenei, Shamaqdari, and others, the import of which was that Fajr was not very Islamic. That Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, chose to attend the meeting emphasises its importance. By May 2013 the director had resigned from his positions as head of VMI and director of Fajr amidst many industry rumours. If any more evidence might be needed of the Iranian government’s perception of Fajr as a tool for cultural diplomacy, the new President Rouhani provided it in his carefully worded speech for the opening of the 2014 edition, acknowledging the problems of the past: Now in a time when the world has welcomed Iran’s message of ‘a world free of violence and extremism’, and the cutting edge of Iranophobia has become more blunt, and the voices advocating moderation and rationality have reverberated in this country, Fajr Festival could contribute greatly to such objectives. (Rouhani’s message opens) Fajr would remain an important political site simultaneously positioning Iranian cultural policy, cultural diplomacy, and filmmaker showcase.

Beyond Fajr: showcasing Muslim cinema domestically The Moqavemat International Film Festival is held as part of the annual Sacred Defence Week, commemorating the Iran-Iraq War. Formerly called the Sacred Defence Film Festival, this festival was revived and rebranded in 2010 to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the start of the Iran-Iraq War. An important way of making sense of this is that this revival and rebranding was taking place between the 2009 election and the “Islamic Awakening”. Although the new festival assembled an international jury, it targeted a largely local audience and functioned as a showcase for model Islamic cinema, also including a few relevant international films. Its catalogue firmly listed it as Moqavemat, but press such as Lenziran and Press TV still referenced the old name, and from the visual evidence the old name was still in use in banners at the events (Antisemitic film).

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The introductions by the festival director and ministers in the catalogue for the first edition of the re-positioned festival in 2010 show the extent of the push to Muslim filmmaking and are worthy of extended analysis. The first of the four introductions in the catalogue was from the chief of the Basij organization. This organization’s very presence firmly positioned the festival. The minister Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, contributed a poetic introduction, expostulating on the festival’s theme “Sacred War is Non Repetitive story”, presumably to countermand any view that this genre might have passed its used-by date (Moquavamet Catalogue 2010 9). Festival Director Mohammad Khaza’ee wrote, “I was wondering myself ‘why this festival?’ and ‘why we?’ what is our aim? . . . Good for me that I have the honor of serving the great and exalted festival or resistance. The future will tell if we were a true servant or we change this festival to a superficial and transient one” (Moquavamet Catalogue 2010, 11). The introduction from Shamaqdari is an illuminating document worth quoting in full. Every nation which owns culture tries to make its role immanent among other nations and history by acquiring identity and honors. The acquired identity is usually based on an event and process that may not be reliable at the first, but referring to a nation and its prodigies to the event makes a myth out of it that would be a virtual myth for the years and also centuries of a nation and culture and is [sic] also it takes benefits out of it. (Moquavamet Catalogue 2010 10) This opening statement suggests both the nation-building aspect of Sacred Defence and that renewed emphasis on the genre is required for it to maintain its relevance some twenty-one years later. He emphasises this himself by adding that, The eight year sacred war is an event that thoughtful personalities and history narrators sometimes forget it [sic] and minor officials targeted it to presumably add another page of history instead of it and infamous artists tried to recompense their artlessness by scratching its beautiful face and received plate of honor from marauders and history distorters. After this attack on intransigent filmmakers, which has been situated in the earlier remarks about the search for honours, he makes the transformation from the original concept of Sacred Defence (Muslim fighting Muslim) to the concept of resistance or umma: The eight-year sacred war is the resistance myth of a great nation who kept loyalty to their ideals and could achieve all technologies and knowledge and information of a western civilization by reliance on believing in God and their religious believes [sic]. Somehow this manages to integrate and conflate all the political issues between Iran and the West from Hollywoodism to nuclear energy. Finally, Shamaqdari

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hopes that “Cinema of Sacred War could bring about a big turning point in Iranian cinema and all artistic creations of the world”, centralizing not just Iranian cinema but Sacred Defence cinema in global terms. The festival director, however, was quite blunt in stating the aim of the festival to the press: “Our desire is to make something happen in the international arena to allow us to become a centre for filmmakers spotlighting popular resistance to global arrogance in their works” (Let’s make Iran the Mecca of Anti-imperialist Cinema).

Muslim filmmaking: the question of definition Statements in Fajr and Moqavemat Film Festival catalogues and websites and to the press by relevant festival personnel between 2010 and 2013 firmly re-connect cinema to both Khomeini and the revolution, and make the breadth if not the parameters of the ideological project of Muslim filmmaking eminently clear, but the question of definition still remains. Hosseini (then Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance) defined Iranian cinema as follows in 2010: “It has to be admitted that cinema in this country is characterized by purity of content, with a moral purpose, honest and aimed at entire families” (Fajr Catalogue 2010 4). For his part, Mahdi Masoudshahi, Director of Fajr that year, characterised Iranian cinema as non-violent and humanistic (Interview). In November 2011 at the Roshd International Film Festival, the Deputy Minister for Education, in addressing that year’s largely Western jury members (of whom I was one) undertook the task of defining the characteristics of Iranian cinema – chief among the characteristics was that oftcited phrase “humanism”. From these statements by very senior figures of the IRI can be drawn the synonyms or ciphers for Iranian “Muslim” filmmaking – Muslim, Islam, faith, family values, purity of content and moral purpose, and Sacred Defence all rolled together seamlessly into one. Humanism need not be incompatible with these but also not the equivalent; spirituality, as evidenced in the statement by Shamaqdari referenced earlier, is a given. However even for the government the difficulty in precisely defining Muslim filmmaking remained. I decided to go to the very heart of Iranian Islamic filmmaking by asking Shamaqdari outright about it. In an interview with him in February 2013 he stated, “Iran as the centre of Muslim Filmmaking? Well of course.” His frank answer when asked to define “Muslim filmmaking” acknowledged the problem of a definitive statement. I was surprised that he immediately conceded the ambiguity of the term, noting that people defined it in various ways – films made by Muslims, films made in Muslim countries, or as embracing Muslim values. Despite its use in the political rhetoric, the minister seemed unable to give me an official definition of Muslim filmmaking. Despite imprecise rhetoric, what has emerged in practice was quite decisive, if at times contradictory in its import.

Controlling international sales and exhibition Moving away from the focus on domestic festivals and their programming, and the rhetoric, I want to now consider more pragmatic issues, including changes to

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the supply of films to international festivals. These changes represented a new and restrictive move by authorities to use the international screening permit system to control not only international festival release, but through this, subsequent sales and exhibition internationally. By early 2010 the media was reporting frequently on the government’s concern to control what was exported, sold, or exhibited outside Iran. Monitoring this on a daily basis, as I was doing, I had the impression that there was much contradictory rhetoric and action. It seemed like the panic of a government losing control of the situation and seeking ways to regain its authority. There was a widely reported ban on the use of foreign words in film titles, an action not particularly friendly towards the foreign market (Iran Bans the Use of Foreign Words), followed by a meeting less than a month later, on 22 May 2010, where bureaucrats in Tehran discussed their concern that since the post-election unrest of 2009, “foreign festivals have ignored the artistic aspects of Iranian cinema” (Hashem-Dehqani). This was clearly a very senior policy meeting as it occurred during the Cannes Film Festival, where most industry figures of importance would have been, with the exception of Panahi, who was on a hunger strike in Evin Prison, and for whom Cannes had ironically placed a symbolic empty chair. Iranian independent sales agents face the same basic survival difficulties as anywhere else in the world. Additionally, they face the uncertainty of international screening permits and censorship. The tightening up on the requirement for international screening permits was effected through punitive action on the filmmakers and the independent international sales agents. Those responsible for sending films for screening outside the country without the requisite permit would be banned from cinema activity for at least a year. In 2011 Atebba’i saw his license for international exhibition revoked, but in this case because of a misunderstanding. An international festival listed Niki Karimi’s Final Whistle (2011) in its schedule although the film had neither an international screening permit nor permission from Atebba’i, the sales agent and the one who needed to give the festival that permission. As Atebba’i had not agreed to the screening, he was allowed to recommence working, but the license was not re-instated for some time and filmmakers were actively discouraged from placing their films with him in favour of government agencies such as VMI (Interview). (This was an interesting case of a film having a domestic permit but not an international one. The film subsequently received an international screening permit and was presented at, among others, the Vesoul and Sydney film festivals in 2012, and the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2014.) In that same year a new and more serious hazard was experienced by the other major independent international sales agent at that time, Katayoun Shahabi of Sherhezad Media International. She was arrested along with thirteen filmmakers for her role in selling a documentary to the London-based BBC Persian which the government perceives as an enemy, although Shahabi’s company continued to operate. I experienced a different kind of control over international exhibition in 2012. I was trying to obtain a copy of Ovanes Ohanian’s Haji Agha the Cinema Actor (1933), one of very few extant Iranian silent films, from the NFAI. After two positive visits to the archive in February and November 2011, I received a very

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depressing email from them in April 2012, stating that because of the U.S. sanctions, they were unable to lend anything to me, sadly noting the connection between cultural and political affairs. This did not apply to current titles from other sources within Iran, but as the NFAI is physically located in the MCIG building and did not make many international loans, it appears to have been an isolated incident. The government also instituted a number of actions relating to the supply of films to international festivals to try to ensure that only approved films could secure screenings. From 2011 government agencies, including Farabi, VMI, and the Soureh Cinema Organisation, were only permitted to supply films to festivals after being informed of the full screening programme. (As far as I am aware, this was limited to smaller festivals, largely those screening only Iranian films.) If all films on a festival’s screening programme had screening permits, the government agencies could supply their own titles. Sometimes films were withdrawn after acceptance. This became evident in some international festival websites, where the festivals concerned employed the old technique of leaving the title in the schedule but clearly signalling its withdrawal by external sources for political reasons. Here Without Me, for example, was withdrawn by VMI from screening at the twenty-second Annual Festival of Films from Iran at the Gene Siskel Centre in Chicago in 2011. This was because the festival was also screening the controversial film, Circumstance. However even here there was some slippage, with internal staff in some of the government organisations not implementing tight observation. IFFA, of which I was co-director, had screened Circumstance in 2011. VMI was well aware of this, but as IFFA’s 2012 line-up was suitable, sympathetic staff placed Here Without Me in our festival, stating to me, “That was last year!” Moreover, through VMI, the government returned to organising its own Iranian Film Weeks in non-Muslim counties. This seemed like another attempt to control what was screened. In February 2011 when I approached Ali Ghasemi, Head of International Sales at VMI for specific films for IFFA he suggested (albeit halfheartedly, knowing I would not agree) that he would provide the whole festival programme and mentioned future plans for international Iranian Film Weeks. These film weeks subsequently occurred in many countries and were fastidiously reported in the Iranian press. This could be considered cultural diplomacy, but I would argue that it was also another way of controlling what was screened internationally. The product was drawn from the full domestic range, not just VMI titles. Each festival had a slightly different line-up. In 2012, for example, A Separation and Here Without Me screened in different festivals.

Film and Muslim world cultural diplomacy There were two forms to the re-instated international Iranian film festivals organised by the government. Although ‘Iranian Film Weeks’ were held in Europe, NAM countries and elsewhere, for Muslim nations a different rhetoric was employed. For example, in 2010 it was reported that, “Iran Sacred Defense Film Festivals [were] to be held in five Muslim states”, with “festivals focusing on

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the subject of the U.S.-backed Iraqi-imposed war on Iran (1980–1988)” (Iran Sacred Defense Film Festivals). This comment is remarkable because not only did it conflate Sacred Defence and resistance, but suddenly the United States had been inserted into the rhetoric. Moreover the deputy secretary of what was called the 11th International Sacred Defense Film Festival, Mohammad Sanati, further commented that the purpose of the festival was to “encourag[e] production of films on Sacred Defense and pav[e] the ground for the presence of the Iranian cinema in the Muslim countries” (my emphasis). These events continued beyond the 2013 election. In December 2014 the Mehr News Agency announced the start of the Iranian Resistance Film Festival in Delhi, describing it as presenting “those screen products focused on the theme of Iran’s Sacred Defense, which refers to Iran’s 8-year resistance against the Iraqi invasion in the 1980s” (Iran launches Resistance Film Festival in India). This particular iteration had been held in Palestine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Turkey before arriving in India. Two of the five films were “Magnificent Productions”, Reclamation and The Fourth Child. (Both the term and the films will be discussed further on.) The political value of these film events was emphasised by the Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi when speaking at the opening ceremony of an Iranian film event in Tunis in 2012. He noted the event was an opportunity to develop cultural relations between the two Muslim nations, “Since the western films propagate corrupt immoral ideals, Iranian films are preferred by Muslims around the world; Tunisia’s revolution is another achievement for such a great civilization.” The Tunisian foreign minister responded that Iran’s cinema was progressive, adding, “The Islamic culture has connected regional Muslim countries, including Tunisia and Iran” (Iran, Tunisia to expand cultural relations). In December 2012 a Sacred Defence Film Festival was held in Ankara, Turkey (Iran Sacred Defense Film). Among the eight films were Gilaneh, Here Without Me, and Gold and Copper. While there is some ambiguity around Gilaneh, as previously discussed, the other two have no connection with war themes. Thus, the use of “Sacred Defence” in the titles of such events is politically motivated rather than descriptive.

The hard war at home: actions speak as loudly as films Post 2009 there were many films which were considered unacceptable by the government. Although by 2012 more than 200 films had been denied a screening permit since the revolution, eighty of these were from Ahmadinejad’s presidency. But the problem was larger than film content. Many from the film industry had become active in the Green Movement and had begun to use their position in the public arena. Often it was activism rather than film content that was considered problematic by the government. Between 2009 and 2013, the withholding of the various types of necessary film permits was exercised not only in relation to film content (censorship) but as a form of punishment for the activism of directors, writers, or actors. Furthermore, there were jail sentences, lashings, and fines. During this time the government clarified its action against activism, underground

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filmmaking, and films sent abroad without permits, with those responsible being banned from cinematic activity for at least a year. Milani’s arrest and ten days in jail in 2001 had related to the content of her film, Two Women. Panahi’s arrest in 2010 was only technically related, being for an illegal film shoot which took place in his own apartment. According to Panahi, he and Rasoulof, also arrested, were making a film about “a family and the post-election developments”; the charge was, “assembly and colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic”. Panahi was heavily and visibly involved in activism for the Green Movement. He organised, for example, all members of the international jury at the 2009 Montreal World Film Festival to wear green scarves at the well-documented red-carpet closing ceremony. As I write this, I hear in my head his fellow Azarbaijani, Tamineh Milani, exclaiming excitedly, “I keep telling Jafar he’s a filmmaker not an activist”. But as Panahi noted in interview, When people like me do these things, we know what position we are in. We are recognized around the world and so the authorities cannot pressure us too much. . . . If we don’t resist, the path will be blocked for the new filmmaker and therefore in the eyes of the next generation we will be responsible. There is no other way. (Zeydabadi-Nejad, 153) Nonetheless, his physical appearance shortly after his release from Evin Prison, indicated that it had been a difficult time. Rasoulof was arrested with Panahi but held for only seventeen days. Punishment for his much more subversive subsequent films has only been the withholding of his passport, but, on both occasions, he has not returned to Iran immediately, instead joining his family whom he has relocated to Hamburg. Farhadi also experienced conflicts with the government in relation to both About Elly and A Separation, both completely unrelated to the content of his films. As previously noted, the screening of About Elly at Fajr in 2009 was in jeopardy. The direct cause was Golshifteh Farahani’s role in Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies and her lack of a hijab at the film’s New York red carpet premiere. Ahmadinejad intervened, noting, I understand anecdotally, that she was only one of an ensemble cast and that the others should not be punished. Farhadi’s problems in relation to A Separation lay on the domestic front. In September 2010 Farhadi delivered a speech at an award presentation ceremony at the 14th Iran Cinema Celebration expressing regret at the isolation of a number of prominent cineastes, including Makhmalbaf, Panahi, Beyzai’i, Naderi, and Farahani. While shooting the court scene in A Separation, he was taken in overnight for questioning and his production permit was withdrawn for a few days (Iran’s Culture Ministry Lifts). Culture Minister Hosseini explained, “The main issue is not Farhadi or his film. We believe that cultural and artistic groups . . . must not be involved in political matters”.

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The impact on actresses has also been high, if less reported. Farahani went into exile. Motamed Arya experienced much trouble for not wearing a hijab and other minor misdemeanours when travelling. This was undoubtedly not helped by her 2001 election documentary supporting Khatami or her public support of the Green Movement. She was fined a prohibitive amount, around US$80,000, forced to apologise to the randomly chosen family of a martyr, embarrassing for both parties, and had her image temporarily banned from the screen (Interview). There was a stage when no film in which she was cast could get casting approval. Although she was the lead in Here Without Me, the initial street banners and posters omitted her image till she complained. Later some Basiji members burnt posters featuring her image (Démy-Geroe). As for Panahi’s actresses, Shayesteh Irani, from Offside and also in Facing Mirrors (Azarbayjani), expressed to me in conversation that she is always cautious in both her personal and professional life, because of the nature of those two films. Maryam Moqadam, Panahi’s lead in Closed Curtain, was forbidden from acting for two years. Marzieh Vafamehr, the lead in Granaz Mousavi’s, My Tehran For Sale, was fined and sentenced to ninety lashes for appearing onscreen with her head shaved well after the film had been made and screened, although there have been several trouble-free precedents and all permits for the film had been given. These are examples of just a few conflicts between the government and the filmmaking community that occurred during Ahmadinejad’s second term, some related to censorship of film content and others which must be categorised as punishment for activism. Against this, the heightened profile of “Muslim cinema”, must be placed. The other, third element in the government’s struggle to regain control over the industry centred on the House of Cinema. Perhaps the two most important organisations relating to film production are the Ministry of Culture and Islam Guidance (MCIG) and the House of Cinema (HOC). These two entities, one government and the other industry, both work together and oppose each other. The House of Cinema (Khaneh-e Sinema), sometimes referred to as the Iranian Alliance of Motion Picture Guilds – a title which broadly describes its function – is the peak industry body. It was established in 1993 to organise the industry on behalf of and under direction from the MCIG and serves as the umbrella organisation for the various industry guilds. The House of Cinema determines foreign Oscar nominees and facilitates other international liaison – for example, nominations for the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. It provides its some five thousand members with the usual professional services of such an organisation, such as professional training, and holding screenings and awards. This is where it became troublesome for the regime. It acts as an interface with government, as a lobbyist, protecting the industrial rights of its membership and issuing the necessary professional licenses for industry members to work legally. It also attempts to protect its members when political issues arise (to the extent of even assisting with hefty politically motivated fines imposed on individuals). In early 2010 its government funding was cut. Later in 2010, it was at the 14th Iran Cinema Celebration run by HOC that Farhadi delivered his aforementioned speech in support of dissident directors. Furthermore, HOC had been pro-active in protecting a number of its members from political problems. This included paying

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Motamed Arya’s aforementioned fine and advocacy for the seven documentary filmmakers, including Katayoun Shahabi (also mentioned earlier), who had been arrested in September 2011. When Rasoulof and Panahi were sentenced in October 2011, “the board’s chairman impl[ied] publicly that the detentions were politically motivated” (Iranian Ministry Should Dismiss). Early in 2012 the government tried to contain this dissent by challenging the legality of the organisation. Hadi Ghaemi, spokesperson for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, expressed what was obvious to all. “The Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance has made it very clear that the legal and procedural issues are just a pretext for attacking the House of Cinema’s independence and suppressing the artistic freedom of its members” (Iranian Judiciary). Although a judicial hearing to resolve the dispute between the government and HOC was set for 11 January 2012, on 3 January the MCIG sent HOC a letter ordering it to cease operations within twenty-four hours. The government, meanwhile, stepped up its Muslim cinema rhetoric. On 4 January, the day after sending the letter to HOC, the Minister of Culture and Islamic Affairs announced on state television, “This is not just a legal issue; religious people in our society have questioned and objected to things that have been happening in [House of Cinema’s] recent festivals. This shows these festivals are not only professional but also political” (Iranian Ministry Should Dismiss). This step and the rhetoric surrounding it virtually ensured that the closure of HOC and the ramping up of the project of Muslim filmmaking became twinned as signature film sector moves of the second term of Ahmadinejad’s presidency. Many small innovations, changes, and closing of loopholes occurred between 2009 and 2013. While individually they may seem to hold little significance, viewed as a whole they suggest a frantic attempt to control and harness. The more notable ones are discussed below. After the revolution, the government had been concerned about regulating the home entertainment market, and to this end in 1994 the Visual Media Institute, mentioned earlier, was established as the only company to (legally) service this area by distributing domestic and international video titles. The economic dominance of Hollywood in Iran in terms of the theatrical market was easy to eliminate through legislation, and the public space of the cinema gives the appearance that Hollywood has been defeated. Yet it has proved impossible to contain the presence of Hollywood films in the private space of the home and in informal social networks. Satellite dishes might be illegal, but as several films (Parisa Bakhtavar’s Tambourine 2009 and Panah Panahi’s short, The First Film 2009, among others), have made clear, “everyone” has one, and with it access to a full slate of films from around the globe. Iran’s DVD black market is more visible and possibly even more active than that for alcohol. The country abounds in illegal DVD stores and stands everywhere from the middle of the bazaar to remote mountain tracks, and young vendors wander around selling pirated DVDs on the streets to passengers in cars. As with alcohol, there is also home delivery for DVDs, portrayed in a scene in Ghobadi’s No One Knows About Persian Cats (2009). A personal and not unusual example is the pirated copy of The King’s Speech

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(Tom Hooper, 2010) that I saw for sale in the mountains outside Tehran about a month before its release in Australia. There is a substantial presence in the pirated DVD market of Hollywood products, but it would be wrong to suggest that only Hollywood films are sold in this fashion. It is on such stands that banned Iranian films, directed by Kiarostami and Panahi among others, are readily found. Indeed, Panahi boasts of the ready availability of Offside on the black market. Whether the Iranian government could not control the black market or whether it considered that this was a domestic concession better left untouched is impossible to know. It is, however, evident that the impact of cheap and ready access to these films on both filmmakers and the general audiences has been significant. Since 2010 there has been a creative initiative to countermand the supply of these illegal films through the DVD black market: legal DVD sell-through in grocery stores. While legal DVD shops have always existed, suddenly a new strategy saw posters for very commercial Iranian films and series decorating the windows of every corner grocery store (Najafi). To meet the increased demand, commercial suppliers such as FilmIran and the newly established Cinema 24 were licensed to complement the government organisation VMI, and posters for international titles such as the Harry Potter series appeared in windows alongside those for domestic titles. This has also had an impact on production by creating an increased demand for suitable sell-through products. A small loophole that was tidied up related to shooting permits. Originally only films shot on celluloid required permits. Prior to digital technology, filmmakers needed shooting permits in order to access 35mm film stock, unless they were to use the black market. However, with the introduction of digital cameras, the issue of shooting stock could be circumvented, and initially no permits were required for shooting digital productions. So a range of productions, particularly between 2000 and 2009, began as films without permits, although not necessarily oppositional. There are a number of other reasons, tied up with the filmmaking production-distribution-exhibition-government system, which function as ongoing drivers for filmmakers shooting without a permit at least at some stage during the passage of a film from inception to screening. The ongoing and chronic uncertainties associated with a screening permit even when the film has had a shooting permit, or of obtaining a commercial screening opportunity even with a screening permit, has driven many filmmakers to bypass the formal, governmentally sanctioned system. Two further conditions support this. First, it is possible to obtain permits after the fact through appropriately licensed production houses; secondly, filmmakers could gamble on their obtaining relatively easy access to international markets. After the 2009 election the rules changed, with permits required also for digital films. This was, as we have already observed, a result of both the growth of digital technology and, more importantly for the government, the ease with which problematic subjects, particularly politically oriented documentary, could be shot using it. Back in 2002 Ghazian had pointed to the problem of “inefficient marketing mechanisms, influenced by the state’s ideological and economic interference” (77). Unfortunately, he did not develop this further, instead turning to the

Figures 5.4 and 5.5 Legal sell-through DVDs from corner grocery stores was instigated in 2010. Photographs from February and November 2011.

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mismatch between supply and demand of films. I would suggest from observation that the “chasteness” of marketing still in use in film magazines and journals, evident for example in ‘Film International’, with no extreme closeups and a tendency towards the use of medium shots, and the blandness and didacticism of synopses in festival catalogues are two examples of practices not conducive to creating audience interest. In the period under discussion here distributors and exhibitors attempted new promotional strategies which ran into problems. In 2011 red carpet premieres using black limousines and body guards in suits and ties were briefly attempted and quickly banned on the grounds that they “were only an imitation of the programs that the Western countries always arrange” (Iran bans “Western style” premiere). There was more success with the introduction of street banners, which are now typically employed for big government productions. Two early films from this time period that used them were Maritime Silk Road (Muhammad Bozorgnia, 2011) and Here Without Me (Bahram Tavakoli, 2011).

Controlling the metanarrative The long arm of the government in re-harnessing the industry extended even as far as the Cinema Museum. The museum, the result of planning from 1994, with input from, among others, Abbas Kiarostami, was inaugurated in 1998. It re-opened in its present location, a beautiful Qajar building in North Tehran, in 2002. Its displays celebrate both pre- and post-revolutionary history. Until 2013 post-revolutionary history was largely portrayed through photographs, posters, and display cabinets dedicated to the domestic and international prizes of many post-revolutionary directors. (There is also a room dedicated to “Holly Defense” [sic], the only such display currently.) On display were all of Jafar Panahi’s awards for films banned in Iran (including his Golden Lion from Venice for The Circle), although he has kept his Cannes Golden Coach in his home. There was also a case for the exilic Makhmalbaf family. The museum’s souvenir booklet, published in 2008 and still being handed out in 2014, also acknowledged these awards (in the case of Panahi both his Golden Lion and his Silver Bear for Offside are mentioned). In 2013 the display was partly dismantled for political reasons, and a more generic one was installed in its place.

Conclusion The conservative Ahmadinejad presidency began making clear its goal to establish Iran as the centre for Muslim filmmaking in its first term. By the time of its return in 2009, the film industry had become a cultural site of strong political protest. The policymakers and law enforcers in Ahmadinejad’s government worked hard, if apparently erratically, to reharness the industry to the government’s own goals. A range of strategies were devised and implemented to curtail both films that could not be tolerated and filmmaker activism, whilst also creating some incentives to achieve the desired results in filmmaking. This included closer alignment with its cultural diplomacy strategies. It used the infrastructure of domestic

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festivals and international Iranian film weeks to showcase Muslim filmmaking, branding film as Sacred Defence in Muslim countries and more neutrally in nonMuslim countries. It redefined the market domestically at Fajr and revived and rebranded what became the Moqavamet Film Festival. It aligned itself with NAM countries in terms of programming its domestic festivals and in terms of attempting co-productions. All the while it demonstrated the same belligerency in its attitude towards Hollywood, which it perceived as a cultural tool of the U.S. and its interests, as it did in negotiations on nuclear energy. This was clearly directed from the Supreme Leader, whose rhetoric began from 2009 to include the “soft war”. In this chapter the focus has been largely, although not solely, on controlling devices, but the centre of the industry is the films. The next chapter complements this by concentrating on changes to production and distribution in the government sector in this era.

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After the changes wrought by Farhadi with the new narrative form of About Elly, some filmmakers began critiquing their world in a different way. These filmmakers were occupied with creating (and challenging the regime with) controversial films about corruption and dubious moral practices, such as Bakhsh’s Private Life (2012), Soheili’s The Guidance Patrol, and Rasoulof’s Manuscripts Don’t Burn (2013), all discussed earlier. This was coalescing into a kind of independent or ‘outsider’ metanarrative about Iran that was the counterpart to the government’s Magnificent Productions, discussed further on here, and that would grow under the next regime. Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance for the duration of Ahmadinejad’s second term, reminded them that culture was “not a form of entertainment”, reinforcing that Iranian government production is subject to the oppositional political pulls of film as art, film as entertainment, and film as education (Iran ready to make film).

Government production post 2009 Following the revolution, the government had established a central body for film, Farabi Cinema Foundation, and a central broadcasting authority, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), both of which conformed more or less to their counterparts in other countries in terms of their roles. In addition to these dedicated film organisations, many non-cinematographic official bodies had a production arm and/or an exhibition outlet in the form of a festival not necessarily limited to its own productions, to further their specific briefs. Whilst initially organisations had tidy roles, as in most countries, time and changing government policies blurred, moved, or changed the boundaries. Although there had been some movement from around 2000, Farabi remained the major body for funding, production, distribution, and exhibition for experienced filmmakers working with government funding until 2009. Between 2009 and 2013, there was significant dispersal of their production role as other organizations became more involved with these functions, suggesting a lack of government confidence in Farabi.

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Opening up production and distribution Increased interplay between various organisations, both private and commercial, in production and distribution emerged. Some private sector players limit their activities to either production or distribution. Others take on both or different roles on different films. Farabi and DEFC, the major government producers, hand over some individual titles for international distribution to Iranian sales agents. For example, DEFC produced Majid Barzegar’s, Rainy Seasons (2010), but gave over international sales to Iranian independents. Conversely VMI might take on a private production for distribution as it did with Bahram Tavakoli’s, Here Without Me (2011) and IRIB did with Narges Abyar’s Track 143 in 2013. Two big relatively new companies in the market were FilmIran and Film Novin. FilmIran, a major independent distribution company with a diverse slate of (largely soft arthouse) films, was formed in 2005 out of the merging of several well-known companies, with highly experienced industry players at the helm. The broad slate includes some very commercial comedies such as the big box office hit Poopak and Mashallah (2010), produced by Manijeh Hekmat (Women’s Prison (2002), 3 Women (2007)). Domestically FilmIran has also represented films such as Asghar Farhadi’s, About Elly (2009) and Kiumars Pourahmad’s, Night Bus (2006), and titles by Kamal Tabrizi, Behrouz Afkhami, and Darius Mehrju’i. In 2014 they released a US$3 million production, very large by Iranian standards and probably the largest commercial production to date, of City of Mice 2 (Marzieh Boroumand) to enormous success. This was a sequel to the very famous first part produced by Farabi in 1985 and co-directed by Boroumand and Mohammad-Ali Talebi. Finally, FilmIran has been one of the leaders in DVD sell-through using the new initiative employing grocery stores as a sales point. The other large company involved with production, exhibition, and sales is Iran Novin Film. Iran Novin has a company history of more than two decades, but its visual arts unit was only launched in 2011. Their (very broad) slate, with differing responsibilities for each film, included around this time titles such as veteran arthouse director Rakshan Bani-E’temad (Tales) as well as debut features (producer of Fish and Cat, Shahram Mokri, 2013) and highly commercial titles such as Red Carpet (Reza Attaran). To complement Farabi’s work, the Documentary and Experimental Film Center (DEFC), was established originally as something of a training ground. It took a much greater role in funding fictional debut features after 2009. It is worth noting some of their very diverse successes between 2009 and 2013. In 2009 Panahbarkhoda Rezaee made A Light in the Fog about a middle-aged widow and her father who survive by making charcoal and repairing oil lamps. International recognition included at APSA and New Currents Awards in Busan. Another success internationally was Majid Barzegar’s Rainy Seasons (2010), an indie-style social issues film about middle-class Tehrani adolescents, divorce, drugs, and a runaway girl, the nature of which can be gauged from its nomination for a Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2011. In 2011 there was the low-budget Farewell Baghdad (Mehdi Naderi), Iran’s 2011 Academy Awards

Culture is not a form of entertainment 155 Foreign Language submission, already discussed at length. The DEFC has a relatively large output, and the international screenings listed above demonstrate that it continued to encourage and take risks with innovative filmmaking in this period. Balancing Farabi’s film production is the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB). This post-revolutionary incarnation of the pre-revolutionary National Iranian Radio and Television, founded in 1926, is one of the largest media organisations in Asia. The Iranian Constitution specifies the selection of the director of IRIB by the Supreme Leader and that a committee comprised of two representatives each of the judiciary, the president, and the parliament should oversee the organization. IRIB’s structure and size afford it enormous power and ensures that it is under government control. The Supreme Leader, as reported in the media, maintains regular contact with the senior staff members. IRIB is a major producer and commissioner of films and series in its own right, constituting an important part of the officially produced architecture of filmmaking. In taking on this role the IRIB has played a role not only in the production of Iranian tele-movies but also in features destined for theatrical release before their television screening. Until 2009 IRIB produced films even for television on 35mm film, and a number of its films entered the international festival scene. Policy by 2012 was to finish on digital with only a few exceptional titles (around 5 percent) being transferred to 35mm. Given its official and governmentally connected character, IRIB maintains an extensive slate of religious, spiritual, and Sacred Defence television films and serials. The following information, disseminated in 2012 on the English language website of Universal Network, the foreign broadcasting arm of IRIB, indicates the general nature of IRIB’s fictional productions between 2009 and 2013. “Concerning the movies and soap operas, some of the most important productions” include two feature films from the tradition of Sacred Defence, Yalda and the Doll (Mohammad Hussein Latifi), about the life of “a chemical-effected [sic] survivor of the imposed war”, and Paradise Orphanage, about the children of Gaza, using Arabic-speaking actors; a documentary series Crime in Shadow about chemical-affected survivors of the Iran-Iraq War; a religious animation series about the Prophet, and a mini-series, Siam Sheikh, about an Iranian who “brought about the expansion” of Shi’ite Islam in Thailand”. (Not all of these projects eventuated.) There was some change in IRIB after 2009. Although the organisation has a stable of salaried directors, others can approach them for funding with a script which already has a permit. This occurred in 2011 when one of its handful of 35mm productions of that year was Darius Mehrju’i’s Beloved Sky. This film, as already discussed, conformed closely to the approved spiritual trend. Magic realist in its plot structure, and clearly television fodder of a conservative nature, the film involves a city doctor who discovers he has a terminal illness, time travelling back to a small village where science, natural remedies, mysticism, and faith holistically combine for the benefit of all. In 2012 IRIB added a new funding scheme for young directors to make digital films with budgets of around US$90,000.

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The post 2009 introduction by both IRIB and DEFC of schemes specifically aimed at providing funding to young filmmakers for feature filmmaking would seem to be a strategy aimed at aligning young filmmakers with the government, which must have been concerned not only to combat the sometimes open dissidence of the period but also to counter the well-known Iranian problem of stemming its ‘brain drain’. By this point not only had a number of senior filmmakers gone into exile, but even Kiarostami had started to make his films outside of Iran. And before Ahmadinejad’s regime had finished, even bright new star Asghar Farhadi had made The Past in France. Two other specialised film organisations, each with its unique areas of responsibility were re-structured after 2009. The Visual Media Institute (VMI) was initially established in 1994 as the major government organisation to service the domestic video market. After 2009 a new head was appointed, Rezamohammad Abassian, a former senior manager from IRIB and a colleague of the new deputy minister. At this point VMI took on increasingly prominent production, international distribution, and exhibition roles, and, as discussed earlier, assumed the role of co-ordinating Fajr in 2013. The powerful and conservative Arts Centre (Hozeh-e Honari) established during the revolution by the Islamic Propaganda Organisation is vertically integrated, producing and distributing both domestically and internationally, and heavily involved in domestic exhibition through its chain of cinemas. During the 1980s its cinematographic department produced war and other fictional films (including Makhmalbaf’s first four films, 1981 to 1985). It subsequently moved to producing “popular comedy and social dramas which were far from expressing the ideology of the Revolution” (Devictor, 69). After 2009 it assumed a much more prominent role internationally, and its production slate expanded to include quality arthouse productions. Two post-2009 examples (already discussed) both of which have screened on the Western festival circuit, are Reza Mir-Karimi’s highly successful Cube of Sugar (2011), a kind of middle-class family drama, and Maziar Miri’s social issues film, The Painting Pool (2012), which stars Shahab Hosseini and Negar Javaherian as loving but mentally handicapped parents trying to maintain a normal family life for their bright young son. Finally, of the major government agencies there is Kanoon – Kanun-e Parvaresh-e Fekri-ye Kudakan va Nowjavana, established in 1965 by ex-empress Farah Diba, where little seemed to change in this period.

The “Magnificent Productions” of Muslim cinema – Film-e Faakher The key element in positioning Iran as the centre of Muslim filmmaking had to be production. Thus, the strong and aggressive form that public diplomacy, chiefly between Iran and the United States, took under Ahmadinejad, particularly after the 2009 election, extended not just to film sales and distribution but also to film production. As has been noted earlier, the government had been actively seeking out co-productions with Muslim countries and other allies through overtures at

Culture is not a form of entertainment 157 the “Hollywoodism” conference, Sacred Defence Festivals, international ministerial visits, and any other opportunity that presented itself. Prior to the period under examination here, pre-2000, there were some examples of politically themed international co-productions, the most famous of which was Seifollah Dad’s Arabic language Survivor (1995). However, these were exceptions and Iranian government production was chiefly for domestic audiences, with no deliberate strategy aimed at an international market. While Naficy noted the new “cultural turn” on the election of Khatami, and the co-existence of “all sorts of mutual domestic, diasporic, and international film, television, radio, and Internet media and formations to serve this diplomacy”, production itself was not in any way obviously harnessed to these ends (Social History 3: xxv). The more diffuse ends of the Khatami presidency were replaced by the much more targeted and controversial ends of the Ahmadinejad presidency. Changes in post-2009 government-generated or approved production has been discussed, including the schemes for new directors implemented out of the government production centres IRIB and DEFC. Another initiative in production emerged for the government to get the films it wanted, this time through Farabi. This new but short-lived strategy involved the Guardian Council directly allocating funding to specific film projects, although channelling the funding through Farabi. These productions were known as “Film-e Faakher”, which has been translated as the “Magnificent Productions.” This turn in filmmaking can be seen to relate directly to Iran’s foreign policy and turned largely but not solely on Iran’s desire to position itself at the centre of Muslim filmmaking. Genres and topics which had been developed for domestic consumption, often national narratives, were re-framed or hybridised for both domestic consumption and international distribution as part of the domestic and international soft war. The “Magnificent Productions”, generally although not always, bigger-budget films placing a stronger emphasis than previously on production values, and in a number of cases used international production support, including, for the first time, for special effects. Tom O’Regan suggested to me that they might perhaps be understood as an attempt to create Pan-Islamic blockbusters. Here it is important to recall O’Regan’s comment that every national cinema has a relationship with Hollywood (1). In the case of Iran, as we have seen, this is a particularly conflicted one. Berry has argued that in Korea and China the originally American-owned blockbuster has been appropriated and “de-Westernised” or adapted to local circumstances through the inflection of native sentiments (218). He claims that it was not only trade issues but memories of American colonisation that resulted in protectionist measures against Hollywood (221). While the Iranian situation does not involve protectionism, as we have already seen, the Iranian rhetoric against Hollywood has been strongly couched around issues of a-territorial colonialism and imperialism. Efforts to compete at the box office doubled the budget of Korean films between 1995 and 2000, and although this was still way below Hollywood budgets, the combination of protectionism and bigger budgets along with the injection of serious local issues into these big-budget “blockbusters” has given Korean films an

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enviable share of the box office and a product that has translated internationally, if in a limited way. Ok analysed this further: It was this self-reflexive quest to search for national identity that connected the Korean blockbuster with Korean audiences whether the specific story is about the relationship between North and South Korea [Shiri, JSA, Brotherhood], the male friendship of local gangsters [Friend], or the imagined history between Korea and Japan [2009 Lost Memories]. (38) However, although they may involve serious issues, these are commercial films and the Iranian situation is perhaps closer to the more complicated Chinese one. Berry discusses what was described as the “giant film” or the epic – a cycle of Chinese revolutionary epic and/or historical films, with big budgets and spectacular scenes, but embodying a “seriousness of purpose”, made between the late 1980s and 1997. He writes of their “prioritization of pedagogy” over the “emphasis on entertainment” of the Chinese “big film” or the blockbuster (223). Many of the giant films were biopics of leaders such as Sun Yatsen, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. In 1997, the year of “the Return” of Hong Kong to China, The Opium War (Xie Jin, 1997), “the first Chinese attempt to reach an international audience”, was released (Frater). To summarise it in Variety speak, “Pic delivers an unashamedly political message, dealing with the war between the U.K. and China that led to the Brits’ grabbing of Hong Kong 157 years ago” (i.e. imperialism and colonialism) and “arrives with official fingerprints all over it” (Elly). While this is true, it also represents one of the Chinese language convergence films, with the involvement of Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui and Taiwanese filmmaker Lee Hsing, both very senior figures in their own industries, suggesting that they too were keen to participate in a more accurate re-write of history. The film was in the market at Cannes, premiered at the Montreal Wold Film Festival, and has had limited international circulation. International reception considered that despite the strong political message against Britain’s colonialism, it was quite even-handed, undoubtedly helped by Hui’s writing input. In ideological terms Berry cites a Chinese article on The Opium War that parallels the nineteenthcentury British desire to peddle opium with the American desire to peddle the contemporary opium of Hollywood entertainment, neither product in the interests of the Chinese people. Its US$15 million budget made The Opium War at the time the most expensive film ever made in China, and although not enough to challenge Hollywood, its domestic reception was good. In summary The Opium War, was a re-write of history from the Chinese perspective that could attract modest domestic and international audiences, despite not having Hollywood-size budgets; it became a synthesis of the big and the giant film suggesting it as a model for the Film-e Faakher. The important point here is the Asian modulation on the blockbuster for the purposes of national identity. While it would be tempting to adopt the

Culture is not a form of entertainment 159 term “Islamic blockbusters”, I have chosen to use “Magnificent Productions”, the translation of the Iranian term suggested to me by Mohammad Atebba’i, to call attention to its place in the circumstances of Iranian national cinema. The issues and characteristics around the East Asian situation should be borne in mind when examining the Iranian experience. Although the existence of this category, its source of funding, and the titles it embraces were made known to me by a Farabi insider at Cannes in 2013 (a time of considerable volatility inside the official circles of the industry), my request in May 2014 for specific information related to budget and success was politely ignored, suggesting that this may be a piece of policy that the government would now prefer to bury as it seeks to distance itself from the previous government’s logic of direct and heavy-handed industry control. With assistance from other industry insiders, I have pieced together further details. The Magnificent Productions, funded and made between 2009 and 2013, with a further two screened at Fajr in 2014, are best categorised by content, which can be divided, not surprisingly and with some overlap, into Religious, Resistance, Sacred Defence, Social Issues, and Foreign Policy categories. IRIB’s activity in the field of epic religious television series has already been mentioned in Chapter 1. A prominent series which began production shortly after Ahmadinejad came to power was the heavily action-based Mokhtarnameh (Davoud Mirbagheri). Comprised of forty one-hour episodes shot over five years, it was based on the life of a Shia Muslim leader who sought to avenge the martyrdom of Imam Hussein. This was broadcast in 2010 and 2011. I monitored the viewing and reception of this series on YouTube from 2010 to 2012. Initially it was only in Farsi and the diasporic Persian comments were not positive. However, gradually Urdu and Indonesian versions were uploaded, and possibly others. Its popularity increased enormously when an English sub-titled version was uploaded. Its strong international following must have suggested a model for export. However, as must have been clear to the Iranian authorities, while the format and style appealed, the subject matter concerns the split between Sunni and Shi’ite, and this emphasis on confessional differences within Islam is not optimal for an international Muslim market. Indeed the difficulties for Iran in positioning itself as the centre of international Muslim filmmaking and gaining a film market arise even when just the two major religious divisions, Sunni and Shi’ite are considered, as will be discussed in relation to Majidi’s film, Muhammad: the Messenger of God, and IRIB appears to have taken this into consideration in planning productions and co-productions for the Muslim world. The first of the Magnificent Productions was The Kingdom of Solomon (Shahriar Bahrani), premiering in Fajr 2010. This action-based yet “spiritual” blockbuster recounts the Quranic version of the Prophet Solomon’s life. Shahriar Bahrani had previously made Saint Mary (2002), a feature based on the Quranic version of Mary’s life. The 2010 film is something of a hybrid, functioning not only as a spiritual piece but also as a kind of pre-history of the contemporary Israeli/Palestinian conflict. This was a clever choice of subject matter, with King/Prophet Solomon shared by the Muslim, Judaic, and Christian faiths. Oscillating between peaceful

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landscape scenes featuring Solomon’s spiritual reflections and big battle scenes, the film features negative and racist portrayal not only of the Jews but also of Iran’s (pre-Islamic) Zoroastrians, who are depicted in the prologue as primitive and barbaric, leaping around a fire in a cave rather than the more ‘civilised’ fire temple. This latter reflects the government’s pains to repress pre-Islamic Iranian history as well as many traditions and customs, described by Naficy as “the interplay between Iranian and Islamic philosophies” (A Social History 3: [xxi]). Iran’s first digital film, it set a new record in terms of budget for an Iranian film (“about US$5 million” was the Farabi comment). Iran turned to its ally, China, for the special effects. (According to the film’s website, it was (only) recognised for technical awards at the most important annual domestic film awards, Fajr 2010 and the 14th Iranian Cinema Celebration (2010).) Plans for the film included a version dubbed into Arabic to be distributed through iFilm, Iran’s Arabic-language television network. The ideological importance of the film to the Iranian government was underlined by the director of iFilm, Katayun Hosseini’s statement that “The dominance of Hollywood is over and iFilm will demonstrate the power of Iranian cinema in promoting religious themes through broadcast of the film at an appropriate time” (Producer Says West Thwarts). However, in the same article, the film’s producer, Mojtaba Faravardeh, claimed that international distribution and screenings of the film had been sabotaged by U.S. interests and pressure exerted on some Arabian festivals not to screen the film. According to Faravardeh, this was because, “The plot of The Kingdom of Solomon is based on Quranic verses, which is at odds with Jewish-held notions. Thus Hollywood, which is ruled by people of Jewish ethnicity, has been outraged by the film.” The film did, however, win two small awards – the Best Film and Best Director awards at the first Jewar Film Festival held in Bagdad in December 2010. This film might well be considered in the context of the multipart television interview series, Secret of Armageddon, purportedly made under the Ministry of Intelligence, and aired daily from 2008 to 2011. Part 3 of the series, The Army of Shadows, “attempted to establish the existence of a new “Crusade” against Islam and the Islamic Republic . . . organised by Zionists, Jews, Bahai’is and evangelical Christians”. According to Naficy, the fourth part, The Ghosts Project, a history of Iranian cinema, emphasises the role of non-Muslim ethnoreligious minority and non-Muslim filmmakers in propagating Zionism and Western colonialism (Naficy, 325). Mentioned are Kiarostami and Panahi, along with Ghobadi representing the Kurdish minority; the host noted that their films are not seen inside Iran, suggesting a lack of interest by Iranians rather than the issue of censorship. In other words, these are the “festival films”. The other Magnificent Production presented at Fajr in 2010 was Saturday Hunter (Parviz Sheikh Tadi), an improbable melodrama, featuring action and violence, concerning a Jewish Orthodox leader of a sect whose goal is to shoot down Palestinian civilians in order to take their land. He is training his grandson to take over his role. His daughter-in-law is a Christian. One of his important tenets, based on stereotyping of Jews, is that God will forgive any wrong-doing if a sufficient payment is made to his cause. In my opinion and that of a number

Culture is not a form of entertainment 161 of commentators, the film is strongly anti-semitic rather than anti-Zionist, as the director claims (Iranian Distributor Has Big Plans). It was shot partly in Lebanon, in Farsi, Arabic, and Hebrew. It enjoyed a long official exhibition history, screening after Fajr in the seventeenth International Children’s Film Festival in Hamedan, in competition at the 2011 Roshd International Film Festival, and in 2012 in the Moqavamet Film Festival (Anti-semitic film Saturday Hunter). Meanwhile while it was on general release, Mohsen Sadeqi, the managing director of Jebraeil Film Distributing Company commented that “[t]he film is still being screened in eight theaters in Tehran and according to a poll conducted by the IRIB, over 40 percent of the film audience called the film excellent” (Iranian Distributor Has Big Plans). The film aired on Iranian TV Channel 1 on 17 August 2012, and then, along with 33 Days, discussed next, at The Days of Resistance Cinema, a film festival in Gaza in December 2012 (Gaza Movie Theater). The film 33 Days, another high-profile Magnificent Production, screened at Fajr in 2011. Of the Resistance genre, 33 Days is an Iranian/Lebanese co-production by insider Iranian director, Jamal Shoorje, known for his 1993 Sacred Defence film, Majnoon Epic. Presented in international competition at Fajr, 33 Days was the recipient of the Human Rights Award from the all-Iranian jury. I suspect that this award was hastily created when it was determined that the international Jury, of which I was a member, had not awarded the film. It was subsequently screened in the market at Cannes by Farabi. The fiction film about the Israeli/Lebanese war was initially scripted by Ali Dadras who claimed in conversation that his even-handed documentary-style treatment was significantly revised to become a heavy-handed commercial propaganda piece. The ideological intent of the film is clear from a statement made by Shoorje. “Although the film was planned before the start of the Islamic Awakening, but our target audience was the Muslim World so we used Arab actors [Egyptian star Hanan Turk, Syrian actor Kinda Alloush and four well-known Lebanese actors] and apart from ten minutes in Hebrew, the film is in Arabic [not Farsi]. We wanted to show them that through resistance, they can acquire their rights” (Nematollahi). The same report discussed a vox pop from a domestic general release screening of the film. After having watched [33 Days] at Esteghlal Cinema in Tehran, Maryam, a 20 year old from Tehran, says ‘I hadn’t any clear image about the war as I was very young then, the film opened a window for me to comprehend the brave resistance of Lebanese people [emphasis added], which was similar to our own one in the 8 years holy defense. (Nematollahi) Authentic or not, the statement supports the political strategy behind the film. When I was in Lebanon in December 2013, on enquiring about the film among film industry personnel and film students, I discovered that it had been widely released there. All knew the title, although few had seen it, and they believed without exception that it was Lebanese, not an Iranian co-production. In January 2012 it was announced that Iran would follow this Lebanese co-production with

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a Palestinian co-production about the twenty-two days of resistance by Gaza’s people against the Israelis in 2009 (Iran ready). I watched 33 Days in a small private screening room at Fajr with other jury members, cast and crew, and a few members of the public. A young man leaned over and asked us about the veracity of the Holocaust, which was being publicly denied by Ahmadinejad at that time. In a country where information is strictly controlled, despite access to satellite and internet, this suggests the effectiveness of what might seem obvious propaganda if the films get an audience. These three productions, all focusing on Iran’s relationships with Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon, share something further – their dubious success at the domestic box office. According to press reports and the film’s website, The Kingdom of Solomon took US$2.7 million between its 29 September 2010 release and early January 2011. However, according to various industry figures, the strategy for achieving this box office involved government departments purchasing and distributing large blocks of tickets. An email to Atebba’i about the other two elicited the following response: “Saturday’s Hunter’s boxoffice was . . . about $100,000 (in official rate) and $62,000 (in free market rate). And 33 Days was . . . $20,000 in official rate and $13,000 in free market rate. So, both films’ grossing were just tragedy!” So while both films fit the political policy logic quite well there was some question about domestic box office support. At Fajr in 2011 a very different kind of Magnificent Production was premiered. Maritime Silk Road from veteran director, Muhammad Bozorgnia, fictionalised the first sea trip from Persia over the Indian Ocean to China. The Iranian, Soleiman Siraf, according to historical documents, was the first West Asian trader to cross the Indian Ocean to China. Travelling some five hundred years before Marco Polo, his intention was apparently to help the balance of trade. The US$6 million film is clearly an attempt at a big budget, entertaining film in the adventure genre. While “swashbuckling” is not quite an accurate description of this film, it would be hard to discount the influence of the Hollywood Pirates of the Caribbean franchise as some kind of inspiration. The clever high-profile casting shows a concerted effort at commercial appeal. Famous veteran Dariush Arjmand plays the wise, aged Captain Soleiman, leader of the two-ship expedition, a piece of casting which would reverberate with Iranians for his titular role in the famous pre-revolutionary Captain Khorshid (1987 Nasser Taghvai). He is supported by Reza Kianian as Edris, the lustful and greedy old captain of the second ship, and Ezzatolah Entezami has a cameo. All, despite their own fame, are almost foils for the younger superstar, Bahram Radan, one of the more popular actors and pop singers in the Middle East, who plays Captain Soleiman’s handsome young deputy, Shazan, keeping the logbook of the voyage. Various adventures afford opportunities to invoke the good /evil duality of the two captains and their respective deputies. Along the way Captain Edris buys himself a beautiful woman from a slave market. But our virtuous maiden, of good background, scorns him. When Captain Edris dies in a misadventure, the equally virtuous Shazan offers to marry her to provide her with the protection necessary

Culture is not a form of entertainment 163 for her to stay on board but makes it clear that he does not expect conjugal rights. The slave is, of course, very obviously attracted to him anyway. This very chaste touch of romance is enlivened by the undisguised jealousy of the deputy of the deceased Captain Edris. Finally, they reach China, where they are welcomed as new trade partners. One of the initiatives that became characteristic of the Magnificent Productions was to engage international talent for these films. Award-winning Hong Kong composer Chan Kwong-wing was used for this film. Some of the filming took place in Kanchanaburi, Thailand, using footage from an abandoned project mentioned earlier, Siam Sheikh. This offered an opportunity for an exotic wedding. The statement made by Ahmad Mir-Alaii, Director of Farabi, at the film’s Tehran premiere points to an additional benefit: I am happy to say that the foreigners’ efforts in distorting the name of the Persian Gulf is no longer effective. Anybody in the world who watches the film The Maritime Silk Road needs no explanation about the name of the region, which is quite an admirable effort by Bozorgnia. (Film Premiers in Tehran) The Maritime Silk Road found great favour at Fajr, collecting Crystal Simorghs for National Best Film, special effects, and cinematography. The film was released into cinemas shortly afterwards on 20 February 2011. It was an early example of a film advertised through street banners, on which the image of superstar Bahram Radan was prominently displayed. Despite its national awards, large budget, and substantial publicity, the box-office gross was less than $100,000 (98,000 attendances), and it ranked eighteenth at the box office. (In that year Farhadi’s A Separation was number three.) Nonetheless, it had some minor success, aside from an ongoing presence in Iranian government film festivals organised internationally through local embassies, when it was awarded at the International Historical and Military Film Festival in Warsaw, Poland, in 2014. While I found the three aforementioned productions both shocking and disturbing for the zealous hatred they transmitted, Maritime Silk Road struck me as a simple and enjoyable historical adventure film with little obvious political or religious baggage. There was, however, a political agenda. My Iranian industry informants suggested at that time that the point of this film was to further diplomatic relationships with China by depicting an historical connection. This was subsequently verified in October 2013 by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s public announcement of what has subsequently become a strategic initiative, the 21st Century Maritime Silk Route Economic Belt, intended to boost China’s trade links and increase investment along the historic Silk Road, with ASEAN and other countries in the Indian Ocean. This cultural diplomacy element has been clearly demonstrated in the film’s exhibition history. Even as recently as August 2018 it received a special screening for the second time by the Iranian Cultural Center in Colombo because, as the Sri Lankan curator reminded me, Sri Lanka is on the maritime Silk Road.

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Figure 6.1 Street banners were a relatively new initiative when Maritime Silk Road was released, Tehran, 30 October 2011.

Another film with similar intentions to forward cultural diplomacy was Reclamation aka Restitution (Ali Ghaffari, 2012). It followed a delegation sent to Russia in 1953 to reclaim a Russian indemnity from World War II, to be delivered in gold bars. In the spy genre, involving double- and triple-crossing, a wonderfully

Culture is not a form of entertainment 165 treacherous (Iranian) woman, a romantic element, and Nazis, it is a lavish period film. It references damages inflicted through “Operation Countenance”, the British and Soviet Union invasion of Iran in August 1941 to ensure oil supplies for the Soviets then fighting Germany. Its raison d’être can be explained by a contemporary political reference, Ahmadinejad’s 2010 call for reparations from the Allies, although this demand seems to be limited to Britain rather than Russia, now Iran’s ally (Ahmadinejad demands). The film won Best Film and Best Actor awards at Fajr. Premiered in Fajr 2013 was another religious adventure biopic in the vein of The Kingdom of Solomon. Eagle of the Desert, by first time feature director, Mehrdad Khoshbakht, who, like Bahrani, had come from IRIB, and showed all the hallmarks of a director used to making mini-series, particularly in the film’s pacing. Eagle is set in the Prophet’s lifetime, prior to the divisions within Islam, making it eminently suitable for a pan-Islamic audience. The film also has strong romantic elements, missing in Kingdom, but something of a standard trait in these films by now. . . . Although the Fajr catalogue made no mention of this aspect in its chaste summary, clearly the intention was to capture the demographics for both action and romance. The beautiful heroine wears the naqab, or face covering, associated with Sunni Muslims and worn in Iran only by the Sunni minority living round the Persian Gulf, but this extends its suitability to Sunnis outside Iran. A different approach was taken with the two other Magnificent Productions screened at Fajr in 2013, which were lower-budget contemporary melodramas. The Fourth Child (Vahid Mousaian) follows the adventures of an Iranian actress volunteering with the Red Crescent (the Muslim version of the Red Cross) in faminestricken Somalia. Affecting but formulaic, the film shows the idealised selfless Muslim woman, and advances international outreach and the Iranian concern for peace by depicting its Muslim brothers in Somalia. Farabi, according to Press TV, organised international screenings sponsored by Unicef, adding the necessary political dimension for a Magnificent Production (African Continent to Host). For its part, A Cradle for Mother, directed by Panahbarkhoda Rezaee, also depicted model Muslim womanhood. A very devout and highly intellectual young female seminarian is determined to return to Russia, where she has studied, as a missionary. When she finally gains the necessary permission from her order, she must forsake the opportunity in order to care for her aging mother. Iran’s diplomatic connections with Russia have already been mentioned, and the aim for this film seems to be to make an appealing film with Islamic values suitable for an international audience. The film achieved this goal by premiering internationally at the Moscow International Film Festival in June 2014. In 2014 two more Magnificent Productions, both clearly in production before the change of government, screened at Fajr. Ahmadreza Darvish’s, Hassan Who Said No, depicts the uprising of Imam Hussein in 680 CE against the caliphs and his subsequent martyrdom. It was announced in November 2012, well before the 2014 premiere, that the film would be dubbed into Arabic and English, indicating a Muslim target audience but also reflecting its unusual production history (Ahmadreza Darvish’s New Film). It is a big-budget film funded by Farabi but

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also international companies, using not only CGI, but also big international credits. Post-production was completed in the U.K. using Academy Award-nominated British editor Tariq Anwar and Academy Award-winning British composer Stephen Warbeck. The international cast included British, Syrian, Kuwaiti, and Iraqi actors. Of the budget, the Tehran Times noted cryptically that it had been “financed by some Iranian and foreign companies” (Ahmadreza Darvish’s New Film). Although the film fared well at Fajr and had ostensibly been made with the necessary fatwa and permission from the ulama for depicting specific faces, there was already a protest by mid-February (Cleric Outraged). On release in Iran in June 2014, the film had problems relating to its depiction of the faces of a number of religious figures and had to be modified (Controversial Iranian film on Shia saints gets nod for screening). The second production, Che, is directed by one of the best known of the Sacred Defence filmmakers, Ibrahim Hatamikia. Based on an historical figure, it portrays the lead up to and martyrdom of the then Deputy Prime Minister Mostafa Chamran in 1981. He was killed in an attempt to control Kurdish rebels close to the Iraqi border. The film is very nuanced and singles itself out through its unusually sympathetic depiction of one of the main characters, the pre-revolutionary general, and of the Kurds, as well as the importance placed on one of the females. There is also much discussion of Chamran’s role in Lebanon, giving it its international dimension. The film was under consideration in the Competition of International Cinema, and Farabi received an unusual award for its support of the film, The Golden Phoenix for National View, which according to an international jury member was created after the international jury could not be persuaded to award it.

Another kind of Islamic blockbuster – Majidi’s Muhammad: the Messenger of God The above examples show the diversity of content that the government was supporting to create the kind of films that it considered “desirable”. Concurrently, outside the funding model established for the Magnificent Productions, another Pan-Islamic blockbuster of a different order was under preparation. There had long been discussion within government circles as to why the Iranian cinema had not produced a challenge to the most famous film to date about the Prophet, The Message (1976), for which Hollywood-based Syrian filmmaker, Moustapha Akkad, drew together the talents of Hollywood and the funding and support of sections of the Middle East. A more recent, although as yet unrealised, Hollywood-connected production about Mohammad, a US$150 million Hollywood/Arab co-production, was announced by The Matrix producer Barrie Osborne in 2009. The Hollywood connections of both these projects would obviously have rankled the Iranian government. After more than thirty years, where was a major film about Mohammad from Iran, “the centre of Muslim filmmaking”? The Iranian response was finally but quietly announced in March 2010 in Screen Daily among other sources (Kay). Majid Majidi was reported to be making

Culture is not a form of entertainment 167 a religious epic under the working title of Mohammad, and later it was revealed that the pre-production had begun in 2007. Producing what became Muhammad: the Messenger of God was Muhammad Mehdi Heidarian, Deputy Minister for Cinematographic Affairs under the Khatami government and before that a senior executive in IRIB. It was Heidarian, Pak-Shiraz has noted, who “first suggested the notion of ma’nagara cinema” (55). At US$30 million, it would be by far the most expensive and ambitious project ever undertaken inside Iran. (Neither Reza Tashakkori, the head of International Affairs in Majidi’s production company, nor Majidi was willing to divulge the budget in later discussions, but Tashakkori indicated to me that it was well in excess of the quoted US$30 million, which Majidi called “an investment into the development of Muslim cinema” and figures of US$70 million were circulating at one point. There is some difficulty in establishing a figure because some of the infrastructure created specifically for this film has been amortised through its use for subsequent productions. The figure generally quoted more recently is US$40 million.) It is widely believed within the industry that the production money was directly from the Supreme Leader, understandable given Majidi’s well-publicised relationship with him. Majidi told me quite distinctly that the funding source was the extremely wealthy and powerful Mostazafan Foundation of Islamic Revolution, a charity with strong connections with the Iranian clergy. Mostazafan, established after the revolution with the resources of the Shah’s charitable Pahlavi Foundation, is one of a number of semi-official religious foundations. Maintaining close connections to the Revolutionary Guards, it has assets estimated at around $10 billion. Its profits, according to the foundation, are used to promote “the living standards of the disabled and poor individuals” of Iran and to “develop general public awareness with regards to history, books, museums, and cinema” (Klebnikov). In the 80s this foundation was producing some seven features a year, and its production slate included Makhmalbaf’s The Marriage of the Blessed (1989) and an early Bani-E’temad, Out of limits (1988) (68). Until the 90s it was also involved in exhibition, operating many Iranian cinemas. Mostazafan would appear to have had little involvement with cinema since then until it re-entered filmmaking to back Muhammad. Although there is ultimately little difference, the important point, and it was important to Majidi when he discussed it with me, is that the film was not funded by “the government”. It has been funded indirectly from the judiciary, not as with the standard Ershad/Farabi funding channels, or, as are the Magnificent Productions, channelled via Farabi from the Guardian Council. Suffice it to say that little expense was spared. In February 2013 I toured the main location, a site between Tehran and Qom, with Tashakkori and Majidi. By this time the shooting here had been completed, and they proudly pointed out that the set was much more substantial than its Cinecitta or Hollywood equivalents. The care in its workmanship was overwhelming by comparison with standard sets, stemming partly from the original intention that after shooting it would function, in a variation on a theme park, as a town and a religious tourist

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Figure 6.2 On the location of Muhammad: Messenger of God with Majid Majidi, 13 February 2013.

destination, with its own mayor and “Mecca” (Interview) but this idea had been abandoned by 2013. Nonetheless, workmen from Italy were brought for set construction. A large contingent of international crew was used. Among the more famous were Indian composer, A.R. (Allahrakka) Rahman, who had won two Academy Awards (and faced a fatwa by an Indian Muslim group for working on the film), Visual Effects Supervisor Scott E. Anderson, both an Academy Award and BAFTA recipient, Production Designer Miljen Kreka Kljakovic, Costume Designer Michael O’Connor, and, most notably, Italian Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. All the post-production was completed in Munich. There was little publicity of the project following the initial announcement in 2010. In 2011 Tashakkori claimed that this was a deliberate strategy (Interview). Articles promoting the film started to appear in 2014. In 2015 it finally premiered as Muhammad: The Messenger of God at the Montreal Film Festival, where Majidi’s previous films had premiered internationally. Ostensibly it also released domestically across the country on more than 132 screens and in cultural centres equipped for the screenings by the Mostazafan Foundation (Vivarelli; “Muhammad (S)” rules). In late 2014, Majidi stated his intention for making the film: “We’re going to help open your eyes to what Islam really is all about” (Majid Majidi Launches

Culture is not a form of entertainment 169 Promo for New Film). But this film, while perhaps the ultimate attempt to make Iran the centre of Muslim filmmaking, has encountered significant difficulties. There were two major issues relating to making a film about Mohammad that faced Majidi. One of these issues was reminiscent of the early days of the Islamic Republic when filmmakers struggled with the difficulties of infusing films with Islamic values – a lack of precedents. Majidi has noted that the only precedents for him were Western biblical epics (Interview). He worked very closely with Storaro for two years of pre-production to develop an appropriate visual model for depicting religious or spiritual material. Storaro does not have a history of making religious films but has spoken widely about the influence on him of Mannerist artist Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio and his lighting. Caravaggio had a tumultuous personal life on the fringes of crime. He was not exclusively a painter of religious subjects, and indeed there is a certain irony that the creator of works such as Bacchus (1595) and Card Sharps (1594) should indirectly contribute to the aesthetic of Muhammad, when, as I have earlier discussed, the reputation and previous roles performed by Iranian actors is of great significance in determining their suitability. The resulting aesthetic is stunning visually. It does reference very strongly central and southern European Renaissance painting and has been criticised by an Arab colleague as inappropriate, “conceptually and culturally clash[ing] with what Islam stands for, where geometric ornamentation has reached a pinnacle in the Islamic world that stresses the importance of unity and order through the use of geometric patterns along with calligraphy, and vegetal patterns encompass the non-figural design in Islamic art” (Linjawi). My own response is that, while exhibiting significantly better production values and despite referencing European Renaissance art, aesthetically it remains consistent with Iranian religious drama. Nonetheless, this suggests a second and perhaps more serious problem that confronted Majidi – reconciling the film to the various branches of Islam. While promoting the film, Majidi had stated, “this film contains no controversies and no differences between the Shia and the Sunni points of view” (Majid Majidi Launches Promo for New Film). To ensure its suitability for a Sunni market, Majidi had consulted some forty Shia and Sunni experts, and the small museum about the film set up on the shooting location outside Tehran boasts a substantial display of the written resources consulted. Majidi conformed to the obvious – he avoided showing the Prophet’s face, using chiaroscuro, shooting from behind, or showing body parts only. Nonetheless, he has received queries, threats, and fatwas from other Muslim nations, indicating the substantial problems facing Iranian productions for an international market. The Indian government, anticipating such controversy from religious groups, did not grant permission to shoot there, and subsequently the film did not release there. But the biggest controversy was with the Saudi Grand Mufti Shaikh Abdul Aziz Al Shaikh who considered the film sacrilege (Toumi). Although Majidi claims he portrays no differences in the points of view of the different branches of Islam, he states in the opening intertitle, “This movie is

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made according to the definite historical events and also my personal free comprehension of the glorious personality of Mohammad, the Great Prophet of God” (my emphasis). Indeed, Majidi does take artistic licence to weave his tight script, full of the interconnecting plot points and the effective foreshadowing we might expect in an epic. Also notable is the way that Majidi, embracing the Islamic concept of the people of the book, includes story lines relating to both Jews and Christians. The Christian storyline, just a short incident in the concluding section of the film, tells of Muhammad’s encounter with Bahira, a Christian monk, who recognises him as the messiah when he is travelling with his uncle in Syria. This is perhaps legendary, appearing in only two books of the Ḥadîth, but its function in a film designed to have a multi-faith application is obvious. There is a much lengthier and nicely integrated narrative line about a Jewish merchant who often trades in Mecca. Witnessing the light that appeared in the sky on the night of Muhammad’s birth and, disbelieving that the saviour he has been awaiting can be born outside of the Jewish faith, he begins a long search. Muhammad’s grandfather is protecting and hiding the child and it is years before the merchant recognises him. When he does, he witnesses a miracle – Muhammad, intercepting a human sacrifice performed to propitiate the gods of the sea, causes fish to be thrown from the sea onto the shore for the starving people. The miracle is a particularly interesting addition. While Muhammad’s miracles do include the multiplication of food, this perhaps references the loaves and fish miracle performed by Jesus, but also recalls a visually striking scene in Majidi’s Song of the Sparrows, where the young children spill hundreds of goldfish on a pavement. . . . Moreover, Majidi features other incidents with animals in Muhammad. The 105th Meccan Sura of the Qur’an describes the unsuccessful attack on the Quraysh, the Arab merchant tribe (into which Muhammad was born) which controlled Mecca, by Abrahaha al-Ashram, Christian viceroy of Yemen. His war elephants refused to enter Mecca. The extreme low-angle shots employed by Storaro to film this sequence very dramatically capture the huge elephant feet, particularly after Abrahaha has fallen from his elephant to the ground. Abrahaha’s final defeat, delivered by a swarm of barn swallows pelting the army with stones, is achieved through special effects. The whole is supported by equally dramatic music. There were difficulties finding a location to shoot the elephant scene. India refused permission for fear of upsetting its Muslim population, but finally South Africa was used. Elsewhere there is a fictional incident involving a camel that escapes being slaughtered by running amok till it reaches the house where the baby Muhammad is resting. Although the epic scope of this work does lessen Majidi’s ability to focus on the small moments, he still manages a number of beautiful metaphorical scenes, bringing the occasional lightness of touch to the film. Exemplary is a moment where Muhammad, wandering in the country, catches his gown on a bush. Storaro makes the most of the light in a spectacular shot, and music draws our attention to this as a significant moment. As Muhammad detaches the thread of his gown from the bush, a host of seeds are released, floating through the air, some kind of

Culture is not a form of entertainment 171 metaphor for Muhammad’s teachings, and reminiscent of scenes in other Majidi films, perhaps the famous ending of Baran, where the departing beloved’s footprint is washed away by the rain. Another aspect worth mentioning is Majidi’s deliberately careful representation of women, to underscore his stated aim to show “what Islam is about”. A character very early in the film states, “The holy prophet said, ‘An infant girl is a heavenly door opened before you. Her birth is an auspicious occasion’”. This seems like a quiet rebuke to the opening scene of Panahi’s The Circle (2000). The representation of Muhammad’s mother and his wet-nurse, in line with Iranian Islamic values discussed earlier, foregrounds their self-sacrificing natures as mothers. His biological mother is comforted by the child already when he is in the womb to the point that she is reluctant to leave a city under siege; the wetnurse upon first encountering Muhammad finds that the milk in her previously dry breast begins to flow and she can feed him. What the film does share with The Kingdom of Solomon is the condemnation of the worship of objects and idols. Where that film condemned Zoroastrian fire worship, in Muhammed we see the pre-Islamic gods of Mecca come literally crashing to the ground. Later some kind of primitive witch doctors are called in to attend to his wet-nurse, lying on her deathbed. Muhammad enters the room to find her covered with amulets. His removal of these signs of superstition before restoring her to health and inducing great fearfulness in the witch doctors is emphasised. Linjawi, cited earlier, strongly criticises Majidi’s decision to make Muhammad in Farsi, believing that any film about the Prophet should be in Arabic, possibly reflecting a more widespread opinion in the Arab world. Majidi had given much thought to the language issue and in 2013 was already trying to determine how to launch the film internationally. His expressed intention was to create Urdu and Arabic dubbed versions, as well as sub-titled versions for the Western market (Interview). This indicates clearly how he saw the production – for the Muslim world it would be an accessible spiritual/religious piece; for the West a major spiritual arthouse production which would inform about Islam. It has subsequently been subtitled in English and dubbed into a number of languages. Domestic box office receipts totalled 70 billion rials (about $2 million) in the first month of Muhammad’s release in Iran. Anecdotally I understand that the film is not considered to have been a box office success, and possibly the same strategy used with the Magnificent Productions, the purchase and distribution of tickets by government departments, was employed. The film screened in Lebanon (where Shiites constitute 7 percent of the population) and Turkey (Shiites 16.5 percent of the population), where according to Box Office Mojo it took nearly US$1.5 million. Aside from its Toronto premiere, it was shortlisted for the Asia Pacific Screen Awards in 2015. However, the film remained controversial in some areas – in late 2018 the International Film Festival Kerala was refused permission for a single screening in a festival context and in the presence of the director. There has been no recent mention of the two sequels which were discussed in earlier pre-release publicity.

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Co-productions There were ongoing attempts to forge co-productions whenever an opportunity might arise. The “Hollywoodism” conference was seen and used as a site for potential filmmaking deals from the inception of the conference. There was much talk amongst delegates at the 2013 conference about the possibility of Iranian funding for star conference attendee, Merlin Miller, film producer and 2012 presidential nominee for the American Third Position Party. Miller, on his first visit to Tehran in September 2012, had a widely publicised meeting with Ahmadinejad. There seemed a real possibility of Iranian funding for a script under the working title of False Flag, the controversial story about the USS Liberty, a ship attacked in international waters by Israeli forces forty-five years ago, resulting, according to some, in a U.S. government cover-up (AFP Podcast). Media reports from the international film weeks, when held in countries perceived to be allies, usually included statements by an Iranian official about the desirability of co-operation including co-productions. However, during this period nothing of significance emerged.

Conclusion In 2002 Devictor had written that “the main goal of the IRI’s policy on cinema [was] neither artistic nor economic, but rather the achievement of an ideological project” (66). In earlier chapters I demonstrated that under Khatami, there was a lessening emphasis on the ideological and an attempt to align cinema with audience taste. The new policies and strategies behind decision-making relating to cinema under Ahmadinejad’s presidency, particularly during its second term, are apparent through both the rhetoric and events. Along with the increased constraints on filmmakers, they showed a marked return to the ideological project of Muslim filmmaking. In the previous chapter I discussed efforts under the Ahmadinejad government, particularly his second term, to realign the film industry with the government ideology. There was also some reorganisation of production. The initial structure set up so long ago had become quite “messy”. Moreover Farabi, the organisation established as the central production point for feature films, seemed to be unreliable or incapable of delivering what was required. Decentralization was an easier option. Finally, there was a new but short-lived initiative for funding of bigger-budget films that were in line with the government’s cultural diplomacy aims and might compete domestically with international blockbusters. There is a strong thread of historical subject matter running through most of these productions, suggesting a desire to create definitive popular versions of Iranian history both near and far. They were intended for international audiences as well as domestic ones, with the content refined where appropriate to make films of appeal to Sunni Muslims or other allies such as Russia and China. In terms of content there was a dominance of history in the new category of the Magnificent Productions, most of which assert themselves as having a non-fiction basis while providing an emphatically Iranian/Muslim point of view of world events.

Conclusion Our art will remain the same

The years 2000 to 2014 have provided an especially informative period to examine Iranian cinema. The fourteen years of this focus provide ample evidence of Iran’s changing political situation, starting several years into the Khatami years, when the effects of his reformist presidency had become apparent. There followed the successive two presidential terms of the conservative Ahmadinejad, which concluded in 2013 with the election of the ostensibly moderate Rouhani. The speed and aggression with which changes in the management of filmmaking and film culture were affected by these various political changes emphasises the force of my argument that an understanding of the whole requires a detailed analysis of the factors at play in the production of individual works. This does not, however, mean that at any stage a free-for-all situation has been in place. Rather, what emerges is that the IRI remained steadfastly true to its “ideological project”, the implementation of a “pure” Muslim cinema, despite the differing political approaches taken. Whichever regime was in power, in keeping with Khomeini’s declarations it continued to recognise the value of film as an educational tool for domestic audiences and to heavily invest in it, as it had since shortly after the establishment of the IRI. The reformists attempted to modify the regime’s control and align ideology with popular demand, while post 2009, policy was refined in several different ways as the government tried to regain its control over all aspects of the industry, including what was screened internationally. Both regimes have, however, recognised the value of film as part of an active cultural diplomacy, showing the country in a different light from Western media reports. As Hosseini, the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance in Ahmadinejad’s second term reminded the audience in the Catalogues for 31st Fajr International Film Festival, “Great Leader’s advice: ‘the Cinema is country’s key to progress’” [Catalogue, 2013, 8]. The reformist government attempted to make some kind of populist compromise between the project and its own constituents, both the filmmakers and the audiences, based on evidence from surveys. However, after 2001, when Mohajerani, the reformist minister for Culture and Islamic Guidance, was forced to resign, there were internal political battles between the various government factions, the reformists and the conservatives, which affected the film industry and undermined the hard-won reforms. In 2005 Ahmadinejad came to power, and, over

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the course of his presidency, compromises were rescinded and a fundamentalist approach to policy was reinstated, although implementation took time. Initially the Ahmadinejad regime’s success in re-gaining lost control over the film industry was limited, merely exacerbating the stand-off between government and the country’s filmmakers that had begun in 2000. After Ahmadinejad was returned for a second term, the filmmakers clearly flagged their position to the world by placing an international boycott on Fajr, the government’s major film cultural performance indicator. The government emphasised, as demonstrated through extensive quotes, that it considered that art and politics were separate, and responded by taking strict measures against the by now highly politicised film industry. Its harsh control on the dissident elements of the industry included censorship for activism and also film content, as well as fines, bans, and arrests. It also closed the House of Cinema, the industry guildhouse designed to complement the MCIG, and where much activism was supported. To re-capitulate, Iranian cinema is comprised of government-sponsored cinema as well as commercial and arthouse streams, with the latter both generally showing evidence of genres favoured by the government, and underground cinema, not all mutually exclusive. A distinctive variant is the “festival film”, which characterised the view of Iranian cinema by the outside world while coming to acquire derogatory force domestically during the period under investigation. Two filmic markers, Jafar Panahi’s The Circle, (2000) and Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly (2009), both highly successful internationally, frame this history. That it was even possible for filmmakers to conceive of making films for an international market was a result of the new arts policies introduced under the reformist Khatami presidency. A range of factors herald the year 2000 as a significant marker. The MCIG had attempted reforms in film production, trying to tie funding to popularity, or making supply meet demand. To this end in 2000 a new category/quota for funding, the Social Issues category, was introduced. This was also the year in which many international awards were received by Iranian filmmakers, indicating that at least internationally these moves were popular. Indeed, Panahi is a self-described “Social Issues” filmmaker, with The Circle his first true social issues film and an early example of the trend. Yet after Panahi had received the Golden Lion at Venice that year and a domestic screening permit, his screening permit was withdrawn. This also shows the volatility in the intersection of government policy and filmmaker practice to accommodate (or circumvent) it even at the start of this period. After this time, Iranian filmmakers could be divided into three categories – those who continued to work within the domestic system for domestic audiences, those who worked outside the system for international attention, and the filmmakers who were able to straddle the two areas. Of the second category, those who worked internationally, some were overtly political and critical of the regime or did not embrace Islamic values. However, not all filmmakers wanted to target the international market to make controversial material. The interpretation of the new Social Issues category, as with the cinematic regulations, was ambiguous, and it was in this area that many films unacceptable to the government were made.

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While this may sometimes have been intentional on the part of the filmmaker, in many cases, as with Panahi and The Circle, it was not. Another of the contributing factors was simply a lack of screens in Iran, limiting commercial viability. Finally, arguably the result of this, was the lack of audience development in Iran, explaining the non-receptivity in Iran for much arthouse cinema outside a narrow cinephilic audience. Nonetheless, all three are inextricably intertwined. Many filmmakers did take advantage of the new freedoms and international interest in Iranian cinema. For the major and established filmmakers, distribution deals and sometimes pre-sales or funding outside the established system with the Farabi Cinema Foundation were suddenly possible. Despite the existence of a heavily regulated system controlled with an extensive process and permits, young independent filmmakers followed the internationally trodden path of “just doing it”, looking for international screening and sales opportunities afterwards. The West responded – interest continued to grow, further fuelled by political topicality after September 11 and the coining of the term, “Axis of Evil”, inclusive of Iran, used initially in 2002. Some of this interest was curiosity, some exoticism, and some simply exploitative, but for many festivals such as IFFR (Rotterdam) there was ideological commitment behind the attention paid to Iranian cinema, fuelling international funding opportunities. Iran became a cinematic “hotspot” and a cycle was in place. The IRI participated in cultural exchange as a form of cultural diplomacy. For a few years, through Farabi, festival directors and programmers from international festivals made the annual pilgrimage to Fajr, along with senior journalists and filmmakers invited to participate in juries, and international sales agents. Parts of the Western film industry at all levels, from programmers to sales agents, distributors, and media lapped up tales of “banned in Iran”, encouraging filmmakers to make films attractive to an international market. The effect was the alienation of filmmakers from their domestic audience, with films that were usually only seen domestically on illegal DVDs. This led to the terms “festival film” and “festival filmmakers”, which had been in use in industry circles since the late 90s, gradually extending from industry criticism into common Iranian parlance as derogatory terms, and adopted into government rhetoric after 2005 to target its filmmaking critics. It became itself an organizational term for the national cinema. The emergence of digital filmmaking encouraged independent work. Although 35mm film stock was only attainable legally with a permit, until 2009 digital filmmaking did not require a shooting permit. Panahi’s Offside, which screened just once legally in Iran, is perhaps the earliest and most successful example of this. The film was widely screened at festivals and distributed internationally. The culmination of this path was Panahi’s This is Not a Film, allegedly smuggled out of Iran on a USB stick and screened and sold widely internationally. Not all films screened internationally conformed to this kind of consideration; it is indicative but not absolute. (Additionally, the Iranian cinema known internationally, as Chaudhuri notes, is only some 15 percent of the Iranian national cinema (Chaudhuri Contemporary 71). The other 85 percent is divided between standard commercial fare, often comedy, or products developed as ideological

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projects to reflect Islamic values in response to Khomeini’s vision and some arthouse films less accessible to an international audience.) There was still a body of work that could navigate domestic permits and audience interest while also achieving success internationally, exemplary of which are Reza Mir-Karimi’s Under the Moonlight, from the Spiritual category and Bani-E’temad’s Gilaneh, positioned by the government and others in the industry as Sacred Defence despite the director positioning it internationally as anti-war. Furthermore, not all the problematic films were intended solely for the international market. Milani was imprisoned for making The Hidden Half, a commercial film for the domestic market (although it also travelled widely internationally), despite having all the appropriate permits. Many of the boundaries for permits seem blurred, contradictory, and inconsistent. This I have come to see as characteristic. What becomes apparent is that because of the volatility not only of presidential changes, but internal government and judicial factions, and powerful social elements, the landscape is constantly shifting and each individual film is affected by a different combination of circumstances, which might include contemporary government policy or concern for specific social issues, the whims of changing members of committees, cronyism, or the position of the filmmaker as an insider or outsider. Thus, in order to demonstrate the complex combination of factors that come into play for filmmakers to shoot and exhibit their films, it becomes necessary to position films, as relevant, in relation to who made them, when they were made, their content, and domestic and international exhibition and awards history. I have examined some of the prominent categories within Iranian cinema, then moved to modulations on these, illustrated with films largely made between 2000 and 2013. The noted domestic or international exhibition history of the films suggests why some films are approved, others tolerated, and still others banned, while also positing possible problems with specific films in relation to obtaining screening permits. As Panahi’s The Circle provided a focus for the many changes in 2000, so Farhadi’s About Elly (2009) became a focus of later changes. It screened at Fajr, then won a Silver Bear at the Berlinale, and was unlike anything before it. Farhadi had found a middle way – his film received as much international critical acclaim as Panahi’s film had done earlier; but it also resonated with an Iranian audience, achieving very high returns from the box office; and was tolerated by the government. There was also a strange synchronicity about its timing. About Elly’s journey began in February 2009. At Fajr there was a small political hitch to its screening, overcome through Ahmadinejad’s personal intervention. It then screened in Berlin. It was released domestically on 6 June, just six days before the contested 12 June election. Farhadi’s next film, A Separation, won an Academy Award and The Past, shot in France, obtained a Cannes competition slot. Both films were also released to acclaim in Iran. At a time when the Iranian government was attempting to impose increasingly harsher constraints on the by now highly politicised film industry, this became an appealing new model for Iranian filmmakers, sidelining to some extent Panahi’s more combative way. Not everyone followed this path. After 2009 Kiarostami as usual pursued his own way. He made a clear political statement by finally abandoning his long-held

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belief in working at home and shooting two features outside Iran. Nonetheless, he continued to be influential on younger filmmakers. Others, although fewer, continued on the earlier path, with Panahi and Rasoulof, whose activism was prominent on the international stage, at the fore. The result of this complex situation was a revived interest from international festivals, this time with the ‘A’ festivals, Cannes, and the Berlinale, vying for the most controversial films. I would posit Rasoulof’s Manuscripts Don’t Burn (Cannes, 2013) as perhaps the most inflammatory Iranian film ever made. In 2000 the government had introduced the Social Issues category but after 2009 some new “trends” became prominent in a shift from the so-called humanist films using the short story paradigm. The middle-class family drama rose organically as a consequence of those who followed Farhadi in relation to content, and it became popular at the box office. The government not only tolerated the category, but backed modified versions inflected with Islamic values. Other filmmakers used the middle-class family drama category to push the boundaries with films highly critical of the government, films that dealt with national identity and issues, and films about corruption and dubious moral practices (such as Rasoulof’s Manuscripts Don’t Burn (2013)). Yet by 2014 many of the controversial films made were performing the role that I at least believe to be that of filmmakers everywhere: highly critical works (such as Abdolreza Khalani’s Absolutely Tame Is a Horse, 2011) accessible domestically but often less so internationally. However, not only was their content often too specific for international audiences, but the government was also more vigilant about the requirement for international screening permits. As an added disincentive, many international festivals which chose to screen banned films could not access government-distributed films. This all further contributed to the decline of the “festival film”. This phase of history, if not finished, seemed to have been significantly contained. The regime, meanwhile, had re-embarked on its ideological project to position Iran as the centre of Islamic filmmaking, abandoned shortly after Khomeini’s death in 1989. It re-aligned the major domestic showcase for Iranian cinema, Fajr, to its goals, and implemented funding schemes within government bodies to reconnect with young filmmakers. Its rhetoric displayed considerable flair in polarising Muslim filmmaking against Hollywood and re-invigorated the concept of the “Sacred Defence” genre which had been losing its relevance so long after the Iran-Iraq War, expanding and re-branding it as “Resistance”. Most significantly, it developed another strategy. This was the “Magnificent Productions”: big-budget films made with funding directly from the Guardian Council. These were intended to serve domestic audiences along with aligning with Iran’s active cultural diplomacy. Content was designed to dovetail with foreign policy, targeted not at the West and the rest of the world generally, but more narrowly targeted at the Muslim world and Iran’s NAM and trading allies, including China and Russia. The emphasis was on historical subject matter – Muslim historical figures, religious or not, such as the Prophet Solomon in The Kingdom of Solomon or Mustapha Chamran in Che – or an Iranian perspective of history, both domestic and international in 33 Days, about Lebanon, The Reclamation, about post-World War II

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reparations for which Ahmadinejad had concurrently been pushing and Maritime Silk Road, a perspective on history that linked Iran with its ally and chief trading partner, China, through invoking the long links between two ancient civilizations. This short-lived strategy, a failure at the box office, along with the complimentary ideology of Hollywoodism, did not survive the change of presidencies. An interesting modulation on the Magnificent Productions was Majidi’s Muhammad: The Messenger of God. This was an intensely personal project for Majidi, despite the enormous budget, sourced not from the government but through one of the large charitable foundations. To demonstrate my argument that the apparent dispersion and inconsistencies in the Iranian film industry must be read through a matrix of political and cinematographic institutions, permissible and available genres, and internal and international contexts, I want to detail five personal experiences at and just following the Fajr International Film Festival in the February 2013 edition. On a single day after its conclusion, and just months before Hassan Rouhani was elected president on 14 June, I met with three separate types of filmmakers. In the morning I was taken to the main shooting location for Muhammad, some sixty-five kilometers from Tehran, by the director, Majid Majidi. Muhammad was the culmination of all that the Islamic Republic of Iran had been seeking in a film. This huge production was expected to finally deliver the film that the government had wanted. Yet according to Majidi, generally considered an “insider”, the film had no government funding and he seemed not kindly disposed towards the then regime. In the afternoon I visited my old friend Jafar Panahi, whose film Closed Curtain had premiered at the Berlinale the previous evening. He was gleefully pouring over the largely positive international reviews. Despite Panahi, who has a bug in his ceiling, being forbidden to make films, and although unable to leave the country, that he had gotten the film made and out of the country seemed to demonstrate either the government’s lack of control or its unwillingness to enter the international political fray again. In the evening I went to a small dinner party with several independent filmmakers, including Bahman Motamedian, director of the controversial Venice award winner, Sex My Life (2008), about transgender people, and banned in Iran. We discussed at length their difficulties. All had screened films internationally but were nonetheless struggling to make their films, which, if they were made, were unlikely to be screened domestically. My encounters that day were with only a small section of the industry. At Fajr that year I had seen the latest offerings of the government’s Magnificent Productions; I had also witnessed dissent between the government and the even more conservative Art Centre, played out in the festival press conference for the latter’s most recent production, Painting Pool. All of this made a deep impression on me, summing up the state of film on the eve of the June 2013 election, when Ahmadinejad would have completed his two permissible terms of presidency. It confirmed the ongoing nature of this contradictory “messiness”, which as I had discovered and have demonstrated in the previous chapters, is a major characteristic of what amounts to Iran’s national cinema. I will conclude with some brief observations of the immediate post-Ahmadinejad era. While by 2013 the government had seemingly re-shaped Fajr to its desired

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configuration, within months of it finishing, the festival director had “resigned” allegedly for misconduct. In June 2013 Rouhani was returned with a landslide victory in the presidential election, and he assumed the presidency in August. One of Rouhani’s first priorities on election as president was to attend to the film industry, re-opening the House of Cinema almost immediately, offering apologies for the government’s past behaviour and ensuring that permits for new filmmaking projects were granted. His new Deputy Minister for Cinematographic Affairs, Hojatollah Ayyubi, also showing a very different attitude from his predecessor, announced that “[t]he reopening of the House of Cinema is very important because this organization can serve as a good adviser that has brought different guilds together and provides assistance to [the government’s cinema] management” (House of Cinema Reopens). The project of a Muslim cinema as such was not repudiated, rather it would remain but modified and translated through and in conjunction with filmmaking associations and guilds as previously. This did not mean an end to censorship, or to films being withdrawn or cut after release, but it did signal the end of a political era. That air of optimism that I had noticed at Fajr in 2002 was once again present in the festival in 2014 and seemed symbolic of what was happening elsewhere. The president’s acknowledgement of the past and the “gloomy and depressed” state of the cinema, read in a statement at the 2014 Fajr opening ceremony, was followed with an extraordinary speech by the Deputy Minister for Cinematographic Affairs: “In the last 8 years all the people who tried to ruin the roots of Iranian vines and caused bad influence should have the courage to apologise and others should have the power to forgive them” (Ayyubi). The government was keen to distance itself from the former presidency but also asked filmmakers to reconsider their position in relation to the market for their films. The president’s statement had asked “In response to the filmmaker who thinks not only about a national award but also about a big international success and says, ‘Let me be free so that I may travel from east to west in the world with my films.’ I say: Bon voyage! But promise to receive your first award in your homeland. I say to him or her: Be free, and tell the realities fairly, but don’t forget about the truths either” (“Rouhani asks Cineastes”). The sub-text here is that the film be suitable for a domestic permit. The 2014 festival opened with Kiarostami’s previously banned Certified Copy in his presence. Even under the reformists, none of his films had been screened outside of small industry events. By contrast, two major new “Magnificent Productions” begun under the previous presidency were showcased. Che (2014) from Sacred Defence director Ebrahim Hatamikia was in the Competition of International Cinema and Hussein who said no (Ahmadreza Darvish, 2014) in the Cinema of Salvation (Competition of Islamic World’s Filmmakers). Although Majidi’s Muhammad the Messenger of God was still not finished, Vittorio Storaro was honoured in person at the closing night. None of the major personnel from 2013 were in evidence. Farabi had resumed its central role, with Alireza Shojanoori returned as head of international affairs, and Alireza Dad back as festival director. Gone was the Hollywoodism conference, and back in the market for the first time since 2009 were the two major independent international sales agents, Katayoun Shahabi, arrested in 2011 for

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selling documentaries to the BBC, and Mohammad Atebba’i, who had also had his share of problems. Efforts had been made, I was told, to ensure their presence as part of the re-worked festival and film market. Many foreign guests attended for the first time in years. Many filmmakers were not in evidence for the best of reasons. They were shooting after, as one filmmaker commented to me, “eight years sitting around doing nothing”. Atebba’i claimed that in the previous year (2013) seventy-six films had been shot, but by his (consistent) system of recording statistics, exactly 170 had been registered as started, finished, or released between 1 January and 4 February 2014 alone. Fatemeh Motamed Arya chose to attend the closing night for the first time since the boycott, but only able to because her shoot was cancelled due to inclement weather. As if to complete the circle, private screenings of banned films were once again happening – or at least one. In a situation reminiscent of that in my first year involving Manijeh Hekmat, director Mohsen Amiryoussefi had been threatened with imprisonment if his film Beloved Trash were to be shown to the foreign guests. Nonetheless, it went ahead in great secrecy. I was invited to view it along with two other international guests, and Iranian filmmakers Abbas Kiarostami and Adel Yaraghi. Set in 2009, it referred to state interference in everyday life since 1939, the year when veiling had been forbidden. The director claimed not to know why the film had been banned, but it seemed that the government did not want to rake up the past. This would be evidenced in the treatment of other “troublesome” productions in the early Rouhani presidency, notably Reza Dormishian’s, I’m Not Angry (2014), which portrays the relationship of an expelled university student against the background of the 2009 election. Nothing had changed since 2002 when Haghighi had written that “since 1983 . . . the Iranian film industry has been unable to reflect significant elements of realpolitik” (109). On the other hand, Bani-E’temad’s Tales – a depressing reflection of life for many people under Ahmadinejad – was finally able to screen. And in April 2019 Beloved Trash was finally released as Lovely Trash to good box office. So was it a new beginning? Or was this just more rhetoric to cover a new way of attempting to achieve the same goals? The regime turned back to Khomeini for guidance in the 2014 Fajr catalogue: “The film you make, if it happens to be constructive, will leave its positive mark all across the nation. If not, its misleading message will affect all throughout the country.” (32nd Fajr International Film Festival [Catalogue: 1] 20, 2014). Into Rouhani’s second term the soft war continues. Kamenei, in direct control of IRIB ex officio as the Supreme Leader, continued to take a keen interest, with his meetings with IRIB routinely reported. For example, in November 2018 when he met with senior IRIB producers to discuss appropriate film subject matter, he sang the same old song, “We should speak about the Revolution and we should work on the Sacred Defense and the issue of families. The Iranian family, identity, culture, past and history are all valuable issues.” (The enemy has targeted) The intelligence service seems to have taken up where the Magnificent Productions left off. Although it is difficult to ascertain what they fund, it is generally agreed that Kamal Tabrizi’s Mina’s Option (2016), about a marriage ripped apart because of the woman’s connections to Mojahedin, was one beneficiary.

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Panahi has made his fourth post-arrest film, finally moving his own story of the challenged artist from the centre to the periphery of the filmic narrative. In 2018 Three Actresses, in which he returned to his interest in Women’s Issues, won an award for best screenplay at Cannes, and it seems that the government cannot or will not reverse his twenty-year ban on making films but will happily ignore any breaches. Both he and Rasoulof continue to live with suspended prison sentences. Rasoulof followed up Manuscripts Don’t Burn, returning to Cannes in 2017 with another highly controversial and highly praised film, A Man of Integrity, (which won Un Certain Regard), about an incorruptible man who has moved to the country with his wife and child to escape problems but is faced by corruption at every level of society; Rasoulof exacerbated problems for himself even further by including a narrative strand dealing with the discrimination facing a local Baha’i family, as taboo a topic under Rouhani as it was under Ahmadinejad. Following the leads of Farhadi and Rasoulof, ethical dilemmas and corruption in various forms have been the theme of a number of films since 2013. I will list just two examples – No Date No Signature (Vahid Jalilvand, 2017), and Sheeple (Houman Seyyedi, 2018). Newcomer under the Rouhani regime Saeed Roustayi’s sophomore feature demonstrates what will very likely be a new trend or at least a consolidation of previous trends. Just 6.5 (2019) has not only broken all the records of Iranian box-office figures; it was selected for Venice in 2019 and acquired by the major French distribution company Wild Bunch, echoing the pathway of Asghar Farhadi’s films. The difference is that this thriller moves back to the milieu of the working classes, dealing with upward mobility, and bringing along corruption and drugs. The title refers to the 6.5 million drug users in Iran, reinforcing the fusing of a humanistic message with “the razor’s edge of spiraling tension” (Young). Irrespective of the constraints of the Ahmadinejad regime and the reassuring comments of Rouhani on his election in 2014 in relation to screening at international festivals, it has become apparent that the government is still not happy with this area. In June 2019 the Cinema Organisation of Iran announced the establishment of the Council of Festivals and, with a new and creative piece of rhetoric, one of its goals as stopping ‘“the plague of ‘festoxification’, Iranian filmmakers’ attitude to make films for screening in international events” (Festivals Council comes). Without a fuller examination it is not possible to tell from films made and released how the changes following Rouhani’s two presidential terms will play out, although the experience of the fourteen years examined here suggests that some will be consequential. A brief overview also suggests the ongoing contradictions. Yet, as Attaolah Mohajerani said when ousted from his role as reformist Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance by conservatives in 2001, “Politicians and military leaders come and go, but our art will remain the same” (Sadr Against the Wind 486).

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Shamaqdari, Javad. Personal Interview, 4 Feb. 2013. Shohat, Ella and Robert Stam. Multiculturalism, Postcoloniality, and Transnational Media. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers, 2003. Print. Shojanoori, Alireza, FCF. Act., Prod., 16 Feb. 2011. Showqi, Peyman. “Farabi Cinema Foundation.” Iran Chamber Society, n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2010. Siavoshi, Sussan. “Cultural Policies and the Islamic Republic: Cinema and Book Publication.” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 29 (1997), 509–530. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. Simon, Alissa. “Cannes Film Review: Manuscripts Don’t Burn.” Variety, 24 May 2013. Web. 30 May 2013. ———. “The Hunter.” Variety, 16 Feb. 2010. Web. 18 June 2010. “A Speech to a Large Crowd of the Nation’s Basij.” The Center for Preserving and Publishing the Works of Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei, 25 Nov. 2009. Cited in Sabet, Farzan and Roozbeh Safshekan. Soft War: A New Episode in the Old Conflicts between Iran and the United States. Iran Media Program, 2013. Web. 31 Jan. 2019. Stam, Robert. Film Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. Print. “Statement of the Association of Film Trades on the Detained Documentary Filmmakers.” House of Cinema, n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2011. Stehlik, Milos. “Rakhshan Bani E’temad.” Hall of Fame, Firouzan Films. Web. 23 Feb. 2014. “Subject of Debate Changed from Abbas Kiarostami to Oscar Winner Asghar Farhadi in Cinema 7.” Lenz Iran, 10 Mar. 2012. Web. 26 June 2014. Taal, Bianca and Gertjan Zuilhof. “Signals: Inside Iran: An introduction.” International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2013. Web. 15 Apr. 2013. Taheri, Ladan, NFAI. Personal Interview, 12 Feb. 2011. “Tahmineh Milani.” YouTube link. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI91rl1bWfo. Tait, Robert. “Hollywood Goes to Tehran: And Is Ordered to Apologise for Its Sins: Ahmadinejad’s Arts Adviser Sets Conditions for Meetings with Leading Iranian Figures.” The Guardian, 2 Mar. 2009. Web. 15 July 2011. Talajooy, Saeed. “Directors: Jafar Panahi.” Directory of World Cinema: Iran. Ed. Parviz Jahed. Bristol: Intellect, 2012. 36–41. Print. Talu, Yonca. “Interview: Rakhshan Bani-E’temad.” Film Comment, 20 Feb. 2015. Web. 15 Jan. 2018. Tapper, Richard, ed. The New Iranian Cinema: Politics, Representation and Identity. London: Taurus, 2002. Print. ———. “Screening Iran: The Cinema as National Forum.” Global Dialogue, 3:2–3 (2001). Iran at the Crossroads. Web. 12 May 2010. “Tehran Calls Oscar Win a Victory over Israel.” Payvand Iran News, 22 Feb. 2012. Web. 27 Jan. 2013. “Tehran Cinema Complex Offers Free Admission to Promote Movie Going.” Tehran Times, 22 July 2014. Web. 9 Aug. 2014. “Tehran: Making Love in a Missionary Way.” Catalogue 36th International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2007. Print. Urban, Andrew. “Rev. of Beasts of the Southern Wild.” This Week in Urban Cinefile, 801:12, July (2012). Web. 15 July 2012. Urry, John. The Tourist Gaze. New York: Sage, 2002. Print. Vasudev, Aruna and Philip Cheah. “Introduction: How the East Kept a Steady Gaze.” When Strangers Meet: Visions of Asia and Europe in Film. Eds. Aruna Vasudev and Philip Cheah. Singapore: ASEF, 2012. 5. Print. Vitali, Valentina and Paul Willemen, eds. Theorising National Cinema. London: British Film Institute, 2006. Print.

Bibliography 193 “War Filmmaker Mollaqolipur Honored.” Tehran Times, 12 Mar. 2011. Web. 15 Mar. 2011. Weissberg, Jay. “Review: The Paternal House.” Variety, 9 Sep. 2012. Web. Wilinsky, Barbara. Sure Seaters: The Emergence of Art House Cinema. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. Print. Willemen, Paul. “The National Revisited.” Theorising National Cinema. Eds. Valentina Vitali and Paul Willemen. London: British Film Institute, 2006. 29–43. Print. Williams, Linda. “Melodrama Revised.” Refiguring American Film Genres: History and Theory. Ed. Nick Browne. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Print. Winter, Jessica. “The Long Roads Home: Two Iranian Films Put Women in the Driver’s Seat.” Village Voice, 11 Mar. 2003. Web. 15 Mar. 2012. Wollen, Peter. Signs and Meaning in the Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972. Print. Young, Deborah. “‘Just 6.5’ (‘Metri Shesh-o Nim’): Film Review.” Hollywood Reporter, 29 Apr. 2019. Web. 10 July 2019. Zeydabadi-Nejad, Saeed. The Politics of Iranian Cinema: Films and Society in the Islamic Republic. London: Routledge, 2009. Print.

Filmography All films are listed under the name of the director, followed by the English then the Farsi title. Where another credit is important, it is given an added entry under that credit, followed by the English language film title and the director’s name in brackets. Abyar, Narges, dir. Track 143. 2014. DVD. Affleck, Ben, dir. Argo. 2012. Film. Ahangar, Mohammad Ali Bashe, dir. Awakening Dreams [bidāri-e ruyāhā]. 2010. Film. Ahmadi, Mohammad, dir. Poet of the Wastes [šāer-e zobālehā]. 2005. Film. Akbari, Mania, dir. 10 + 4 [dah be ʿalāva čahār]. 2007. Film. ———. Twenty Fingers [dah angošt]. 2004. Film. Akkad, Moustapha, dir. The Message. 1976. DVD. Amini, Alireza, dir. Letters in the Wind [Namehay Bad]. 2002. Film. Amiryoussefi, Mohsen, dir. Beloved Trash. 2014. DVD. Angelopoulis, Theodorus, dir. Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow [Trilogia: To livadi pou dakryzei]. 2004. Film. Ardakani, Javad, dir. Chick [čuri]. 2002. Not Viewed. Armini, Alireza, dir. The End of the Eighth Street [entehā-e ḵiābān-e haštom]. Film. ———. Letters in the Wind [nāmehā-e bād]. 2002. Film. ———. Tiny Snowflakes [dānehā-e riz-e barf ]. 2003. Film. Aronofsky, Darren, dir. The Wrestler. 2008. Film. As’adian, Homayun, dir. Gold and Copper [ṭalā va mes]. 2010. Film. Aslani, Mohammad Reza, dir. scr. Garden of Stones [bāḡ-e sangi]. 1976. DVD. ———. The Green Fire [ātaš-e sabz]. 2008. DVD. ———. The Mongols [moḡowlha]. 1973. DVD. Attaran Reza, dir. Red Carpet [farš-e qermez]. 2014. DVD. Azarbayjani, Negar, dir. Facing Mirrors [āyenehā-e ruberu]. 2011. Film. Bahrani, Shahriar, dir. The Kingdom of Solomon [molk-e soleymān]. 2010. Film. ———. St Mary [maryam-e moqaddas]. 2002. DVD. Bakhsh, Mohammad Hossein Farah, dir. Private Life [zendegi-e ḵoṣuṣi]. 2012. DVD. Bakhshi, Massoud, dir. A Respectable Family [yekḵānevāda-e mohtaram]. 2012. DVD.

194

Bibliography

Bakhtavar, Parisa, dir. Tambourine [dāyera zangi]. 2009. DVD. Bani-E’temad, Rakhshan, dir. The Blue Veiled [ru-sari-e ābi]. 1995. DVD. ———. Gilaneh [gilāna]. 2005. Film. ———. Mainline [ḵun-bāzi]. 2006. Film. ———. Nargess. 1992. DVD. ———. Off Limits [ḵārej az maḥduda]. 1988. Not Viewed. ———. Our Times [ruzegār-e ma]. 2002. DVD. ———. Tales [ḡessehā]. Film Iran. 2014. DCP. Barzegar, Majid, dir. Parviz. Dreamlab. 2013. DCP. ———. Rainy Seasons [ faṣl-e bārānhā-e mowsemi]. 2010. DVD. Behzadi, Behnam, dir. Before the Burial [tanhā do bār zendegi mikonim]. 2008. Film. Beresford, Bruce, dir. Breaker Morant. 1980. Film. Beyza’i, Bahram, dir. Bashu the Little Stranger [bašu ḡariba-e kučak]. 1987. VHS. ———. The Stranger and the Fog [ḡariba va meh]. 1974. Not Viewed. ———. Travellers [mosāferān]. 1992. DVD. ———. Uncle Moustache [ʿamu sibilu]. 1969. Not Viewed. Boroumand, Marzieh, dir. City of Mice 2 [šahr-e mušha 2] 2014. DCP. ———. The Sweet Jam [morabbā-e širin]. Bozorgnia, Muhammad, dir. Maritime Silk Road [rāh-e ābi-e abrišam]. 2011. Film. Campion, Jane, dir. Sweetie. 1989. Film. Dad, Seifollah, dir. Survivor. 1995. Not Viewed. Darvish, Ahmadreza, dir. Hassan Who Said No [ruz-e rastākhiz]. Farabi. 2014. DCP. Davoodi, Nader, dir. The Red, the White, and the Green. 2010. DVD. Davudnezhdad, Alireza, dir. Sweet Agony [maṣāʾeb-e širin]. 1998. Not Viewed. Dehnamaki, Masoud, dir. The Outcasts Trilogy [eḵrājiha]. 2007, 2009, 2011. DVD. de Palma, Brian, dir. Carrie. 1976. DVD. Derakhshandeh, Pouran, dir. Candle in the Wind [šam’i dar bād]. 2003. VHS. ———. Hush, Girls don’t Scream [His, doḵtarhā faryād nemizanand]. 2013. DVD. ———. A Little Bird of Happiness [paranda-e kučak-e ḵowšbaḵti]. 1987. VHS. Diao, Yinan, dir. Black Coal, Thin Ice [Bai ri yan huo]. 2014. Not Viewed. Farhadi, Asghar, dir. About Elly [barā-e Elly]. 2009. Film. ———. Beautiful City [šahr-e zibā]. 2004. Film. ———. Dancing in the Dust [raqs dar ḡobār]. 2003. Film. ———. Fireworks Wednesday [čahāršanbe-suri]. 2006. DVD. ———. Low Heights [ertefā ʿ-e past]. 2002. Film. ———. A Separation [jodayi-e Nāder az Simin]. 2011. Film. ———, scr. Tambourine [dāyera zangi]. Bakhtavar, Parisa, dir. 2009. DVD. Farhang, Darioush, dir. The Spell [ṭelesm]. 1987. Not Viewed. Farmanara, Bahman, dir. The House Built on Water [ḵāna-i ru-e āb]. Farabi. 2002. Film. ———. Prince Ehtejab [šāzda Eḥtejāb]. 1974. BBC Persian. Web. Jan. 2013. ———. Smell of Camphor, Scent of Jasmine [bu-e kāfur, ʿaṭr-e yās]. 2000. Film. Farrokhzad, Forough, dir. The House Is Black [in ḵāna siāh ast]. 1962. Film. Farshbaf, Morteza, dir. Mourning [sug]. 2011. DVD. Forouzesh, Ebrahim, dir. The Jar [ḵomra]. 1994. Film. ———. The Key [kelid]. 1987. DVD. Friedkin, William, dir. The Exorcist. 1973. Film. Ghaffari, Ali, dir. Reclamation aka Restitution [esterdād]. 2012. Film. Ghaffari, Farrokh, dir. Night of the Hunchback [šab-e quzi]. 1964. DVD. Ghasemi, Ali Mohammad, dir. Writing on the Earth [yād-dāšt bar zamin]. 2006. Film.

Bibliography 195 Ghazitan, Ali, dir. Sun, Moon, Earth [āftāb, mahtāb, zamin]. 2012. Film. Gheydi, Monir, dir. Villa Dwellers [vilaieha]. 2017. DVD. Ghobadi, Bahman, dir. Half Moon [Niwemang]. 2006. Film. ———. Nobody Knows about Persian Cats [kasi az gorbehā-e irāni ḵabar nadāreh]. 2009. Film. ———. Rhino Season [faṣl-e kargadan]. 2012. DCP. ———. Songs from My Mother’s Country [āvāzhā-e sar-zamin-e mādari-yam]. 2002. DVD. ———. A Time for Drunken Horses [zamāni barā-e masti-e asbhā]. 2000. Film. Gianvito, John, dir. The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein. 2001. Not Viewed. Gibson, Mel, dir. The Passion of the Christ. 2004. Film. Haghighat, Mamad, dir. Two Angels [do ferešta] or [Deux fereshté]. 2003. VHS. Hagighi, Mani, dir. A Modest Reception [pazirāi-e sāda]. 2012. Film. Haidari, Jamshid, dir. Border [marz]. 1981. Hatamikia, Ebrahim, dir. Che. 2014. DCP. ———. In the Color of Purple [be rang-e arḡavān]. 2010. Film. ———. Low Altitude [ertefā ʿ-e past]. Farabi. 2002. Film. ———. Union of the Good [vaṣl -e nikān]. 1992. Not Viewed. Hekmat, Manijeh, prod, dir. Poopak and Mash Mashallah [Pupak va Mash Māšāllah]. 2010. Not Viewed. ———. Three Women [se zan]. 2007. Film. ———. Women’s Prison [zendān-e zanān]. 2002. Film. Jafari, Qasem, dir. The Girls [doḵtarān]. 2009. Film. Jalili, Abolfazl, dir. Dance of Dust [raqs-e ḵāk]. 1998. Film. ———. Darvag [dārvāg]. 2013. Not Viewed. ———. Delbaran [delbarān]. 2001. Film. ———. Don [dān]. 1998. Not Viewed. Jalilvand, Vahid, dir. No Date, No Signature. 2017. DCP. Jozani, Massood Jafari, dir. Frosty Roads [ jādehā-e sard]. 1985. Not Viewed. Karimi, Niki, dir. A Few Days Later [čand ruz-e baʿad]. 2006. Film. ———. Final Whistle [ṣut-e pāyān]. 2011. Film. ———. One Night [yek šab]. 2005. Film. Kassaie, Marayam, dir. Circumstance [šarāyet]. 2011. Film. Keshavarz, Hossein, dir. Dog Sweat [ʿaraq sagi]. 2011. DVD. Khalani, Abdolreza, dir. Absolutely Tame Is a Horse [asb ḥeyvān-e najibi ast]. 2011. DVD. ———. Nothing [hič]. 2010. DVD. ———. Twenty [bist]. 2009. Film. Khemir, Nacer, dir. Bab’ Aziz. 2006. Film. Khoshgakht, Mehrdad, dir. Eagle of the Desert [ʿoqāb-e ṣaḥrā]. 2012. Film. Kiarostami, Abbas, dir. A.B.C. Africa [A.B.C āfriqā]. 2001. ———. Bread and Alley [nān va kuča]. DVD. ———. Certified Copy [kopi-e barābar-e aṣl]. 2010. Film or DCP. ———. Close Up [nema-ye nazdik]. 1990. DVD. ———. My Sweet Shirin [širin]. 2008. Film or Digital. ———. The Taste of Cherry [taʿm-e gilās]. 1997. Film. ———. Ten [dah]. MK2. 2002. Film. ———. Through the Olive Trees [zir-e deraḵtān-e zeytun]. 1994. Film. ———. Where Is the Friend’s House? [ḵana-e dust kojāst]. 1989. DVD. Kimiaie, Masoud, dir. Qeysar. 1969.

196

Bibliography

———. The Sergeant [goruh-bān]. 1991. Not Viewed. Kimiavi, Parviz, dir. Garden of Stones aka Journey of the Stone [safar sang]. 1976. Web. ———. The Mongols [moḡowlha]. 1973. Web. Kolorin, Eran, dir. The Band’s Visit [Bikur Hatizmoret]. 2007. DVD. Latifi, Mohammad Hussein, dir. Yalda and the Doll [ʿarusak-e yaldā]. Not Viewed. Lavafipour, Ramtin, dir. Be Calm and Count to Seven [ārām bāš va tā haft bešomār]. 2009. Film. Lee, Spike, dir. A Huey P. Newton Story. 2001. Not Viewed. Loach, Ken, dir. Looking for Eric. 2009. Film. Majidi, Majid, dir. Baran [bārān]. 2001. Film. ———. The Children of Heaven [baččehā-e āsemān]. 1997. DVD. ———. Muhmmad: The Messenger of God [Mohammad rasulollah] 2015. DCP. ———. Song of Sparrows [āvāz-e gonješkha]. 2008. Film. ———. The Willow Tree [bid-e majnun]. 2005. Film. Makhmalbaf, Mohsen, dir. Afghan Alphabet [ālefba-e afḡān]. 2002. Not Viewed. ———. Boycott [bāycowt]. 1985. Not Viewed. ———. Gabbeh [gabbe]. 1992. Film. ———. The Gardener [bāḡbān]. 2012. DCP. ———. Kandahar [safar-e qandahār]. 2001. DVD. ———. Marriage of the Blessed [ʿarusi-e ḵubān]. 1989. DVD. ———. Nasooh’s Repentance [towba-e Nasuḥ]. 1982. Not Viewed. ———. The Peddler [bāysikl-rān]. 1988. DVD. ———. Silence [sokut]. 1998. Not Viewed. Makhmalbaf, Samira, dir. The Apple [sib]. 1998. DVD. ———. Blackboards [taḵt-e siāh]. 2001. DVD. Masoumi, Khosro, dir. Bear [khers]. 2013. DVD. Mehranfar, Farhad, dir. Paper Airplanes [mušak-e kāḡazi]. 1997. Film. Mehrju’i, Dariush, dir. Beloved Sky [āsemān-e maḥbub]. 2011. Film. ———. Bemani [bemāni]. 2002. Film. ———. The Cow [gāv]. 1969. DVD. ———. The Cycle [dāyera-e Mina]. 1975. DVD. ———. Good You Have Returned [če ḵube ke bargašti]. 2014. Not Viewed. ———. Leila [Leylā]. 1996. Film. ———. The Orange Suit [nārenji-puš]. 2012. DCP. ———. Pari. 1993. DVD. ———. The Postman [post-chi]. 1970. Not Viewed. ———. Santouri [santuri]. 2007. Film. ———. Sara [Sārā]. 1992. DVD. ———. The School We Went to [ḥayāṭ-e poshti madresa ʿadl-e āfāq]. 1980. Not Viewed. Meshkini, Marziyeh, dir. The Day I Become a Woman [ruzi ke zan šodam]. 2000. VHS. Milani, Tahmineh, dir. Cease Fire [ātash-bas]. 2006. Film. ———. The Fifth Reaction [vākoneš-e panjom]. 2003. DVD. ———. The Hidden Half [nima-e penhān]. 2000. Film. ———. The Legend of Sigh [afsāna-e āh]. 1991. Not Viewed. ———. Payback [tasvia hesāb]. 2007. Film. ———. Superstar [superstār]. 2008. Film. ———. Two Women [do zan]. 1998. Film. Miri, Maziar, dir. The Book of Law [ketāb-e qānun]. 2008. Not Viewed. ———. Felicity Land [saʿādat-ābād]. 2011. DVD.

Bibliography 197 ———. The Painting Pool [ḥoż-e naqāši]. 2012. Film. ———. The Unfinished Song [āsemān-e nā-tamām]. 2000. Not Viewed. Moghadam, Saman, dir. Miss Iran [saad saal be in salha]. 2007. Mohammadi, Manouchehr, dir. Gold and Copper [ṭalā va mes]. Dir. Homayun As’adian. ———. The Lizard [mārmulak]. Dir. Kamal Tabrizi. ———. prod. Under the Moon Light [zir-e nur-e māh]. Dir. Reza Mir-Karimi. Mokri, Shahram, dir. Fish and Cat [māhi va gorba]. 2013. DVD. Mollagholipour, Rasoul, dir. The Burnt Generation [nasl-e suḵte]. 1999. Not Viewed. ———. Hiva [Hivā]. 2000. Film. ———. Journey to Chazzabeh [safar be čazabbeh]. 1995. DVD. ———. M for Mother [mim meṯl-e mādar]. 2006. Film. Mosaffa, Ali, dir. The Last Step [pella-e āḵar]. 2012. Film. ———. Portrait of a Lady Far away [simā-e zani dar dur-dast]. 2005. Film. Motamed Ayra, Fatimeh, dir. A Man for All Reasons [mardi ba taman-e dalayel]. 2001. Not Seen. Motamedian, Bahman, dir. Sex My Life [ḵastegi]. 2008. DVD. Moussavi, Granaz, dir. My Tehran for Sale [Tehrān-e man ḥarāj]. 2009. DVD. Naderi, Amir, dir. The Runner [davanda]. 1985. Film. ———. Water, Wind, Dust [āb, bād, ḵāk]. 1989. DVD. Naderi, Mehdi, dir. Farewell Baghdad [bedrud Baghdad]. 2010. Film. Neshat, Shirin, dir. Women without Men [zanān bedun-e mardān]. 2009. Film. Panahandeh, Ida, dir. Nahid [nahid]. 2015. DCP. Panahi, Jafar, dir. The Circle [dayera]. 2000. Film. ———. Crimson Gold [ṭalā-e sorḵ]. 2003. Film. ———. The Mirror [Ayneh]. 1997. Film. ———. Offside. 2006. Film. ———. The White Balloon [bād-konak-e sefid]. 1995. Film. Panahi, Jafar and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, dir. This Is Not a Film [in film nist]. 2011. DVD. Panahi, Jafar and Kambuzia Partovi, dir. Closed Curtain [ parda]. 2013. DCP. Panahi, Panah, dir. The First Film [ film-e avval]. 2009. DVD. Patwardhan, Anand, dir. War and Peace [jang aur amān]. 2002. Film. Payami, Babak, dir. Secret Ballot [ray-e maḵfi]. 2001. Film. ———. Silence between Two Thoughts [sokut-e beyn-e do fekr]. 2003. In-Cinema Viewing, Format Unknown. Pitts, Rafi, dir. It’s Winter [zemestān ast]. 2006. DVD. ———. The Hunter [šekārči]. 2009. Film. Pourahmad, Kiumars, dir. The Night Bus [owtobus-e šab]. CMI. 2006. Film. Qaderi, Iraj, dir. Living in Purgatory [barzakhihā]. 1980. Not Viewed. Raeisian, Alireza, dir. The Deserted Station [istgāh-e matruk]. 2002. Rafei, Abbas, dir. The Sun Shines Equally on Everybody [āftāb bar hama yeksān mitābad]. 2007. Film. Rafie, Ali, dir. Agha Yousef [āqa Yusef ]. 2011. DVD. Rahnama, Fereydoun, dir. Siavash in Persopolis [Siāvaš dar taḵt-e jamšid]. 1964. Not Viewed. Rassoulof, Mohammad, dir. Iron Island [ jazira-e āhani]. 2005. Film. ———. A Man of Integrity [lerd]. 2017. Film. ———. Manuscripts Don’t Burn [dast-neveštehā nemisuzand]. 2013. Film. ———. The Twilight [gagooman]. 2002. DVD. ———. The White Meadows [kesht-zārhā-e sepid]. 2009. Film.

198

Bibliography

Rezaei, Panahbarkhoda, dir. A Cradle for Mother [gah-vāra-i barā-e mādar]. 2013. Film. ———. A Light in the Fog [cheraghi dar meh]. 2009. Film. Reza Mir-Karimi, Seyyed, dir. Cube of Sugar [ yek ḥabba qand]. Hozeh Honare. 2011. Film. ———. Here, a Shining Light [injā cherāḡi rowšan ast]. 2002. Film. ———. Under the Moonlight [zir-e nur-e māh]. 2001. Film. Roustayi, Saeed, dir. Just 6.5 [metri shesh-o nim]. 2019. Sadrameli, Rasoul, dir. Every Night Loneliness [har šab tanhāyi]. 2007. ———. The Girl in Sneakers [doḵtari bā kafšha-e katani]. 1998. DVD. ———. I Am Taraneh, Fifteen Years Old [man, Tarāneh, pānzdah sāl dāram]. 2002. Film. Saless, Sohrab Shahid, dir. A Simple Event [ yek etefāq-e sāda]. 1973. DVD. ———. Still Life [tabiʿat-e bi-jān]. 1974. DVD. Scott, Ridley, dir. Body of Lies. 2008. Film. ———. Thelma and Louise. 1991. Film. Seyyedi, Houman, dir. Sheeple [maghzhaye koochake zang zadeh]. 2018. DCP. Shahbazi, Parviz, dir. Deep Breath [nafas-e ʿamiq]. 2003. Not Viewed. Shahriar, Maryam, dir. Daughters of the Sun [doḵtarān-e ḵoršid]. 2000. DVD. Sheikh Tadi, Parviz, dir. Red Robin [Rubān-e qermez]. 2007. Not Viewed. ———. Saturday’s Hunter [šekārči-e šanbe]. 2009. Film. Shoorje, Jamal, dir. 33 Days [Si-o-seh ruz]. 2011. Film. ———. Majnoon Epic [hamāsa-e Majnun]. 1993. DVD. Snyder, Zack, dir. 300. 2007. Not Viewed. Soheili, Saeed, dir. The Guidance Patrol [gašt-e eršād]. 2012. DVD. Tabrizi, Kamal, dir. Leily Is with Me [Leyli bā man ast]. 1996. DVD. ———. The Lizard [mārmulak]. Film. Taerpour, Fereshteh, prod. Facing Mirrors [āyenehā-e ruberu]. Dir. Negar Azarbayjani. 2011. Film. Tahmasb, Iraj, dir. The Pastry Girl [doḵtar-e širini-foruš]. 2002. DVD. ———. The Red-Hat and Spoiled Boy [kolāh qermezi va bačče nanna]. 2012. Not Viewed. ———. Under the Peach Tree [zir-e deraḵt-e holu]. 2006. DVD. Talebi, Abolqasem, dir. Golden Collars aka Golden Leashes [qalādeha-e ṭalā]. 2012. Not Viewed. Talebi, Mohammad Ali, dir. The Boots [čakma]. 1992. Not Viewed. Talebi, Mohammad Ali and Marzieh Bouramand, dir. City of Mice [šahr-e mušha]. 1985. Talebzadeh, Nader, dir. Jesus, the Spirit of God. 2005. DVD. ———. The Messiah [masih] or [masih beshārat-e monji]. 2005. DVD. Taqvaie, Naser, dir. Calm in Front of Others [ārāmesh dar ḥozur-e digarān]. 1973. Not Viewed. Tavakkoli, Bahram, dir. Barefoot in Heaven [ pā berahna dar behešt]. 2006. Film. ———. Here without Me [inja bedun-e man]. 2011. Film. ———. A Walk in the Fog [ parsa dar meh]. 2009. Film. Wang, Quan’an, dir. Tuya’s Marriage [Tuya dehun shi]. 2007. Film. Watkins, Peter, dir. La Commune (Paris, 1871). 2001. Betacam. Wenders, Wim, dir. Wings of Desire [Der Himmel über Berlin]. 1987. Film. Yousefi, Mohsen Amir, dir. Bitter Dream [ḵāb-e talḵ]. 2004. Film. Zhekan, Ali, prod. Mare [mādiyān]. 1986. Not Viewed.

Index

Note: Page numbers in italics indicate a figure and page numbers in bold indicate a table on the corresponding page. 3 Actresses/Three Actresses (2018) 47, 52, 181 11’09”01 86–87 15th International Resistance Film Festival 17 33 Days (2011) 161–162, 177 “40 Years of Resistance Cinema” 17 1001 Voices 86 Abbasian, Mohammad-Reza 3, 139, 156 A.B.C. Africa (2001) 85 Abdolvahab, Mohsen 28 About Elly (2009) 7, 14, 68, 73, 97, 99, 105, 146, 153–154, 174 Abrahaha al-Ashram 170 Absolutely Tame is a Horse (2011) 44, 64, 119 Abyar, Narges 29–30 Academy Awards 27, 30, 32, 40, 48, 73, 89, 101, 108, 111, 131, 134, 154, 166, 168, 176 Adelaide Film Festival 100 Adult’s Game (1993) 31 Affleck, Ben 135 Afkhami, Behruz 22, 154 Afravian, Adnan 19 Afshar, Mahnaz 69, 96 Agha Yousef (2011) 67 Ahmadi, Mohammad 90 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud 2–7, 11, 16–17, 21, 29, 34, 50–51, 53, 58, 61, 71, 123–125, 139, 146–148, 151, 153, 156–157, 159, 172–174, 178, 181 Ahmed, Ali Nobil 121 Airbus 131 Akbar, Thumbtacks 65

Akbari, Mania 10, 106 Akkad, Moustapha 166 Al Ahmad, Jalal 122 Al Shaikh, Abdul Aziz 169 Amini, Alireza 30 Amiryoussefi, Mohsen 180 Anderson, Scott E. 168 Angelopoulos, Theo 49, 136 Annual Festival of Films 91, 144 Ansar-e Hezbollah 17, 65 Anwar, Tariq 166 APM see Asian Project Market (APM) Apple, The (1998) 40 APSA 31, 100, 154 Arab Spring 128, 138–139 Arafat, Yasser 130 Ardakani, Javad 86 Argo (2002) 131, 135 Ariya, Fatimeh Motamed 19 Arjmand, Dariush 162 Armes, Roy 81 Armini, Alireza 90, 106 Army of Shadows, The (series) 160 Arte France 104 Arts Centre 33, 66, 156, 178 As’adian, Homayun 36 Asgarpour, Mohammad-Mahdi 136 Asian Cinema Fund 100 Asian Film Academy programme 90 Asian film festivals 74, 90, 104 Asian Project Market (APM) 100 Asia Pacific Screen Awards 29, 100, 108, 147 Aslani, Farhad 65 Aslani, Mohammad Reza 41 Atebba’i, Mohammad 1, 13, 28, 41, 143, 159, 162, 180

200

Index

At Five in the Afternoon (2003) 51 Atwood, Blake 4 Awakening Dreams (2010) 31 axis of evil 107, 175 Ayari, Kianoush 57, 97 Ayyubi, Hojatollah 179 Azimi, Mehdi 60 Bab’ Aziz (2006) 136 Bacchus (1595) 169 Bahrani, Shahriar 33, 159 Bajoghli, Narges 17 Bakhsh, Mohammad Hossein Farah 64, 67, 153 Bakhshi, Massoud 69 Bakhtavar, Parisa 68 Band’s Visit, The (2007) 108 Bani-E’temad, Rakshan 1, 13, 28–30, 40, 52–56, 60, 70, 85–86, 96, 105, 154, 167, 176 “banned in Iran” 119, 175 Baran (2001) 85, 89, 106, 171 Barefoot in Heaven (2006) 35, 67 Barzegar, Majid 154 Barzideh, Abdolhassan 28 Basheh-Ahangar, Mohammad-Ali 31 Bashu the Little Stranger (1987) 19 Bazin, André 85 Bear (2013) 32, 57 Beautiful City, The (2004) 58, 68, 106 Be Calm and Count to Seven (2009) 84 Beheshti, Seyed Mohammad 33 Beloved Sky (2011) 38, 155 Beloved Trash see Lovely Trash (2019) Belt and Road Initiative 128 Bemani (2002) 56–57, 61, 86 Berlinale World Cinema Fund 100, 110 Berlin Film Festival 40, 44, 83, 87, 104 Berry, Chris 157–158 Beyza’i, Bahram 6, 19, 82, 85, 109–110, 146 BIFF see Brisbane International Film Festival (BIFF) Bignardi, Irene 86 Binoche, Juliet/Binoche, Juliette 44, 55, 87, 96 Bist (2009) 64 Blackboards (2001) 83–84 Blue Veiled, The (1995) 53–54 Body of Lies (2008) 146 Bolshevik Revolution 128 Book of Law, The (2008) 34, 66 Bordwell, David 7

Boroumand, Marzieh 154 Box Office Mojo 171 Bozorgnia, Muhammad 162 Breaker Morant (1980) 77 Breath (2017) 30 Brisbane International Film Festival (BIFF) 1, 3, 30, 74, 79, 86–87, 112 British Film Institute 89 Burnt Generation, The (1999) 41 Busan International Film Festival 76, 88–90, 104 Camera d’Or 48, 83 Candle in the Wind (2003) 60 Cannes Film Festival 4–5, 38, 44, 50–51, 57, 70, 75–76, 81–84, 86–87, 90, 96, 104, 107, 111, 117, 130, 137, 143, 158, 161, 176–177, 181 Captain Khorshid (1987) 162 Card Sharps (1594) 169 Carrie (1976) 35 Castro, Fidel 130 CBC Arts 130 Cease Fire (2006) 41, 55 Cease Fire 2 (2014) 55 Celluloid Dreams 99, 104, 110, 116 Certified Copy (2010) 3, 7, 44, 96, 179 Chahine, Youssef 86 Chamran, Mostafa 166, 177 Chang, Justin 37 Chan Kwong-wing 163 Chaudhuri, Shohini 94–95, 119 Chavoshi, Mohsen 61 Che (2014) 166, 177, 179 Cheah, Philip 87, 91 Cheshire, Godfrey 68 Chick (2002) 86 child actors 95–97 Child of the Earth, The (2008) 31 Children Cinema 96–98, 115 Children of Heaven, The (1997) 83, 89, 97 Cinema in Iran: Circulation, Censorship, and Cultural Production 17 Cinema in Muslim Societies 121 Cinema Museum 26, 31, 46, 107, 151 Cinema of Oppression 137 “cinema of reform” films see social issues films Cinema of Sacred Defence see Sacred Defence films Cinema of Salvation 138, 179 Cinema Organisation of Iran 181

Index Cinema Rex 8 Cinemaye Jashnvareh’i (Festival Cinema) see festival films (film-e jashvareh’i) Circle, The (2000) 1, 5, 7, 14, 20, 41, 44, 52, 60, 71, 83, 96–97, 109, 112, 119, 171, 174–176 Circumstance (2011) 97, 144 City of Mice 2 10, 98, 154 CJ Collection Award 90 “Clash of Civilizations, The” 136 Closed Curtain (2013) 47, 87, 147, 178 Close-Up (1990) 94 CMI 48, 139 Cold War 129 Color of Paradise, The (1999) 89, 100 Competition of International Cinema 166, 179 “Competition of Spiritual Cinema” 136 “constructive” films 17–18 co-productions 172 Corvino, Theresa 105 Council of Festivals 181 Cow, The (1969) 81 Cox, Frank 101 Cradle for Mother, A (2013) 165 Crime in Shadow 155 Crimson Gold (2003) 44, 46, 70, 96 Croft, Stephen 12 cronyism 20–21, 23, 72 Crystal Simorghs 30 Cube of Sugar, A (2011) 69, 156 cultural diplomacy 128–129, 144–145 Cycle, The (1975) 40 Dabashi, Hamid 74–75, 83, 98, 109, 112, 114, 117 Dad, Alireza 179 Dad, Seifollah 5, 20, 22–23, 32, 41, 67, 157 Dadras, Ali 161 Dance of Dust (1998) 84 Dancing in the Dust (2003) 68 Danesh, Mehrzad 27 Darvag (2013) 88 Darvish, Ahmadreza 165 Daughters of the Sun (2000) 63 Day I Become a Woman, The (2000) 90 Days of Resistance Cinema, The 161 Dead, The 70 Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi de 169 Deep Breath (2003) 90 DEFC see Documentary and Experimental Film Center (DEFC)

201

Dehnamaki, Masoud 16–17 Delbaran (2001) 85 den Hamer, Sandra 84 Derakhshandeh, Pouran 13, 21, 42–48, 50, 52, 58, 60, 62 Deserted Station, The (2002) 89 Desert of the Real, The (programme) 85 Deutsch, Gustav 85 Developing World 129 Devictor, Agnes 72, 123, 172 “Dialogue Among Civilizations” 136 diasporic/exilic audience 112–114 Diba, Farah 156 Dingo (1991) 77 Documentary and Experimental Film Center (DEFC) 30, 32, 67, 154–157 domestic audience 112 domestic Muslim cinema 140–142 Don (1998) 84 Dönmez-Colin, Gönül 11, 44, 112 Dormishian, Reza 180 Draskovic, Giorgio 77 drugs, and social issues films 42, 60–62 Dubai Film Festival 59 DVDs, legal sell-through 150 Dylan, Bob 22 Eagle of the Desert (2012) 165 Eastern Vista 138 Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) 128, 136 Edinburgh Iranian Film Festival 91, 137, 143 Elsaesser, Thomas 77, 98 Empire of Their Own, An: How The Jews Invented Hollywood (Gabler) 131 Entezami, Ezzatolah 162 Esfandieri, Abdollah 35 Esfandieri, Amir 11, 33 Esfandiery, Shahab 13–14, 20, 28, 41, 126 ethnofictional films 116–118, 120 Evin Prison 3, 44, 143, 146 exemplary Iranian independent art cinema 118 exilic/diasporic audience 112–114 Exorcist, The (1973) 35 export market 103–104 Facing Mirrors (2011) 21, 62, 147 Fajr International Film Festival 4, 13, 42, 96, 123, 131, 132, 135–140, 138, 173, 178 Fajr Theatre Festival 96

202

Index

False Flag 172 families, and social issues films 65–67 Family Draft Law (2007–2008) 36 Family Protection Bill 36, 65 Farabi Cinema Foundation 3, 33, 35, 37, 41, 47, 57, 63, 65, 103–105, 137, 140, 144, 153–155, 161, 165–167, 175, 179 Farahani, Golshifteh 61, 146–147 Farahmand, Azadeh 14, 74–75, 82, 84, 87, 99, 108–109 Farasati, Masoud 134 Faravardeh, Mojtaba 160 Farewell Baghdad (2010) 32, 131, 154 Farewell My Concubine 115 Farhadi, Asghar 3, 7, 14, 58, 68–69, 73, 87, 91, 96, 101, 105–106, 111, 120, 134, 146, 154, 174, 176, 181 Farhang, Darioush 89 Farmanara, Bahman 1, 41, 82 Farrokhzad, Forough 81 Farshbaf, Morteza 90 Fat Shaker (2013) 84 Felicity Land (2011) 69 female directors, and Sacred Defence genre 28–30 feminism 29 Ferasati, Masoud 14 fernweh films 63–64 festival audience 79–81 Festival des Tres Continents 89 festival films (film-e jashvareh’i) 5, 14, 68, 74, 102–103, 134, 160, 174–175, 177; domestic audience 112; exilic/ diasporic audience and 112–114; and film festivals 77–81; international selection process 92–93; Iranian industry perspective 108–112; taxonomy of 114–119 Field, Simon 83–84, 87–89 Fifth Reaction, The (2003) 55, 69 Film Comment 117 Film-e Faakher 15, 156–166 film festival programmers 75, 105 film festivals: from 1962 to 1979 81–82; description 73–74; festival audience 79–81; and festival films 77–81; international festival funding for 99–100; international selection process 92–93; Iranian industry perspective 108–112; politics and purposes 74–77; postrevolutionary 82–99; and A separation 100–102; Western perspective on 77–79 Filmic Markers 6 FilmIran 154

Filmmaker of the Year Award 90 Filmmakers of Today 86 Final Whistle, The (2011) 58–59, 107, 143 Finn, Howard 94–95 Fipresci Award 90 Fireworks Wednesday (2006) 68 Footnote 134 foreign policy, and Muslim filmmaking 128–129 Foruzesh, Ibrahim 84, 115 Fourth Child, The (2013) 145, 165 Frosty Roads (1985) 82, 90 Full Metal Jacket 30 Gabbeh (1996) 101, 117 Gabler, Neal 131 Ganis, Sid 130 Ganji, Akbar 65 Gardener, The (2012) 51, 88, 100, 107 Garden of Stones (1976) 41, 82 Gavras, Costa 55 General Staff, The 135 Gene Siskel Film Center 91 Ghaemi, Hadi 148 Ghaffari, Farrokh 81 Gharbzadegi 122–123 Gharbzadegi (Al Ahmad) 122 Ghasemi, Ali 144 Ghasemkhani, Peyman 38 Ghavitan, Ali 38 Ghazian, Hossein 149 Gheydi, Monir 29–30 Ghobadi, Bahman 5–6, 23, 42, 63, 66, 83, 86, 88, 90, 117–118, 124, 148, 160 Gholamzadeh, Hamid Reza 122 Ghosts Project, The 160 Gianvito, John 85 Gilaneh (2005) 28–29, 32, 96–97, 105, 145, 176 Gilmore, Geoffrey 91 Girl in Sneakers, The (1998) 41, 65 Girls (2009) 20, 60 Gitai, Amos 86 Glass Menagerie, The 67 Godard, Jean-Luc 85 God’s Jokes 28 Gold and Copper (2010) 20, 35–37, 67, 113, 145 Golden Collars/Golden Leashes (2012) 139 Golden Minbar 34 Golden Phoenix for National View, The 166 Golden Phoenix Prize of Asian Cultural Affinities 139

Index Golmakani, Houshang 13, 23, 40, 124 Goodbye (2011) 47, 49, 63, 69, 97 Gozaresh-e Film 107 “the Great Satan” 131 Green Fire, The (2008) 41 Green Movement 7, 16, 54, 61, 91, 125, 145–147 Guardian Council 157, 177 Guidance Patrol, The (2012) 65, 153 Haft cinema programme 134 Haghighat, Mamad 116 Haghighi, Ali Reza 40, 124, 180 Haji Agha the Cinema Actor (1933) 143 Half Moon (2006) 66, 88, 117 Hashemi, Seyed Mohsen 11 Hassan Who Said No (2014) 165 Hatami, Leila 1, 38, 67, 69, 89, 96 Hatamikia, Ebrahim 29, 68, 137–138, 166, 179 Heer, Rolf de 77 Heidarian, Muhammad Mehdi 167 Hekmat, Manijeh 1, 19, 60, 64, 154 Hendrix, Jimi 22 Here, a Shining Light (2002) 38 Here without Me (2011) 67, 89, 97, 144–145, 147, 151, 154 Herzog, Werner 89 Hich (2010) 64 Hidden Half, The (2000) 55, 85, 97, 176 Hiva (2000) 27–29, 41 Holland, Agnieska 35 Hollywood/Hollywoodism 3, 69, 85, 93, 108, 110, 122, 129–135, 132, 138, 140–141, 148–149, 152, 157–158, 160, 162, 166–167, 172, 177–179, 178 Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies, and the American Dream 131, 179 Hollywood Reporter 50 Hong Kong International Film Festival 90 honour killings 57–60 Hopscotch Films 101 Hosseini, Seyed Mohammad 60, 137, 139–142, 146, 153, 160, 173 Hosseini, Shahab 43, 67, 125, 156 hotspot programme 14, 75, 87, 93 House is Black, The (1962) 81 House of Cinema 2, 11, 23, 111, 130, 134, 147–148, 174, 179 Hsiao-hsien, Hou 85 Hsing, Lee 158 Hubert Bals Fund 84–86, 89, 100 Huey P. Newton Story, A (2001) 85 Hui, Ann 158

203

humanism/humanist films 98–99, 134, 177 Human Rights Award 161 Hunter, The (2009) 64, 110 Huntington, Samuel P. 136 Hush! Girls Don’t Scream (2013) 21, 43, 58 Hussein who said no (2014) 179 I Am a Mother (2012) 59 I Am Taraneh, Fifteen Years Old (2002) 41, 67, 86 IFFA see Iranian Film Festival Australia (IFFA) IFFK see International Film Festival Kerala (IFFK) IFFR see International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) iFilm 160 IFM see International Film Market (IFM) Imam Hossein 23, 34, 159 IMDB 100, 117 I’m Not Angry (2014) 61, 180 imposed war 25–26 In Pursuit of Peace 136 insider/outsider logic 20–21, 30, 113 Interfaith Award 33, 38, 136 interfaith films 33–34, 39 international appeal 93–99 international art cinema master(s’) works 118 International Children’s Film Festival 161 international festivals 14; and awards 107–108; funding 99–100 International Film Festival India 76 International Film Festival Kerala (IFFK) 90 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 1, 3, 74–75, 84–85, 87–89, 100, 106, 154, 175 International Film Market (IFM) 89, 104–107 International Historical and Military Film Festival 163 international sales and exhibition 142–144 international scene 82–92 international selection process 92–93 In the Color of Purple (2010) 137–138 Iran Cinema Celebration 146–147 Irani, Shayesteh 62, 147 Iranian Alliance of Motion Picture Guilds 147 Iranian cinema: from 1962 to 1979 81–82; domestic audience 112; exilic/diasporic audience and 112–114; exporting

204

Index

103–104; IFM 104–107; international festivals and awards 107–108; postrevolutionary 82–99 Iranian Film Festival 91 Iranian Film Festival Australia (IFFA) 91, 112–113, 144 Iranian Film Season see Edinburgh Iranian Film Festival Iranian Film Weeks 144 Iranian government production: co-productions 172; and distribution 154–156; Magnificent Productions 156–166; and Muhammad: the Messenger of God 166–171; post 2009 153; see also Muslim cinema/Muslim filmmaking Iranian International Film Market 1 Iranian Resistance Film Festival 145 Iran-Iraq War 19, 24–25, 27, 29–31, 41, 124, 136, 140, 145, 155 Iraq War (2003–2010) 32 IRI see Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) IRIB see Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) Iron Island (2005) 48–49, 116 Islamicate Period 9 Islamic Awakening 128, 138, 140 Islamic Propaganda Organisation 33, 156 Islamic Republic 8–9, 15, 17, 23–25, 33, 40, 50, 62, 127, 130, 137, 146, 169, 178 Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) 29, 33–34, 38–39, 48, 125–126, 139, 153, 155–157, 159, 161, 165, 167, 180 Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) 5, 8–9, 12, 51, 103, 107, 122–123, 128, 130, 134, 142, 173, 175 Islamic Revolution 7, 9, 20 Islamophobia 1, 122 Israeli Declaration of Independence 32 Issa, Rose 83–84, 89 It’s Winter (2006) 87, 110, 113 Jacob, Gilles 107 Jacobovici, Simcha 131 Jadidi, Amir 92 Jafari, Qasem 60 Jahed, Parviz 98 Jalili, Abolfazl 84–85, 88–89 Jalladeau, Alain 83, 89 Jalladeau, Philippe 83, 89 James, Henry 63 Jar, The (1992) 84, 115

Javaherian, Negar 37, 54, 156 Jazayeri, Masoud 127 Jebraeil Film Distributing Company 161 Jeirani, Fereidun 59 Jesus, the Spirit of God (2005) 34 Jewish boosterism 131 Journey to Chazzabeh (1995) 25, 27, 32 Joyce, James 70 Jury Grand Prize 31 Just 6.5 (2019) 181 Kami’s Party (2013) 70 Kandahar (2001) 51 Kanoon – Kanun-e Parvaresh-e Fekri-ye Kudakan va Nowjavana 156 Karimi, Niki 1, 3, 10, 58–59, 96, 106–107, 143 Karimi, Reza Mir 69, 85, 90, 176 Kariminia, Muhammad Mehdi 62 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 63, 106 Kazan, Elia 136 Key, The (1987) 115–116 Khalani, Abdolreza 44, 64, 119 Khamenei, Ali 107, 122, 126, 134, 139–140 Khatami, Mohammad 2, 4–5, 16, 33, 38–39, 41, 55, 107, 124, 130, 136, 147, 157, 167, 172–173 Khaza, Mohammad 141 Khomeini, Ayatollah 139 Khomeini, Ruhollah 8–10, 18, 33, 49–50, 122–125, 129, 142, 173, 176–177, 180 Khoshbakht, Mehrdad 165 Kiani, Ebrahim 64–65 Kianian, Reza 162 Kiarostami, Abbas 1, 3, 5, 7, 44, 60, 79–80, 82–87, 90, 94–95, 102–103, 105, 107–108, 115, 118, 149, 151, 156, 160, 176, 179–180 Killing Rapids 85 Kilmer, Val 131 Kimiavi, Parviz 41, 82 kind dictators 21 Kingdom of Solomon, The (2010) 3, 33, 159–160, 162, 165, 171, 177 King’s Speech, The (2010) 148 Kljakovic, Miljen Kreka 168 Korean Cinema Award 89 Kosari, Baran 61, 96 Kosslick, Dieter 87 Kowsari, Jahangir 17 Kraicer, Shelly 115–116, 118–119 Kubrick, Stanley 30

Index LaBute, Neil 35 La Commune (2001) 85 Langford, Michelle 40, 103 Lashgaripur, Pezhman 44, 109 Last Step, The (2012) 70 Lavafipour, Ramtin 84 “leaving Iran” theme 49–50, 63–64 Lee, Spike 85 Legend of Sigh, The (1991) 55, 84 Leila (1996) 56, 68 Leily is with me (1996) 16, 20, 37 Letters in the Wind (2002) 30, 106 Light in the Fog, A (2009) 154 Little Bird of Happiness (1987) 42 Little Wish, A 28 Living in Purgatory (1980) 95 Lizard, The (2004) 20, 35, 37 Loach, Ken 136–137 Locarno International Film Festival 82–83 London Film Festival 82, 88–89 London Iranian Film Festival 91 Looking for Eric (2009) 137 Losique, Serge 89 Lotfalian, Mazyar 17 Louvish, Simon 98 Lovely Trash (2019) 180 Low Altitude (2002) 68 Lum, Troy 101 luti genre 17 Lynch, David 85 Maadi, Peyman 70–71 Madiyan (1986) 95 Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein, The (2007) 85 Magnificent Productions 3, 15, 33, 145, 153, 156–167, 172, 177–179 Mainline (2006) 54, 60–61 Majidi, Majid 1, 7, 35, 83, 85, 89, 97, 99–100, 106, 116, 159, 166–171, 168, 178–179 Majnoon Epic (1993) 161 Makhmalbaf, Maysam 51 Makhmalbaf, Mohsen 6, 21, 25, 50–51, 81–82, 84, 88–90, 94, 100, 107, 109–110, 117, 124, 146, 151, 167 Makhmalbaf, Samira 5, 40–41, 51, 83–84, 86, 90 Makhmalbaf Film House (MFH) 50–52, 99, 117 Malone, Peter 33 Maltby, Richard 18 Man of Integrity, A (2017) 50, 181

205

Mansouri, Moslem 126 Manuscripts Don’t Burn (2013) 50, 87, 153, 177, 181 Mao Zedong 158 Maritime Silk Road (2011) 151, 162–163, 164, 178 Maritime Silk Route Economic Belt 163 Marriage of the Blessed (1989) 25, 82, 84 Marriage of the Blessed, The (1989) 167 Masoudshahi, Mahdi 142 Masoumi, Khosro 32 Match Factory 110 May Lady, The (1998) 40 MCIG see Ministry for Culture and Islamic Guidance (MCIG) Mehranfar, Farhad 117 Mehrju’i, Dariush 3, 28, 38, 40, 56–57, 60–61, 68, 81, 86, 96, 154, 155 Mehr News Agency 145 Melbourne International Film Festival 137 Meshkini, Marziyeh 90 Message, The (1976) 166 Messiah, The (2005) 34 metanarrative Muslim filmmaking 151 MFH see Makhmalbaf Film House (MFH) M for Mother (2007) 27 middle-class family drama 67–71 Miladi, Armin 91 Milani, Tahmineh 2–3, 13, 23, 28, 40–42, 52–57, 68–69, 71, 84–85, 96, 137, 146, 176 Miller, Frank 130 Miller, Merlin 172 Mina’s Option (2016) 180 Ministry for Culture and Islamic Guidance (MCIG) 3, 9, 20, 23, 40–41, 46, 49, 59–60, 65, 70, 127, 134, 139, 144, 147–148, 153, 174 Mir-Alaii, Ahmad 163 Miri, Maziar 34, 66, 69, 156 Mir-Karimi, Reza 36, 38, 156 Mirror, The (1997) 83–84, 94 Mirtahmasb, Mojtaba 131 Mirza Ebrahim Khan Akkas Bashi 8 Miss Iran (2007) 10 MK2 99, 117 Modest Reception, A (2012) 88, 97 modulations, on Sacred Defence genre 24–27, 30–33 Moghadam, Saman 10 Mohajerani, Attaolah 5, 20, 173, 181 Mohammadi, Manouchehr 20 Mohammadzadeh, Navid 61, 92

206

Index

Mohsenin, Kamyar 10, 13 Mokhtarnameh 159 Mollagholipour, Rasoul 25–27, 41 Mongols, The (1973) 41 Moqadam, Maryam 147 Moqavamet 129–135 Moqavemat International Film Festival 25, 140, 142, 144–145, 161 Moradi, Shahab 29 Mosaffa, Ali 38, 63, 70 Moscow International Film Festival 165 Mostazafan Foundation of Islamic Revolution 167–168 Motamed Arya, Fatemeh 1–3, 28–29, 84, 89–90, 96, 131, 147–148, 180 Motamedian, Bahman 62, 178 Mottahedeh, Negar 109 Mourning (2011) 90 Mousavi, Granaz 63, 100, 118, 147 Moussavi, Mir Hossein 2, 16 Muhammad: the Messenger of God 7, 159, 167–171, 178–179 Müller, Marco 75, 83–85, 89 “Muslim Cinema” Film Festival Russia 34 Muslim cinema/Muslim filmmaking 15; cultural diplomacy 128–129, 144–145; definition of 127; domestic 140–142; and Fajr Film Festival 135–140; foreign policy 128–129; hard war 145–151; international sales and exhibition 142–144; metanarrative 151; Moqavamet and Hollywoodism 129–135; objectives 127–128; overview 121–123; politicisation of filmmakers 123–127; question of definition 142; see also Iranian government production My Tehran for Sale (2009) 63, 100, 118, 147 Nader and Simin see Separation, A (2011) Naderi, Amir 82, 89 Naderi, Mehdi 32, 146 Naficy, Hamid 4–5, 8–10, 12, 14, 20, 24–25, 29, 41, 51, 56, 62–63, 66–67, 69, 80, 91, 93, 95, 98–99, 108, 121–122, 124, 126, 157, 160 Nahid (2015) 67 Naji Film 58 NAM see Non-aligned Movement (NAM) Namjoo 87 Nantes’ Trois Continents 74 Nargess (1992) 54 Nasrine Medard de Chardon 99 national cinema 12

National Film Archive of Iran (NFAI) 103–104, 143–144 National Iranian Radio and Television 155 Neshat, Shirin 78 NETPAC 30 Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema 137 New Crowned Hope Festival (2006) 88 New Currents Awards 90, 154 New Iranian Cinema 4, 14, 74, 81, 93–94, 115–116 New Iranian Cinema: Politics, Representation and Identity, The 40 New Wave cinemas 73, 95 New York Film Festival 90 NFAI see National Film Archive of Iran (NFAI) Night Bus, The (2006) 30, 32, 154 Night of the Hunchback (1964) 81 Nikbin, Mohammad 2, 54, 56–57, 98 Nobody Knows About Persian Cats/No One Knows About Persian Cats (2009) 63, 118, 148 No Date No Signature (2017) 181 Non-aligned Movement (NAM) 129, 136, 137, 139, 144, 152, 177 non-Hollywood Western programming 136 Noor Iranian Film Festival 91 Novin Film 154 Nuri, Shaikh Fazlollah 8 Nye, Joseph 122 O’Connor, Michael 168 Offside (2006) 2, 5, 10, 47, 52, 62, 66, 87, 96–97, 105, 113, 147, 149, 151, 175 Ohanian, Ovanes 143 OIC see Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) One Night (2005) 10, 106 Opium War, The (1997) 158 Orange Suit (2011) 69 O’Regan, Tom 14, 24, 77, 129, 157 Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) 128 Osborne, Barrie 166 Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema 90 Our Times (documentary) 54, 86 Outcasts, The trilogy 24, 38, 55; The Outcasts (2007) 16; The Outcasts II (2009) 16; The Outcasts III (2011) 16–17 Out of limits (1988) 168

Index Pahlavi Foundation 167 Painting Pool, The (2013) 37, 66, 156, 178 Pak-Shiraz, Nacim 4, 9, 35–36, 123, 167 Palme d’Or 60, 82–84, 89, 115 Panahandeh, Ida 67 Panahi, Hengameh 116 Panahi, Jafar 1–3, 5, 7, 10, 13–14, 20, 31, 41–48, 49, 52, 60, 62, 66, 70, 83–84, 86–87, 88, 89–90, 94, 96–97, 99, 102, 105–109, 115, 118–119, 124, 143, 146–149, 151, 160, 171, 174–178, 181 Paper Airplanes (1997) 117 Paradise Orphanage 155 Parhami, Shahin 8 Pari (1995) 56 Partovi, Kambozia 31 Parvin Etesami Film Festival 28 Passion of the Christ, The (2004) 35 Past, The (2013) 68, 73, 87, 101, 118, 156, 176 Paternal House, The (2012) 57, 97, 113 path of exile 50–52 Path of the Prophets Award 37 patriarchal domination 52 Patwardhan, Anand 85 Payami, Babak 57, 84–85, 113 Payback (2007) 23, 55–56, 137 Payvand Iran News 134 Peary, Gerald 131 Peddler, The (1987) 82, 89–90 Pena, Richard 90 Persian instruments 26 Pirates of the Caribbean franchise 162 Pitts, Rafi 64, 87, 109–110, 113 Poet of the Wastes (2005) 90 Poitier, Sidney 136 politics: and film festivals 74–77; politicisation of filmmakers 123–127; and social issues films 64–65 Pontifical Councils for Social Communications and Culture 33 Poonez, Akbar 65 Poopak and Mashallah (2010) 154 Portrait of a Lady Far Away (2005) 63 Postman, The (1970) 82 post-revolutionary Iranian cinema: international appeal 93–99; international scene 82–92 Pourahmad, Kiumars 30, 154 President, The (2014) 51 Press TV 107 Prince Ehtejab (1974) 82

207

Private Life (2012) 64–65, 67, 153 process film 62 Qaderi, Iraj 95 Qisas/Law of Retaliation 42–43, 58, 60 quest films 115 Quest for Truth and Justice 137 Radan, Bahram 61, 162–163 Rafei, Abbas 34 Rafie, Ali 67 Rahman, A.R. (Allahrakka) 168 Rahnama, Fereydoun 81 Rainy Seasons (2010) 154 Rashidi, Leili 2 Rasoulof, Mohammad 2, 47–50, 60, 63, 69, 87, 90, 116, 124, 146, 148, 153, 177, 181 Reclamation/Restitution (2012) 145, 164, 177 Red Carpet (2014) 154 Redford, Robert 55 redlines 20 Red Robin (2007) 34 reformist era 52, 54 “Religion Today Film Festival” 34 religious films 33, 38–39 Requiem 118 resistance 24–27, 129–135, 177 Respectable Family, A (2012) 69–70 Revolutionary Guards 167 Rezadad, Alireza 35 Rezaee, Panahbarkhoda 154, 165 Rhino Season (2012) 88, 90 Richter, Erika 110 risk management 17–18, 38 Rohmer, Eric 85 Rosenbaum, Jonathan 81, 98 Roshd International Film Festival 1, 60, 142, 161 Rossellini, Isabella 87 Rossellini, Roberto 136 Rothstein, Edward 93 Rotterdam festival 74 Rouhani, Hassan 3–4, 7, 15, 50, 53, 173, 178–181 Roustayi, Saeed 181 Rumi, Jalal ad-Din 26, 36 Runner, The (1985) 82, 89 Rushdie, Salman 123 Sacred Defence Festivals 157 Sacred Defence Film Festival see Moqavemat International Film Festival

208

Index

Sacred Defence films 13, 95, 124, 129, 131, 136, 141–142, 145, 152, 155, 161, 166, 177, 180; description 16–24; and female directors 28–30; interfaith films 33–34; modulations 24–27, 30–33; religious films 33; resistance 24–27; spiritual films 33–39 Sacred Defence Poetry Festival 25 Sacred Defence Week 25, 140 Sadatian, Jamal 137 Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, Eskandar 65 Sadeqi, Mohsen 161 Sadr, Hamid Reza 9, 14, 25, 109 Sadrameli, Rasoul 41, 65–67, 86 Saeed-Vafa, Mehrnaz 80, 91, 113 safe but exotic spectacle 115–116, 120 Saffar-Harandi, Mohammad-Hossein 61 St Mary (2002) 33–34, 159 Salehi, Ali-Akbar 145 Saless, Sohrab Shahid 82 Sanati, Mohammad 145 Santouri (2007) 60, 70 Sara (1993) 56 Saturday Hunter (2010) 160, 162 SBS see Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) Scharres, Barbara 83, 91 School of the Art Institute of Chicago 91 Scott, Ridley 146 Screen Daily 166 screening permits 2, 22–23, 53, 55–56, 135, 143–144, 149 Secret Ballot (2001) 57, 84–85 Secret of Armageddon 160 Sellars, Peter 88 Separation, A (2011) 10, 63, 68–69, 73, 97, 100–102, 105, 115, 134, 144, 146, 176 Sex My Life (2008) 62, 178 SFF see Singapore Film Festival (SFF) Shah, Mozaffar al-Din 8 Shahabi, Katayoun 3, 143, 148, 179 Shahbazi, Parviz 90 Shamaqdari, Javad 17, 39, 124, 130, 140–141 Shams, Parisa 20 sharia law 42–43, 58 Shariati, Ali 122 Sheeple (2018) 181 Sheikhtadi, Parviz 28 Sherhezad Media International 143 Shirin (2008) 95, 97 Shirvani, Mohammad 84 shoestring budgets 95

Shojanoori, Alireza 179 Shoorje, Jamal 161 shooting permits 5, 44, 55, 149 Siam Sheikh 155, 163 Siavash in Persopolis (1964) 81 SIGNIS 33–34 Silence Between Two Thoughts, The (2003) 57, 113 Silk Road 128, 163 Simon, Alissa 50, 83, 91 Simple Event, A (1973) 82 sinama-ye ma‘nagara 35 Sin City 130 sinema-ye moslehaneh see social issues films Singapore Film Festival (SFF) 87, 90 Smell of Camphor, Scent of Jasmine (2000) 1 SMI 106 Snow, Michael 85 Snow on the Pines, The (2012) 70 social issues films 4, 13; and Derakhshandeh 42–48; description 40–42; and drugs 60–62; and families 65–67; and fernweh films 63–64; and honour killings 57–60; “leaving Iran” theme 49–50, 63–64; and Makhmalbaf Film House (MFH) 50–52; middle-class family drama 67–71; and Panahi 42–48; and politics 64–65; and Rasoulof 48–50; and transgenders 62; and women’s films 52–57 “social-problem” films see social issues films soft war 122–123, 126 Soheili, Saeed 65, 153 Song of Sparrows, The (2008) 99, 116, 170 Songs from my Mother’s Country (2002) 86 Sony Pictures International 100–101 Sound and Sound 98 Soureh Cinema Organisation 144 Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) 79 Spell, The (1987) 89 “Spiritual Cinema” award 35, 136 Spiritual Cinema Centre 35 spiritual films 33–39 “Spotlight on China” 139 Stam, Robert 13 Still Life (1974) 82 Stone, Oliver 130 Stone, Sean 131 Storaro, Vittorio 7, 168–169, 179

Index Story of the Kelly Gang, The 8 Stranger and the Fog, The (1974) 82 Streiff, David 84 suicide 60 Sun, Moon, Earth (2012) 38 Sun Shines Equally on Everybody, The (2007) 34 Sun Yatsen 158 Superstar (2008) 96 Survivor (1995) 32, 157 Sweetie (1989) 77 Sydney Film Festival 100, 101, 143 Taal, Bianca 88 Tabrizi, Kamal 16, 20, 37, 154, 180 Tadi, Parviz Sheikh 34 Taerpour, Fereshteh 21, 21, 62 Tahaminejad, Mohammad 14 Talajooy, Saeed 98 Talebi, Abolqasem 139, 154 Talebinejad, Ahmad 108 Talebzadeh, Nader 34–35, 131 Tales (2014) 53–54, 60, 180 Tambourine (2009) 68 Tapper, Richard 24, 40, 80, 91, 94–95, 97–98, 102, 113–114, 119 Tashakkori, Reza 167–168 Taslimi, Susan 95 Taste of Cherry, A/The Taste of Cherry (1997) 60, 80, 82–83, 107, 115 Tavakoli, Bahram 35, 66, 154 Taxi 10 Tehran, Tehran (2010) 64 Tehran International Film Festival 82 Tehran Times 65, 107, 131, 166 Telluride Film Festival 89 ‘temporary marriage’ theme 22 Ten (2002) 86, 97 Ten Fingers 10 Third Eye, The 29 Third Text 121 Third World 129 This is not a Film (2011) 44, 47, 87, 99, 175 Three Women (2008) 97 Through the Olive Trees (1994) 82 Tiger Awards Competition 84 Time for Drunken Horses, A (2000) 23 Time Magazine 117 Times of India, The 86 Tiny Snowflakes (2003) 90 Toronto Film Festival 89 Track 143 (2014) 29 transgenders, and social issues films 62, 178 Transmission Films 78

209

Twenty Fingers (2004) 106 Twilight, The (2002) 48, 60 Two Angels (2002) 116 Two Women (1998) 40, 55, 146 UCLA Film and Television Archive 91 Under the Moon Light (2001) 20, 35–37, 85, 176 Under the Peach Tree (2006) 17 Under the Skin of the City (2001) 53, 85 UNESCO Award 108 Unfinished Song, The (2000) 66 Universal Network 155 Unwanted Woman, The (2005) 69, 97 Urry, John 79 US-Iran Cinema Exchange 130 Vafamehr, Marzieh 64, 147 Variety 37, 50, 57, 77, 97, 104, 113, 158 Vasudev, Aruna 86 Venice Biennale 3, 5, 57, 75–76, 78, 83 Vesoul Film Festival 3, 59, 143 Viennese festival 118 Villa Dwellers (2017) 29 Village Voice 117 Visual Media Institute (VMI) 3, 104–106, 139–140, 143–144, 148, 149, 154, 156 Walk in the Fog, A (2009) 67 War and Peace (2002) 85 Water, Wind, Dust (1989) 89 Watkins, Peter 85 We are Half of Iran’s Population (documentary) 53 Weeping Meadow, The (2004) 49, 136 Weiwei, Ai 84 WFF see World Film Festival (WFF) What (is) Cinema? 85 When Strangers Meet: Visions of Asia and Europe in Film 137 Where is the Friend’s House? (1989) 82–84 White Balloon, The (1995) 48, 83, 89, 96–99, 115–116 White Meadows, The (2009) 48–49, 113 Whittaker, Sheila 83, 88–89 Wicker Man, The (2006) 35 Wild Bunch 181 Willemen, Paul 12 Willow Tree, The (2002) 35, 106 Wings of Desire (1987) 35 “Women and Religion” Awards 34 women’s films 14, 42, 52–57, 181; BaniE’temad on 52–56; Mehrju’i on 56–57; Milani on 52–56

210

Index

Women’s Prison (2002) 1, 19, 60, 64, 97 Women without Men (2009) 78, 97 World Film Festival (WFF) 89, 119, 146, 158 Wrestler, The (2008) 130 Xi Jinping 163 Yalda and the Doll 155 Yaraghi, Adel 180

Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations 136 Yektapanah, Hassan 5, 83 Zahra, Fatima 52 Zare’i, Merila 29 Zeydabadi-Nejad, Saeed 4, 14, 20, 33, 41, 43, 52, 56, 66, 119 Zhou Enlai 158 Zuilhof, Gertjan 88