Jesse's Blog: August 2014

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Women and Cinema in Iran

I'm currently putting together a zine entitled An Introduction to Iranian Cinema, which will be released at BOOKMACHINE books + zines on Friday, September 5th during the Downtown Fullerton Art Walk. There will be a corresponding art show and screenings of excerpts from films we've watched. Here's an excerpt...

Following the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, things became difficult for women. Despite harsh social restrictions, some of the most exciting and radical films in the world have been made by Iranian women after the Revolution. Here are some notable female figures of Iranian cinema...

Pouran Derakshandeh (born 1951) began as a documentary filmmaker with “Plague” about disease in the Kurdistan Province. In 1978 she directed a documentary trilogy about handicrafts in Kurdistan. Her 17-part documentary “Shokaran” focused on drug addiction, smuggling, and means of preventing drug abuse. Her feature motion pictures include Relationship (1986), A Little Bird of Happiness (1987), Passing Through the Dust (1988), Lost Time (1989), A Love Without Frontier (1998), Candle in the Wind (2003), Wet Dream (2005), Eternal Children (2006), and Hush! Girls Don't Scream (2013).

Pouran Derakshandeh

Rakshan Bani-Etemad (born 1954) is widely considered Iran's premier female director. She earned critical and popular success in 1991 with her film Nargess. Since then, she has received numerous awards for such films as The Blue-Veiled (1995), Under the Skin of the City (2001), and Our Times (2002), which made her the first female filmmaker to explicitly confront the Iran-Iraq war. Bani-E'temad’s socially and politically conscious films often focus on issues of poverty, criminality, divorce, polygamy, social norms, cultural taboos, women’s oppression, and cultural expectations. Like other Iranian filmmakers, Bani-E'temad often combines fiction and documentary elements in her films. In order to achieve authenticity and reflect reality, Bani-E'temad personally spends time living in the conditions of people she is reflecting in her own characters. Her subtle and honest films offer an analysis of the current cultural pressures shaping Iranian women's lives.

Rakshan Bani-Etemad

Tahmineh Milani (born 1960) is a feminist filmmaker known for touching controversial and sensitive issues like women’s rights and the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The majority of Milani's films involve brave women who suffer under oppressive regimes. Her early films resembled fables, such as The Legend of a Sigh (1990) which featured a character who, after failing as an author, befriends her sigh of despair. The sigh goes on to teach her of women with much larger problems in the world, yet still remain happy. In What Did You Do Again? (1992), Milani told the story of a young girl with the power to change her family simply by talking to herself. Iranian censors fought against the film, instructing her to replace the female lead with a young boy instead. The government charged Milani as an anti-revolutionary due to the storyline of her 2001 film The Hidden Half. She was imprisoned in 2001. Following a backlash from many world-famous directors including Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, the government released her after two weeks, but official charges were never dropped. Other notable films by Milani include Unwanted Woman (2005), The Fifth Reaction (2003), and One of Our Two (2011).

Tamineh Milani

Leila Hatami (born 1972) is an actress and the daughter of director Ali Hatami. She made her professional entry into cinema with Dariush Mehrkui’s film Leila (1996). Her acting in this film received rave reviews from critics and audiences. Her role in The Deserted Station (2002) won the best actress award from the Montreal World Film Festival. She has appeared in her husband Ali Mosaffa’s films Portrait of a Lady Far Away (2005) and The Last Step (2012). In 2012 she played the leading role in Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation, which won the Academy Award for best foreign film.

Leila Hatami

Samira Makhmalbaf (born 1980) is the daughter of director Moshen Makmalbaf. She left high school when she was 14 to study cinema in the Makhmalbaf Film House for five years. At the age of 17, after directing two video productions, she went on to direct the movie The Apple (1998), which won the Sutherland Trophy at the London Film Festival. She was nominated for the Palm d’Or at Cannes for Blackboards (2001), which follows teachers among rural Kurdish tribes. In an interview with BBC she said this about the difficulties that women directors face in Iran: “Traditionally, it is in the minds of everybody that a woman cannot be a film maker. It is therefore very much harder for a woman. Also, when you live in this kind of situation there is a danger that you can start to develop a similar mind-set and so the thing is to challenge this situation, and then slowly the situation will change also in the minds of others. I very much hope that in the advent of freedom and democracy Iran can produce many more women directors."

Samira Makmalbaf

Hana Makmalbaf (born 1988) is the younger sister of filmmaker Samira Makmalbaf and daughter of filmmakers Moshen Makmalbaf and Marzieh Makmalbaf. Her first short film was shown at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland when she was eight years old. Her first full film was Joy of Madness (2003), a documentary about the making of Samira's At Five in the Afternoon, which she made when she was 14. Her first feature film, Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame (2007) won numerous international awards. Her second feature, Green Days premiered at the 2009 Toronto Film Festival. Begun as a documentary about the run-up to the 2009 Presidential Election in Iran, it was completed by inter-cutting scenes of the post-election violence garnered from cell-phone and other amateur videos circulating anonymously.

Hana Makmalbaf

Check out the Facebook event page for this zine release/art show/screening event HERE.

Pre-Revolutionary Cinema and the Iranian New Wave (1962-1979)

Pre-Revolutionary Cinema and the Iranian New Wave (1962-1979)

In the 1960s, there were 'New Wave' movements in the cinema of numerous countries. The Iranian New Wave arguably began with "The House Is Black" (1962), courageously shot in a leper colony by Forough Farrokhzad, who is widely regarded as the greatest Iranian poet of the 20th century and the first woman in Persian literature to write openly about her sexual desire. The pioneers of the Iranian New Wave made innovative art films with highly political and philosophical tones and poetic language. The factors leading to the rise of the New Wave in Iran were, in part, due to the intellectual and political movements of the time. A romantic climate was developing and a socially committed literature took shape in the 1950s and reached a peak in the 1960s, which may consider as the golden era of contemporary Persian Literature. Iranian New Wave films shared some characteristics with the European art films of the period, in particular Italian Neorealism. However, in her article 'Real Fictions', critic Rose Issa argues that Iranian films have a distinctively Iranian cinematic language "that champions the poetry in everyday life and the ordinary person by blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality, feature film with documentary." Here are some important films from the Iranian New Wave...

The House is Black (1962) directed by Forough Farrokhzad. A look at life and suffering in a leper colony focusing on the human condition and the beauty of creation. It is spliced with poet Farrokhzad's narration of quotes from the The Bible, the Koran, and her own poetry. It was the only film she directed before her death in 1967. During the shooting she became attached to a child of two lepers, whom she later adopted. Although the film attracted little attention outside Iran when released, it has since been recognised as a landmark in Iranian film. Reviewer Eric Henderson described the film; "One of the prototypal essay films, The House is Black paved the way for the Iranian New Wave."

Still frame from Forough Farrokhzad's "The House is Black" (1962)

The Brick and the Mirror (1967) directed by Ebrahim Golestan. Moody realism conveys a stark poetry in this tale of a cab driver stuck with an abandoned baby in his back seat. Moral quandaries and social fears vie with eroticism when the driver and a lonely woman spend the night with the baby as the phantom facsimile of a family. The film’s finale, set in an orphanage, is a stunning, haunting piece of social realism that was to send ripples of influence through the next four decades of Iranian cinema. This film is actually available to watch in its entirety on Youtube here:

The Cow (1969) directed by Darius Mehrjui. The story of the close relationship between a middle-aged Iranian villager named Hassan and his beloved cow—the only cow in the village. When the cow dies, Hassan gradually goes insane following a nervous breakdown and believes he is the cow, adopting such mannerisms as eating hay. His wife and the villagers try their best to bring him back to the normal life but all in vain. The film is a metaphorical and poetic meditation on the changing values of rural and urban Iran. Islamic leader Ayatollah Khomeini was reported to have admired this film. This in turn was reported to have been the saving grace that allowed Iranian cinema to continue without becoming completely banned after the Iranian Revolution.

Still frame from Darius Mehrjui's "The Cow" (1969)

Tranquility In The Presence Of Others (1972) directed by Naser Taghvai. A colonel, who has two daughters working as nurses in Tehran, retires to a small city. He marries a teacher, and travels with her to Tehran, and finds that his daughters have changed. The elder daughter commits suicide and the younger daughter goes through an ill-fated marriage. The father, observing the problems of his children, goes insane and is confined to an asylum. The only thing that helps him is the kindness of his wife Manizheh. The film won a diploma of honor at the Venice Film Festival in 1972. Noted primarily for its political and social content, it was banned by the government for several years.

Poster for Naser Taghvai's "Tranquility in the Presence of Others" (1972)

Check out the Facebook event page for this zine release/art show/screening event HERE.

Early Persian Cinema (1900-1949)

Early Persian Cinema (1900-1949)...

Cinema was only five years old when it came to Persia at the beginning of the 20th century. The first Persian filmmaker was Mirzah Ebrahim Khan Akkas Bashi, the official photographer of the Shah of Persia from 1896–1907. After a visit to Paris in July 1900, Akkas Bashi obtained a camera and filmed the Shah’s visit to Europe. In 1904, Mirzah Ebrahim Khan Sahhafbashi opened the first movie theater in Tehran. In 1925, Ovanes Ohanian established the first film school in Iran, which he called The Cinema Artist Educational Centre. In 1930 the first Iranian silent Film was made by Professor Ovanes Ohanian called Haji Agha. In 1932, Abdolhossein Sepanta made the first Iranian sound film, entitled Lor Girl. Sepanta would go on to direct movies such as Ferfowsi (the life story of the most celebrated epic poet of Iran), Shirin and Farhaad (a classic Iranian love story), and Black Eyes (the story of Nader Shah’s invasion of India). In 1937, he directed Laili and Majnoon, an Eastern love story similar to the English story of Romeo and Juliet. Early Persian directors like Sepanta and Esmail Koushan took advantage of the richness of Persian literature and ancient Persian mythology. In their work, they emphasized ethics and humanity. In 1949, Farrokh Ghaffari established the first National Iranian Film Society. Ghaffari laid the foundation for alternative and non-commercial films in Iran.

Poster of the film Shirin and Farhaad, directed by Abdolhossein Sepanta (1935)

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Great Iranian Directors

For the past two months at Hibbleton Gallery, we have been screening films from Iran, curated by my friend, the filmmaker Steve Elkins. I have been so inspired by the the films that I'm putting together a zine entitled "An Introduction to Iranian Cinema." The zine will be released at BOOKMACHINE books + zines on Friday, September 5th during the Downtown Fullerton Art Walk. There will be a corresponding art show and screenings of excerpts from films we've watched. Part of the zine will be a "shout out" to extraordinary Iranian directors, most of whom are not well-known in the United States. Here are a few of them...

Forough Farrokhzad (1935-1967). Farrokhzad is arguably one of Iran's most influential female poets of the twentieth century. Her controversial poetry and strong feminine voice, made her the focus of much negative attention and open disapproval. In 1962 she made a film called “The House is Black” (about Iranians affected by leprosy) which won several international awards. During the twelve days of shooting, she became attached to Hossein Mansouri, the child of two lepers, whom she adopted. In 1967, she died in a car accident at age thirty-two. Her poem “Let us believe in the beginning of the cold season” was published posthumously, and is considered by some to be one of the best-structured modern poems in Persian. Farrokhzad's poetry was banned for more than a decade after the Islamic Revolution.

Forough Farrokhzad (1935-1967)

Dariush Mehrjui (born 1939) was a founding member of the Iranian New Wave Movement of the early 1970s. His film “The Cow” (1969) is considered to be the first film of this movement, which introduced realism, symbolism, and the sensibilities of art cinema. Most of his films are inspired by literature and adapted from Iranian and foreign novels and plays. His most acclaimed film is “The Cycle” (1978), which is about the black market and illicit blood traffic in Iran. In 1995, Mehrjui made “Pari”, an unauthorized loose film adaptation of J.D. Salinger’s book Franny and Zooey.

Dariush Mehrjui (born 1939)

Moshen Makmalbaf (born 1957) has made more than 20 feature films and won some 50 awards. Time magazine selected his film “Kandahar” as one of the top 100 films of all time. His films have explored the relationship between the individual and a larger social and political environment. As a result, his work serves as an extended commentary on the historical progression of the Iranian state and its people. Makhmalbaf took time off from directing in 1996 to form the Makhmalbaf Film House, a school for young filmmakers. It quickly became a private production house for the increasing number of filmmakers in his family, like his daughter Samira, who became a famous director as well.

Moshen Makmalbaf (born 1957)

Mania Akbari (born 1974) is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker, actress, artist and writer whose works mostly deal with themes of sexual identity and women’s rights. Her style is rooted in modern visual arts and the avant-garde. After starring in Abbas Kiarostami's film “Ten” in 2002, she directed her debut film, a documentary called “Crystal”. In 2004, she wrote, acted in and directed her first feature length film “20 Fingers,” which won the best film prize at the Venice Film Festival. In 2007, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her struggle with cancer, as well as illness and body, became one of the key themes of her films and art works. In 2011, during production of her latest film, members of her crew were arrested by Iranian authorities for filming without official permission. Scared she too might be imprisoned, Akbari fled Tehran for London.

Mania Akbari (born 1974)

Abbas Kiarostami (born 1940) was one of the few directors who remained in Iran after the 1979 Revolution when many of his peers fled the country. He believes that it was one of the most important decisions of his career, saying: “When you take a tree that is rooted in the ground, and transfer it from one place to another, the tree will no longer bear fruit. And if it does, the fruit will not be as good as it was in its original place. This is a rule of nature. I think if I had left my country, I would be the same as the tree." Kiarostami's film “Close-Up” (1990) is consistently ranked among the greatest films of all time. He won the Palme d’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival for “Taste of Cherry”, a drama about a man who is determined to commit suicide. His film “The Wind Will Carry Us” (1999), won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival. Kiarostami's films often mix of fictional and documentary elements.

Abbas Kiarostami (born 1940)

Jafar Panahi (born 1960) achieved international recognition with his feature film debut, The White Balloon (1995). The film won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and was the first major award won by an Iranian film at Cannes. Although his films were often banned in his own country, he continued to receive international acclaim for his films The Mirror (1997), The Circle (2000), and Offside (2006 ). His films are known for their humanistic perspective on life in Iran, often focusing on the hardships of children, the impoverished, and women. After several years of conflict with the Iranian government over the content of his films, Panahi was arrested in March 2010, charged with propaganda against the Iranian government, and sentenced to a six-year jail sentence and a 20-year ban on directing any movies. Whilst under house arrest he made This is Not a Film (2011). It was smuggled out of Iran in a flash-drive hidden inside a cake and shown at the Cannes Film Festival.

Jafar Panahi (born 1960)

Bahman Ghobadi (born on 1969) was born in Baneh, a Kurdish small town in Kurdistan province in Iran. Ghobadi was assistant director on Abbas Kiarostami’s The Wind Will Carry Us. He founded Mij Film in 2000, a company with the aim of production of films in Iran about its different ethnic groups. His first feature film was A Time for Drunken Horses (2000), the first Kurdish film produced in Iran. The film won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. His other feature films have been internationally praised: Marooned in Iraq (2002), Turtles Can Fly (2004), Half Moon (2006). His films often deal with the lives and hardships of the Kurdish people.

Bahman Ghobadi (born 1969)

Majid Majidi (born 1959) began his career as an actor in various films after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, most notably Moshen Makmalbaf’s Boycott (1985). In 1998, Majidi directed the film Children of Heaven, which was nominated to receive the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Children of Heaven is the first Iranian film to have been nominated by the Academy. Majidi has directed several other feature films since Children of Heaven: The Color of Paradise (2000), Baran (2001), and The Willow Tree (2005), and The Song of Sparrows (2008). His films deal with themes of children, poverty, and spirituality. He also recently directed a feature-length documentary titled Barefoot to Herat which chronicles life in refugee camps and the city of Herat during and after the anti-Taliban offensive of 2001.

Majid Majidi (born 1959)

Samira Makmalbaf (born 1980)

Check out the Facebook event page HERE. Hope to see you at the zine release/art show/screening event!

Anti-Club DJ Playlist 8/29/14

On Friday nights, I DJ at Mulberry St. Ristorante in downtown Fullerton with my friend Phil. I like to write down our playlists, to share with people, as our record collections and tastes are always changing and growing. Here's what we played last night, with album artwork. Click on the song to listen to it...

“Chicano Power” by Thee Midniters