ESSENTIAL IRANIAN FILMS

By: Kenji

Shahr-i-Sokhta bowl, Iran, 3,200 BC, an animation

The White Balloon (Panahi) Jafar Panahi’s charming film starring Aida Mohammadkhani as a small girl with her heart set on a beautiful goldfish who has to overcome a series of obstacles and misadventures in a quite suspenseful race against time before the shop shuts for New Year.
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Iran has given us one of the world’s great civilisations and a noble cinema too, many films of humanity and intelligence. Common themes include children, the role of women and- in the case of the most critically admired director Kiarostami in particular-, film-making itself and the boundary of illusion and reality. I’m not including films by the Iranian-born Barbet Schroeder but i am including some films on Iranian subjects by Iranian directors working elsewhere

Reading:
Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa, Jonathan Rosenbaum: Abbas Kiarostami
Hamid Dabashi: Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present and Future
Hamid Dabashi: Masters and Masterpieces of Iranian Cinema
Wikipedia: Cinema of Iran

Women Without Men

here’s a longer list of significant Iranian films, many not on this site (any suggestions welcome)

1931 The Brother’s Revenge (Moradi)

1932 Haji Aqa, Film Star (Oganians)
The Lor Girl (Irani)

1934 Ferdowsi (Sepanta)
Rapacious (Moradi)

1936 The Dark Eyes (Sepanta)

1948 The Tempest of Life (Daryabeigi, Kushun)

1951: The White Glove (Khatibi)

1955 Amir Arsalan the Famous (Yasami)

1957: Ya’qub Layth Saffari (Kasma’i)

1958 Downtown (Ghaffari)
The Valiant Vagabond (Mohseni)

1961 A Fire (Golestan)

1962: The House is Black (Farrokhzad)

1964 Night of the Hunchback (Ghaffari)

1965: Bride of the Sea (Arman)
Brick and Mirror (Golestan)
Croesus Treasure (Yasami)

1966 The House of God (Moghaddam)
Tehran is the Capital of Iran (Shirdel)

1967 The Night it Rained (Shirdel)
Seyavash in Persepolis (Rahnema)

1968 Ahu Khanom’s Husband (Mollapour)

1969 The Cow (Mehrjui)
Ghaisar/Kaiser (Kimiai)
Wind of Jinn (Taqhvai)

1970 Bread and Alley (Kiarostami)
Tranquillity in the Presence of Others (Taqrai)

1971: Dash Akol (Kimiai)
The Postman (Mehrjui)

1972: The Morning of the Fourth Day (Shirdel)
P like Pelican (Kimiavi)
Ragbar/Downpour (Beizai)
Spring (Ovanessian)

1973: Deadlock (Naderi)
Harmonica (Naderi)
The Mongols (Kimiavi)
A Simple Event (Saless)
Tranquillity in the Presence of Others (Taghvai)

1974: Prince Ehtejab (Farmanara)
The Secrets of the Jinn Infested Valley (Golestan)
The Traveller (Kiarostami)
Under the Skin of the Night (Goleh)

1975: Beehive (Gole)
The Deer (Kimiai)
Ghazal (Kimiai)
Still Life (Saless)

1976 Chess Game of the Wind (Aslani)
The Garden of Stones (Kimiavi)
My Uncle Napoleon
The Raven (Beiza’i)

1977 Dead End (Sayyad)
The Report (Kiarostami)
The Sealed Soil (Nabili)

1978: The Cycle (Mehrjui)
Sooteh-Delan/Desiderium (Hatami)
Tall Shadows of the Wind (Farmanara)

1980: For Freedom (Torabi)

1982 The Death of Yazdgerd (Beizai)

1983 Lost Elegy (Sinai)

1984: The Runner (Naderi)

1985: Bashu the Little Stranger (Beiza’i)
Where is the Friend’s House? (Kiarostami)

1986 Spectre of the Scorpion (Ayyari)
The Tenants (Mehrjui)

1987 Captain Khorshid (Taghvai)

1988 Across the Fire (Ayyari)
The Cyclist (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)

1989: Close Up (Kiarostami)
Marriage of the Blessed (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)

1990: Hamoun (Mehrjui)
Homework (Kiarostami)
In the Alleys of Love (Sinai)

1991: The Last Act (Masihi)
Madar/Mother (Hatami)
Nargess (Bani-Etemad)
Once upon a Time, Cinema (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)

1992: And Life Goes On (Kiarostami)
Travellers (Beiza’i)

1993 Sara (Mehrjui)

1994: Through the Olive Trees (Kiarostami)

1995: A Moment of Innocence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)
The White Balloon (Panahi)
Salaam Cinema (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)

1996: Gabbeh (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)
Leila (Mehrjui)

1997: Children of Heaven (Majidi)
Komiteh Mojazat (Ali Hatami)
Mirror (Panahi)
Taste of Cherry (Kiarostami)

1998: The Apple (Samira Makhmalbaf)
The Colour of Paradise (Majidi)
Divorce Iranian Style (Longinotto, Mir-Hosseini)
The Pear Tree (Mehrjui)
To Be or Not to Be
Turbulent (Neshat)

1999: A Time for Drunken Horses (Ghobadi)
The Glass Agency (Hatakami)
The Wind will Carry Us (Kiarostami)

2000: The Ballad of Huram (Mehraufat)
Blackboards (Samira Makhmalbaf)
The Child and the Soldier (Mir-Karimi)
The Circle (Panahi)
Daughters of the Sun (Shariar)
The Day I Became a Woman (Meshkini)
Djomeh (Yektapanah)
Shokaran/Hemlock (Afkhani)
Smell of Camphor, Fragrance of Jasmine (Farmanara)
Under the Skin of the City (Bani-Etemad)

2001: Baran (Majidi)
The Hidden Half (Milani)
Kandahar (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)
Runaway (Longinotto, Mir-Hosseini)
Secret Ballot (Payami)

2002: Passage (Neshat)
Ten (Kiarostami)

2003: At Five in the Afternoon (Samira Makhmalbaf)
Crimson Gold (Panahi)
The Deep Breath (Shahbazi)
Five (Kiarostami)
Iranian Conserve (Shirvani)
Joy of Madness (H.Makhmalbaf)
Silence of the Sea (Mousaian)

2004 Beautiful City (Farhadi)
20 Fingers (Akbari)

2005: Turtles can Fly (Ghobadi)

2006: A Few Kilos of Dates for a Funeral (Salur)
Fireworks Wednesday (Farhadi)
Half Moon (Ghobadi)
It’s Winter (Pitts)
Men at Work (Haghighi)
Offside (Panahi)

2007: Buddha Collapsed out of Shame (H.Makhmalbaf)
Féminin/Masculin (Foroughi)
Gharib’s Story (Ayyari)
Persepolis (Satrapi)

2008: As Simple as That (Mir-Karimi)
The Green Fire (Aslani)
Shirin (Kiarostami)
Three Women (Hekmat)
Two-Legged Horse (S.Makhmalbaf)

2009: About Elly (Farhadi)
Noone Knows about Persian Cats (Ghobadi)
The White Meadows (Rasoulof)
Women without Men (Neshat)

2010 Dog Sweat (Keshavarz)
The Hunter (Pitts)
Orion (Esmati)
Tinar (Minari)

2011 A Separation (Farhadi)
This is not a Film (Mirtahasebi, Panahi)

Mohsen Makhmalbaf

One of the most popular and influential Iranian filmmakers of his era, Mohsen Makhmalbaf was born in Teheran on May 29, 1957. As a working-class teen, he became involved with a militant terrorist group battling against the Shah’s regime, and at the age of 17, he was sentenced to die after stabbing a policeman. Ultimately, his youth allowed him to escape the fate of a firing squad, and after serving only five years of his sentence, he was freed in the wake of the country’s 1979 Islamic revolution. After his release, Makhmalbaf helped establish an artists’ group known as the Islamic Propagation Organization, and he became a prolific writer of plays, essays, short stories, and finally screenplays.
His first filmed script was 1981’s The Explanation, and he directed his first feature, Nassouh’s Repentance, the following year. Throughout the remainder of the decade, he wrote and directed roughly one film a year, each wildly different in style and content. Among his other early works were 1983’s Two Sightless Eyes, 1984’s Fleeing From Evil to God, and 1985’s Boycott, a fictionalized account of his time in prison. With 1986’s The Peddler, an autobiographical collection of vignettes exploring the plight of Iran’s urban poor, Makhmalbaf first began attracting international film festival attention. With 1990’s Time of Love and its immediate follow-up, The Nights of Zayandeh Roud, he also came under the scrutiny of the Iranian government, which promptly banned both features.

Again switching gears, in 1992 he released Once Upon a Time, Cinema, a comic fantasy about the evolution of Iranian filmmaking. While making 1993’s The Actor, a satire of the media in contemporary Iran, his first wife burned to death in a domestic accident (he later married her sister). The power of the film remained his focus for 1994’s Salaam Cinema, and with 1996’s Gabbeh, he even found U.S. distribution for his work. Makhmalbaf was also the subject of several documentaries, among them Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up and Houshang Golmakani’s Stardust-Stricken, Mohsen Makhmalbaf: A Portrait. —allmovie guide

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There have been numerous female directors, including some of the most prominent overall; Forough Farrokhzad, Rakshan Bani-Etemad, Samira and Hana Makhmalbaf, Marzieh Meshkini/Makhmalbaf, Sadaf Foroughi…. and also Marjane Satrapi, Shirin Neshat, Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa based abroad, whose Iranian-set films i’m including in this list.

Samira Makhmalbaf

Samira Makhmalbaf (Persian: سمیرا مخملباف, UniPers: Samirâ Maxmalbâf) (born February 15, 1980, Tehran) is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and script writer. She is the daughter of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the film director and writer. Samira Makhmalbaf belongs to the New wave movement within Iranian cinema. At the age of 20 Samira studied Psychology and Law at Roehampton University in London.

At the age of seven, she acted in her father’s film The Bicyclist. She left high school when she was 14, to learn cinema in the Mohhmalbaf Film House for 5 years. At the age of 17, after directing two video productions, she went on to direct the movie The Apple. One year later, the 18 year old director went on to become the youngest director in the world participating in the official section of the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. The Apple has been invited to more than 100 international film festivals in a period of two years, while going to the screen in more than 30 countries.

In 1999, Samira made her second feature film, entitled The Blackboard and for the second time participated in the competition section of the Cannes Film Festival as the youngest director in the world, in 2000, this time winning the jury prize.

Samira next directed a movie while living in Kabul called At Five in the Afternoon. Her latest film, Two-Legged Horse, from a script by her father Mohsen, was also shot in Afghanistan.

Samira Mohmalbaf has been the winner and nominee of numerous awards. She was nominated twice for Golden Palm of Cannes Film Festival for Panj é asr (At Five in the Afternoon) (2003) and Takhté siah (The Blackboard) (2001). She won Prix du Jury of Cannes, for both films in 2003 and 2001 respectively. Samira Mohmalbaf also won UNESCO Award of Venice Film Festival in 2002 for 11.09.01 – September 11 and Sutherland Trophy of London Film Festival for The Apple in 1998. In 2003, a panel of critics at the British newspaper The Guardian named Makhmalbaf among the best 40 best directors at work today. —Wikipedia

The Apple (Samira Makhmalbaf)

In Samira Makhmalbaf’s precocious debut which plays with drama and documentary (as often in Iranian films), 2 girls are kept at home, their development undermined by an overly controlling (though not totally unsympathetic) ageing father. They are freed to explore their surroundings by a social worker.

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The list below is in year order, and i’ve included a few major films i’ve yet to see.

My favourites:
Gabbeh, And Life Goes On, Brick and Mirror, Close Up, The White Balloon, Bashu the Little Stranger, The House is Black, The Mongols, Women without Men, Offside, The Wind Will Carry Us, The Day I Became a Woman, Turbulent, The Night It Rained

See also Arsaib’s excellent list Sohrab Shahid Saless about the Iranian director who went on to make radical films in West Germany but who has never received due attention either in that country or in general studies internationally of Iranian cinema.

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Brick and Mirror

Film Magazine Top 50 Iranian Films, 2009

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Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof
The recent detention and severe sentencing of Jafar Panahi by the Iranian government is of grave concern. He has been one of the most influential filmmakers in the “Iranian New Wave” movement. He has gained recognition from film theorists and critics worldwide and received numerous awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival (for The Circle, a powerful indictment of the oppression of women) and the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. On 20 December 2010, Jafar Panahi was handed a six-year jail sentence and a 20-year ban on making or directing any movies, writing screenplays, giving any form of interview with Iranian or foreign media as well as leaving the country. The young director Mohammad Rasoulof, whose White Meadows has been much admired, has also been punished. There is a thread on the forum “Free Jafar Panahi (Again!)” with a link to a petition..

“Cine Foundation International, a humanitarian cinema organization, a non-profit film company, founded November 2010, is launching a campaign of protest films calling for the release of Jafar Panahi and to highlight human rights in Iran, and parallel situations elsewhere. The campaign will be spearheaded by 6 commissioned feature-length films and 20 short films, examining a global relationship to ideas of nation, self, other, identity, spiritual culture, imprisonment, censorship, regime, protest and human rights.”

Please support this and other efforts on behalf of Panahi and Rasoulof.
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Esfahan, beautiful ancient city