Iranian Cinema

Abstract

Iranian cinema first came under international attention for its prerevolutionary art cinema known as the Iranian New Wave and more widely for its postrevolutionary cinematic movement called the New Iranian Cinema. However, Iran has had a longstanding history of cinema that began in 1900, with the introduction of film technology by the Qajar court photographer Ibrahim Khan Sani al-Saltaneh Akkasbashi. The development of cinema in Iran is inextricably linked to the development of modernity and the nation-state. The cinema in Iran was an important site where modernity (tajadud) and the nation (mellat) were respectively constructed, contested, and negotiated throughout the long 20th century and into the new millennium. The history of Iranian cinema is punctuated by the two revolutions in 20th-century Iran, namely the constitutional revolution of 1905–1911 and the later Islamic Revolution in 1979. Both of these events left an indelible mark on Iran and Iranian cinema, but none more so than the Islamic Revolution. In the second Pahlavi era and just before the 1979 revolution, along with the popular commercial cinema called filmfarsi (“Persian film”), Iranian cinema witnessed the development of art-house cinema or the Iranian New Wave (mowj-e now) as a reaction to this popular cinema, which was influenced by the aesthetics of Italian Neorealism and the French New Wave. But it is largely with the New Iranian Cinema of the postrevolutionary era that Iranian cinema received worldwide critical attention, wining regular awards at prestigious film festivals around the globe. After the 1979 revolution and the establishment of the Islamic Republic, new guidelines were established by the state apparatus to ensure that films produced in Iran were made according to the logic of an Islamic “system of modesty” (hejab in its broadest sense). Paradoxically, these censorship guidelines forced Iranian filmmakers to develop a new filmic grammar, which in a constant negotiation with state censors, contributed to a new visual and aural film form that is distinctive to Iranian cinema. In this way, the history of cinema in Iran can be divided into four distinct periods, from the Qajar era to the first Pahlavi period (1900–1941), the second Pahlavi era (1942–1979), the postrevolutionary era with the Islamization of Iranian cinema (1980–1988), and the emergence of the New Iranian Cinema (1990s and early 2000s). In the early 21st century, there is a subtle but visible shift away from the formal and narrative strategies of the New Iranian Cinema. It is too early at this stage to categorize the formal logic and aesthetics of this new iteration of Iranian cinema, as we are in the midst of its development, but if the New Iranian Cinema was recognizable under the sign of its master practitioner, Abbas Kiarostami (d. 2016), the new trend in Iranian cinema is perhaps under the visible influence of the two-time Oscar-winning director Asghar Farhadi.

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