Aids, Iran 2004: The Lovers, the Victims (Eydz, Iran 1383)
Director: Mohammad Ehsani, Kamal Bahar
Date: 2004
Running time: 37’
Synopsis:
AIDS doesn't officially exist in Iran; however, the virus is spreading at a meteoric rate, more than three times faster than the birth-rate. The number of unreported cases is estimated at around 45,000.First-hand accounts by the homeless, drug addicts, prostitutes, doctors and pharmacists underlined by statistics challenge the hypocritical and sometimes false official statements by revealing the harsh reality.
Subject(s): Aids, drugs, social boundaries.
And Life Went on (Va Zendegi Edameh Dasht)
Director: Maryam Mohajer
Date: 2007
Running time: 6’
Synopsis:
The Iran-Iraq war… All the neighbors rush down to the basement shelter. So what is going to happen in this shelter? Would every woman cry and scream whilst every man shivers and chews his mustache with rage and fear? You will be surprised!
Subject(s): Iran-Iraq war, trauma.
A Window Facing the Sun (Panjereyi Rubeh Aftab)
Director: Bijan Zamanpira
Date: 2006
Running time: 12’
Synopsis:
A carnival shadow-play of prayers, ceremonies, the land and the clouds as a desert community in Iran beseeches the clouds to rain water and life down upon their scorching land. A triumphant, poetic invocation of the source of life.
Subject(s): Kurdistan, ritual of rain request.
Back Vocal (Sedayeh Dovom)
Director: Mojtaba Mirtahmasb
Date: 2004
Running time: 40’
Synopsis:
24 years after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the legal prohibition against female solo singing in Iran, rumours about females being permitted to sing in duets have encouraged female singers to take the initiative to record and release their musical albums.
Subject(s): music and Islam, gender issues, women singers.
Best in the West
Director: Maryam Kashani
Date: 2006
Running time: 71’
Synopsis:
Best in the West is the story of a group of male friends who leave the country of their birth to seek education, opportunity, and adventure abroad. In relating the events of their emigration from Iran to the San Francisco Bay Area, the film explores the personal choices and relationships of these young men as they establish their lives and maintain a community in a new land. What began as an oral history of one family’s emigration to the West soon expanded into the documentation of a transitional period in history that altered the landscape of international geopolitics and the lives of these men.
Subject(s): Diaspora, immigration.
Be Like Others
Director: Tanaz Eshaghian
Date: 2008
Running time: 74’
Synopsis:
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, a country with strict social mores and traditional values, sex-change operations are legal. Over twenty years ago, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa (religious edict) making sex change permissible for "diagnosed transsexuals." Yet homosexuality is still punishable by death. With Iran's international arms negotiations dominating news headlines worldwide, a very private kind of drama is unfolding behind the scenes. Highly feminine and attracted to members of the same sex, yet forced to live in secret for fear of retribution, a generation of young Iranian men are adopting an identity legally allowed to them—transsexual. In pursuit of what one man calls simply, "a decent life," they flock to the country's best-established gender reassignment surgeon, Dr. Bahram Mir Jalali, and are counseled by 24-year-old Vida, a post-op woman who claims to be "reborn" but warns of dangers that still await. Iranian-American filmmaker Tanaz Eshaghian accompanies several young men as they contemplate and prepare for their transformation, then follows them into and out of surgery. Intimate and unflinching, BE LIKE OTHERS is a fascinating look at those on the fringes of Iranian life—those looking for acceptance through the most radical of means.
Subject(s): transsexuality, plastic surgery, gender issues, religious boundaries.
Behesht Zahra: Mothers of the Martyrs
Director: Mehran Tamadon
Date: 2004
Running time: 47’
Synopsis:
Behesht Zahra, the Tehran cemetery, is a few dozen kilometers away from the city. One part of this cemetery, with about 33,000 graves, is devoted to soldiers who lost their lives during the war against Iraq. Every Thursday, this cemetery is crowded with the families of these young martyrs.
Subject(s): Iran-Iraq war, martyrdom, gender issues, loss, trauma.
Caught Between Two Worlds
Director: Persheng Sadegh-Vaziri, Simin Farkhondeh
Date: 2007
Running time: 58 ’
Many Iranians left their country to seek refuge abroad in the events leading up to and following the 1979 revolution and birth of the Islamic Republic with some settling in the U.S. Alongside the usual challenges of engaging with a new culture and language, these Iranian immigrants have also had to deal with the traumas of revolution, the hostage crisis, and more recently, post 9/11 realities. Punctuated by the hip-hop inspired poetry of Iranian-American writer Sahar, this powerful documentary addresses the challenges of Iranian life in the U.S., offering a rich tapestry, unraveling layer upon layer of meaning to the experience of what it is like to be 'caught between two worlds.
Subject(s): Diaspora, trauma.
Children of the Prophet
Director: Sudabeh Mortezai
Date: 2006
Running time: 90’
The martyrdom of the Twelver Shia’s third Imam in 680 AD is a historically defining moment for Shia identity. Nowhere are the rites and rituals as elaborate and widespread as in Iran, the only Muslim country with a Shia population of over 90%. The film goes to the heart of the rituals through the perspective of the protagonists, their beliefs and the various roles the ceremonies play in the lives of different people. We follow them closely in their everyday lives and how they prepare for the festival and experience each part of the ritual through their personal approach and viewpoint.
Subject(s): Shiite rituals, Moharram, religious boundaries, religious space, youth, fashion, social relationships.
Clerical Garb: Last Prove (Lebas Rohani: Prove Akhar)
Director: Reza Haeri
Date: 2008
Running time: 30’
Synopsis:
Mr. Arabpour speaks to us of the different styles of religious garments, all based on the traditional “Aba” and “Amameh” (like those of my grandfather). The newer styles, more sculpted, more tailored, with defined seams and pockets, are for the new strain of Ayatollahs… the more reformist or “democratic” ones, of whom Khatami is the best example. Mr. Arabpour shows us how he designs and makes the religious garments, and how he adapts them to different religious leaders and their needs. One may want a pocket for a mobile phone, while another wants a simplified version, without any frills.
Subject(s): religious garments, abba, ammameh.
Faces (Chehreha)
Director: Shahin Parhami
Date: 2007
Running time: 100’
Synopsis:
Documentarian Shahin Parhami interviews 10 Iranian-Canadian artists who have practiced their craft in the West since the revolution. The interviews are complemented by free-form montages which center on the changing landscape of Iranian art and history. The audience not only sees these sequences for themselves, but also sees them through the eyes of veteran actor Shahram Golchin, who is subjected to a different montage upon awaking each morning.
Subject(s): visual and dramatic art, Diaspora, trauma.
Football, Iranian Style (Football Beh Sabk-e Irani)
Director: Maziar Bahari
Date: 2001
Running time: 50’
Synopsis:
100,000 soccer fans jump up and down with extraordinary enthusiasm in a sold-out stadium. The ones dressed in blue are rooting for Esteghlal, the ones in red for Persepolis - those being the two most popular teams in Iran. All 100,000 fans are men, as women are not allowed inside the stadium. Still, Maziar Bahari also portrays women in his documentary about Iranian soccer fans - a girl who anxiously visits a public practice soccer field to meet her hero and a young woman who hides her ball on the roof of her house as she cannot play in the street.
Subject(s): football, sport, social fashion, popular culture.
Here is the Ball, Here is the Field (In Guy, In Meydan)
Director: Maryam Haghpanah
Date: 2007
Running time: 28’
Synopsis:
Mehdi is the farmer who has planted Tehran's first polo field. When he had been working in the Polo Federation maintaining the field he learned the game of polo, and now he is one of the Polo Federation's players.
Subject(s): sport, polo.
Imamzadeh Internet (Emamzadeh Internet)
Director: Reza Haeri
Date: 2004
Running time: 26’
Synopsis:
Entering a room lit by multiple computer screens, director Reza Haeri introduces us to a range of Iranians who use the internet for romantic chats, spiritual growth, or networking beyond small towns. An imam answers religious questions from Iranians both at home and in the Diaspora over his website. A young man resurrects his village on the internet as a tourist attraction. Young Iranian women find space for themselves in women-only internet cafes. A bold and fresh view of the cultural transformation that the internet and internet cafes—"cybercoffees"—have had on the seemingly rigid social fabric of Iran.
Subject(s): internet, communication, youth, religion.
Infidels (Koffar)
Director: Bahman Kiarostami
Date: 2004
Running time: 40’
Synopsis:
The Godars are nomadic gypsies who migrated from India to Iran. Their original religion, animism, was based on the belief that natural objects and phenomena possess lives and souls. During the Islamic Revolution they were forced to convert, and although they are now officially Shiite Muslims, they are still outcasts and considered infidels. Infidels recounts the four ways that the Godars make their living: dancing, acting, hunting and music, and showcases their dedication to preserving their art and age-old rituals.
Subject(s): minorities, gypsies, ethnomusicology.
Iranian Bazaars (Bazarhayeh Iran)
Director: Peyman Zandi
Date: 2007
Running time: 60’
Synopsis:
This film introduces daily markets, permanent bazaars and centuries-old bazaars in Iran, also looking at the buildings related to bazaars such as caravanserais, bathhouses, mosques and traditional sport clubs. In this documentary film we become acquainted with the manners and customs, way of life, and occupations of Iranian people in bazaars.
Subject(s): Iranian traditional bazaars, daily markets.
Karb (Karb)
Director: Mahdi Moniri
Date: 2002
Running time: 19’
Synopsis:
Karb is a special religious object made of wood. In some communities in the north of Iran there exists a special ceremony with the name of Karbzani; this ceremony is in memorial of the martyrdom of Imam Hossein, grandchild of the Prophet Mohammad, during Moharram.
Subject(s): Moharram rituals, Shiite material culture.
Letters from Iran (Namehayi az Iran)
Director: Nezam Manouchehri
Date: 2004
Running time: 33’
Synopsis:
A personal revelation of life in Iran that goes beyond its individual surroundings to include important layers of the current social reality, this is the tale of a Western-educated, upper middle-class Iranian, who has returned from America.
Subject(s): trauma, Diaspora.
Leyla (Leyla)
Director: Amin Ghadami
Date: 2006
Running time: 32’
Synopsis:
In December 2003 Bam, one of Iran’s ancient cities, was hit by an earthquake. Isabel Munos, a Spanish photographer, came to Bam 18 months after the earthquake for a photography project. One of her subjects, Mohammad Akbari, tells the story of his sister Leyla and her family who died under the ruins of their house in the disaster.
Subject(s): Bam earthquake, loss and trauma.
Lost Melodies (Navahay-e Gomshodeh)
Director: Alireza Ghasemkhan
Date: 2008
Running time: 24’
Synopsis:
The first Iranian documentary film in which Master H. Alizadeh explores and explains the origin of pre-Islamic musical instruments and statutes of musicians that have been found in archaeological excavations in Iran.
Subject(s): musical instruments, ethnomusicology, archaeology, history of music.
Mokarrameh: Memories and Dreams (Mokarrameh: Khaterat va Royaha)
Director: Ebrahim Mokhtari
Date: 1999
Running time: 48’
Synopsis:
A fascinating and intimate portrait of a seemingly unlikely artist, Mokarrameh, a widow living in rural Iran who dips into her memories as well as colorful local legends to create vivid, detailed paintings. Her intense desire to create began when she lost her cow; distraught, she consoled herself by painting it on a rock. Now, years later, Mokarrameh’s home literally overflows with her paintings. Originally, she worked with mud and cow dung; now she uses paints bought by her son. A disturbing commentary on the role of women emerges when her husband’s first wife comes for tea. Amidst their bickering, the two women recall their hard lives, and Mokarrameh reveals that her art is a “means of substance.”
Subject(s): visual and popular art, mural painting.
Passage through the Unknown… (Obur az Nemidanam…)
Director: Khosrow Sinai
Date: 2002
Running time: 34’
Synopsis:
A film about the Iranian poet and artist M. E. Jafari, how he works, how he teaches, and how he is.
Subject(s): visual art, painting, creativity.
Mrs. President: Women and Political Leadership in Iran
(Khanum Raisjomhur: Zanan va Rahbari-ye Siasi dar Iran)
Director: Shahla Haeri
Date: 2002
Running time: 46’
Synopsis:
In the summer of 2001, 47 Iranian women neither affiliated with nor supported by any political party registered themselves as candidates for the presidential elections. Due to the Guardian Council’s interpretation of a clause in the constitution, none of the women were allowed to run. This documentary presents the thoughts and opinions of six female candidates who agreed to be interviewed, along with the commentary of two female Iranian journalists who cover political developments for magazines in their country. They discuss their efforts in trying to change both governmental and popular opinion regarding the role of women in Iranian politics and society. Produced by Shahla Haeri, Director of Boston University’s Women’s Studies Program.
Subject(s): women and political activities, presidential election, social boundaries.
My Uncle, the Patriarch
Director: Abbas Yousefpour
Date: 2007
Running time: 50’
Synopsis:
This film is a portrait of the filmmaker’s uncle, the patriarch Haj Taghi, an elderly bazaar shoe merchant in Borujerd, Western Iran. After a car accident he had to hand over the business to his sons. They talk about economic and family problems, many of them resulting from the change from traditional to modern values in contemporary Iranian society.
Subject(s): daily life in Iran.
Nose Iranian Style (Damagh Be Sabk-e Irani)
Director: Mehrdad Oskouei
Date: 2005
Running time: 52’
Synopsis:
Documentary filmmaker Mehrdad Oskouei considers the epidemic of nose jobs in contemporary Iran, the world leader in plastic surgery with an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 operations each year. In a country that discourages personal expression and disdains Western culture, young Iranians eagerly change their noses to model images in European and American fashion magazines. With a light touch, Oskouei listens to patients and surgeons comment on this enigmatic phenomenon.
Subject(s): plastic surgery, sex and beauty, youth, fashion.
Oh, Protector of the Gazelle (Ya Zamen-e Ahu)
Director: Parviz Kimiavi
Date: 1970
Running time: 26’
Synopsis:
A masterpiece of the history of documentary cinema. The film which was shelved for many years focuses on men and women visiting the shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth Shiite Imam, in the city of Mashhad in the North East of Iran. Will the life of the believers change at the end of the day? According to a legend, people call Imam Reza the Guardian of Deer. It is said that Imam Reza once protected a deer chased by a hunter.
"There is the religious belief which leads the human beings to the shrine. All that I do is to show the space between the hands of the believers and the shrine. The symbolism in my film is rooted in reality. All the human beings and things in the film are real, nothing has been arranged."
Parviz Kimiavi
Subject(s): Imam Reza’s shrine, the servants of the shrine, Shiite rituals and space.
Omidvar Brothers (Baradaran-e Omidvar)
Director: Bijan Mirbaqeri
Date: 2002
Running time: 27’
Synopsis:
The adventures that occurred during the great round-the-world journey of the Omidvar brothers in the 1950s.
Subject(s): travel
Our Times... (Ruzegar-e Ma )
Director: Rakhshan Bani-Etemad
Date: 2002
Running time: 65 ’
Synopsis:
A documentary on a vitally important aspect of Iranian society, Our Times looks at the changing role of women to a backdrop of the 2002 Iranian elections. Shot by female director Rakshan Bani-Etemad, the film focuses on an audacious run for president by a woman who is part of a wider group of politically-charged Iranian females who have decided to run for office. Naturally this is all a bolt out of the blue for the ultraconservative Iranian society that spawned them, but makes for fascinating viewing for the rest of us.
Subject(s): women and political activities, presidential election, social boundaries.
Rakhsh on Flesh (Rakhsh bar Naghsh)
Director: Mohammad Ehsani
Date: 2003
Running time: 14’
Synopsis:
This is a documentary about the life and work of an old masseur in one of the old bath houses of Tabriz, who massages backs and shoulders there (in the traditional way). He works hard and is also a story-teller, recounting stories of the Shahnameh – Book of Kings - in tea-houses every night.
Subject(s): teahouses, Shahnameh recitation, traditional bath massage.
Roya and Omid (Roya va Omid)
Director: Elhum Shakerifar
Date: 2006
Running time: 15’
Synopsis:
‘Roya and Omid’ is an exploration of transsexuality in the Islamic setting of Iran. Bardia, a young female-to-male transsexual, reflects on his childhood spent in the wrong body, when he was known as Roya (‘dream’ in Persian), but wished to be Omid (‘hope’ in Persian). His narrative is crossed by the insightful comments of several male-to-female transsexuals in Iran – Donya, Handry, Leila and Shirin, who have to endure the daily scorn of society in their new roles as women.
Subject(s): transsexuality, plastic surgery, gender issues, religious boundaries.
Standard-bearers of Hussein: Women Commemorating Karbala
Director: Ingvild Flaskerud
Date: 2003
Running time: 35’
Synopsis:
In parallel to Shia Muslim men’s mourning ceremonies during Moharram and Safar, women gather in gender-specific rituals acting as hosts, leaders, assistants, servants, lay participants and financial supporters. In the present film we meet two women who often host rituals in their home and/or in a privately owned Hosseiniyeh. We also meet one of the ritual leaders whom they invite to lead ceremonies.
Subject(s): Moharram rituals, women’s rituals, gender issues.
Statues of Tehran (Mojasamehay-e Tehran)
Director: Bahman Kiarostami
Date: 2008
Running time: 60’
Synopsis:
This film is on the statues of Tehran and provides a brief overview of sculpture in this city while focusing on two works in Tehran. The first is a piece by Bahman Mohassess which he created in the 1970s for the then Royal Family and became one of the first modern works to be erected in Tehran. However, the city which became a permanent exposition of revolutionary and ideological works following the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War was no longer a favorable host for this sculpture and it was thus destined to disintegration and storage. In contrast with the above artwork, the film chooses Iraj Esskandari’s statue in Enghelab (Revolution) Circus as the second piece which has been standing in one of the most major locations of Tehran for the last 27 years symbolizing the Revolution and the War. Nowadays, this statue is to be dismantled and replaced by a subway station. Esskandari is dismayed but the artists of his generation and conviction and also decision-makers and managers are jubilant that Tehran is ridding itself of this sculpture. The aforesaid managers are even after restoring and re-erecting the sculpture of Bahman Mohassess despite his absence and indifference. But does the postmodern, ideology-ridden, and yet forgetful city of Tehran enjoy the readiness to once again host the work of Mohassess? More broadly speaking, what is the function of monuments in Tehran? In a city with a quality of forgetting its historical periods, memorials are built then to commemorate which historical periods?
Subject(s): visual art, artists, art in post-revolutionary Iran.
Tehran: 11pm (Tehran: 11 Shab)
Director: Vanessa Langer, Nasrin
Date: 2007
Running time: 26’
Synopsis:
In the stripped-down setting of her bedroom, a young 23-year-old Iranian woman opens a door to her private life. This fragmented space is gradually built as Nasrin reveals herself. The sincerity with which she recognizes the constraints of her enclosed space generates a game of hide-and-seek between her and the camera. With candour and clarity, her gaze creates a meeting place. It is between these four walls, late in the night, that Nasrin is freed from imposed values.
Subject(s): gender issues, youth, artist’s life, fashion.
Tehrani
Director: Daniel Frampton
Date: 2006
Running time: 40’
Synopsis:
Our understanding of contemporary Iran is subtly marred by the rhetoric of the "axis of evil" and the debate over nuclear weapons. Tehrani is simply an attempt to rebalance that rhetoric by giving a voice to someone living in the heart of this country. Ali Mashad, a young middle-class Iranian living in north-west Tehran, reveals Iran to be a country of contradictions: run under Islamic law, it also has major social problems, but he and his friends are wary of the usual media representations of his country. "We are trying to find a way for living, just for living. This is our life, and this is our government, and we want to try to live with it, to make a deal with
it - to find our ways in it.'
Subject(s): contemporary Iran, daily life.
The Faces on the Wall (Chehrehha Bar Divar)
Director: Bijan Anquetil, Paul Costes
Date: 2007
Running time: 64’
Synopsis:
The Islamic Republic of Iran had made a mural painted in the memory of the three Dastvareh brothers martyred during the Iran-Iraq war; a fresco which, among hundreds of others in Tehran, represents these young soldiers who fell in the name of God, for their country, dying as “martyrs of Islam”. Today, in their neighborhood, the legend of the “Dastvareh martyrs” still circulates - a complex mix of popular religion, state propaganda and personal memories. “The Faces on the Wall” questions the disillusion that surrounds an ideology based on the martyr’s figure, the founding myth of the new Iranian regime.
Subject(s): trauma, martyrdom, popular art and popular culture.
The Old Man and His Stone Garden (Pir- emard va Bagh-e Sangiash)
Director: Parviz Kimiavi
Date: 2004
Running time: 52’
Synopsis:
Many years ago, at dawn, in the middle of a barren desert in the province of Kerman in the southeast of Iran, a deaf and dumb shepherd witnessed the fall of a meteor a few hundred metres away from him. He approached it in awe and waited for the blazing stone to cool down. He put the heavy stone on his shoulder and dragged it near his tent in an earnest attempt…
Subject(s): spirituality, desert life.
The Other Side of the Burka (Az Pas-e Borghe)
Director: Mehrdad Oskoui
Date: 2004
Running time: 52’
Synopsis:
On the southern Iranian island of Qeshm in the Persian Gulf, women wear a headscarf, but also a burka, a pinching mask of black bands pressing against the eyebrows and nose, and ending in a point just above the mouth. The women interviewed do not remove this outward sign of oppression, but against the strict religious rules they talk openly into the camera about their emotional problems, mental conditions and physical complaints. "We never wanted to appear before a camera, but now we do. We may wear a burka, but we are human beings. We breathe and live." During a special ceremony called Zar (which means possession), the different afflictions of the women can be treated. When there is no camera around, their only possible cry of distress is often death. So the film begins with the funeral of Samireh, who hanged herself from a fan with her shawl. "A woman is like a pair of shoes," her grieving husband says. "When one is gone, you can find another one. But what am I supposed to do with the children?" Both men and women make lasting statements in the film, just as filmmaker Mehrdad Oskoui does by filming shots of the daily, barren life on the island, which is plagued by droughts and other catastrophes.
Subject(s): gender issues.
The Refrain of Locked Lenjs (Safir-e Lenjhayeh Darband)
Director: Mehdi Omidvari
Date: 2005
Running time: 38’
Synopsis:
A dreamlike journey to the south of Iran is accompanied by the sound of the damman (Dohol), a traditional drum, which is an integral part of everyday culture. The damman drumbeat resonates at work, and at times both of joy and of sorrow.
Subject(s): South of Iran, fishermen’s rituals, Zar rituals, ethnomusicology.
The Zero-degree Orbit (Madar-e Sefrdarajeh)
Director: Mahmoud Rahmani
Date: 2007
Running time: 26’
Synopsis:
A documentary film about an Iranian family who live on the frontiers between Iran and Iraq. The father is accused of killing his wife and his daughter during the war…
Subject(s): Iran- Iraq war, trauma, death and dying, Zar rituals.
The Bridge’s Ballads (Asheghanehayeh Pol)
Director: Mehdi Rahmani
Date: 2006
Running time: 25’
Synopsis:
The Khajoo bridge is built on the upper Zayanderood in Isfahan, and a traditional characteristic of the people of Isfahan is their attachment to this bridge. Since long ago and until now, the Khajoo bridge has hosted ballads at nightfall. The film is a view of this bridge and this people, a view of "the Bridge's ballads".
Subject(s): Isfahan, Khajoo Bridge, popular singers, popular culture.
Where is Leili? (Leili Kojast)
Director: Mohammad Shirvani
Date: 2006
Running time: 73’
Synopsis:
A journey into the ethnic and folk music of Iran with Mohammad Reza Darvishi's ideas and theory.
Subject(s): Iranian folk music, history of Iranian folk music, ethnomusicology.
