DIVSocial history of Iranian cinema that explores cinema's role in creating national identity and contextualizes Iranian cinema within an international arena. The first volume focuses on silent era cinema and the transition to sound./div

A unique look at how cinema shaped the cosmopolitan society in Tehran through cultural exchanges between Iran and the world.

Social history of Iranian cinema that explores cinema's role in creating national identity and contextualizes Iranian cinema within an international arena.

The New Wave Cinema in Iran is a historical and analytical study of the Iranian New Wave Cinema (Mowj-e No) as an artistic and intellectual movement that came to its best early productions between 1958 and 1978. As the movement has a long history, Parviz Jahed focuses on the development and the early progression of the movement in the 1960s and explores its emergence and development in the context of the cultural and social conditions of Iran during this period. Jahed first defines the term 'New Wave' in Iran's film culture, in order to identify the root elements that gave traction to this movement. He analyses the degree to which different elements and factors have contributed to the formation of this cinema, accounting for the different approaches of Iranian intellectual filmmakers towards modernity and a modern form of cinema in Iran. The book finishes by studying the works of three intellectual figures and influential filmmakers of the 1960s, Ebrahim Golestan, Farrokh Ghaffari, and Feraydoon Rahnama, who are arguably considered the forerunners of the New Wave Cinema in Iran.

Recent, post-revolutionary Iranian cinema has of course gained the attention of international audiences who have been struck by its powerful, poetic and often explicitly political explorations. Yet mainstream, pre-revolutionary Iranian cinema, with a history stretching back to the early twentieth century, has been perceived in the main as lacking in artistic merit and, crucially, as apolitical in content. This highly readable history of Iran as revealed through the full breadth of its cinema re-reads the films themselves to tell the full story of shifting political, economic and social situations. Sadr argues that embedded within even the seemingly least noteworthy of mainstream Iranian films, we find themes and characterisations which reveal the political contexts of their time and which express the ideological underpinnings of a society. Beginning with the introduction of cinema to Iran through the Iranian monarchy, the book covers the broad spectrum of Iran's cinema, offering vivid descriptions of all key films. "Iranian Cinema" looks at recurring themes and tropes, such as the rural versus the 'corrupt' city and, recently, the preponderance of images of childhood, and asks what these have revealed about Iranian society. The author brings the story up to date explaining Iranian filmmaking after the events of September 11, from Mohsen Makhmalbaf's astonishing Kandahar to Saddiq Barmak's angry work Osama, to explore this most recent and breathtaking revival in Iranian cinema.

Critics and academics have generally dismissed the commercial productions of the late Pahlavi era, best known for their songs and melodramatic plots, as shallow, derivative ‘entertainment’. Instead, they have concentrated on the more recent internationally acclaimed art films, claiming that these constitute Iranian ‘national' cinema, despite few Iranians having seen them. Film discourse, and even fan talk, have long attempted to marginalize the mainstream releases of the 1960s and 1970s with the moniker filmfarsi, ironically asserting that such popular favorites were culturally inauthentic. This book challenges the idea that filmfarsi is detached from the past and present of Iranians. Far from being escapist Hollywood fare merely translated into Persian, it claims that the better films of this supposed genre must be taken as both a subject of, and source for, modern Iranian history. It argues that they have an appeal that relies on their ability to rearticulate traditional courtly and religious ideas and forms to problematize in unexpectedly complex and sophisticated ways the modernist agenda that secular nationalist elites wished to impose on their viewers. Taken seriously, these films raise questions about standard treatments of Iran's modern history. By writing popular films into Iranian history, this book advocates both a fresh approach to the study of Iranian cinema, as well as a rethinking of the modernity/tradition binary that has organized the historiography of the recent past. It will appeal to those interested in Iranian cinema, Iranian history and culture, and, more broadly, readers dissatisfied with a dichotomous approach to modernity.

This volume brings together scholarship from both established scholars and early career academics to provide fresh insights and new research on the cinema of Iran. The book is organised around eight broad themes including cinema before and after the revolution, stylistic innovation, documentary, gender, and genre. Encompassing a diverse range of methodological approaches and disciplinary frameworks including film studies, cultural studies, and political economy, each chapter is a self-contained study on a specific topic engaging with the national and transnational history of Iranian cinema which combined provide readers with original new insights into Iranian film and filmmakers, from fiction films to art house and popular cinema. The Handbook includes analysis of the works of established filmmakers such as Bahram Beyzaie, Rakhshan Banetemad, Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf, as well as the output of emerging voices such as Ida Panahandeh and Shahram Mokri. Covering well-known topics as well as cutting edge ones such the sonic and visual manifestations of the urban environment in Iranian films, this book is a vital resource for understanding Iran and its unique cinematic culture.

From popular and 'New Wave' pre-revolutionary films of Fereydoon Goleh and Abbas Kiarostami to post-revolutionary films of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the Iranian cinema has produced a range of films and directors that have garnered international fame and earned a global following. Golbarg Rekabtalaei takes a unique look at Iranian cosmopolitanism and how it transformed in the Iranian imagination through the cinematic lens. By examining the development of Iranian cinema from the early twentieth century to the revolution, Rekabtalaei locates discussions of modernity in Iranian cinema as rooted within local experiences, rather than being primarily concerned with Western ideals or industrialisation. Her research further illustrates how the ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity of Iran's citizenry shaped a heterogeneous culture and a cosmopolitan cinema that was part and parcel of Iran's experience of modernity. In turn, this cosmopolitanism fed into an assertion of sovereignty and national identity in a modernising Iran in the decades leading up to the revolution.

Iran dominates the media headlines once again and has taken center stage in the U.S. and European Union strategy toward the Middle East. A more nuanced understanding of Iranian society has assumed even greater significance and urgency. Iran Today: An Encyclopedia of Life in the Islamic Republic offers crucial insight for students and the general reader into an often misunderstood and complex country that is shrouded in mystery and misperception. Heir to a long history and a great culture and civilization, Iran embodies a rich, complex, and diverse mosaic that defines its national identity. Diversity is also the operative word that describes Iranian landscapes and geography, its multiple ethnic groups and their varied cultures and traditions, as well as the uneven and vastly different levels of economic and industrial development, conflicting political tendencies, and different and often contradictory social and cultural outlooks. Because of its tumultuous recent political history, Iran appears to encapsulate all of these internal differences and stark contrasts somewhat more distinctly than most of its neighbors. The 1978-1979 revolution transformed the society and culture in fundamental ways and redefined social life. It created new institutions of governance and Islamicized the culture, education and the legal system in an attempt to create a new society that would usher in the reign of piety and virtue. Yet, Islamization had to come to terms with pre-Islamic and illustrious Persian history and culture, as well as the realities of an interdependent, postmodern, globalized world in which, as a developing country, Iran resides in the periphery. Within this framework, the dynamics and complexity of social life in the Islamic Republic unfold. This encyclopedia is the source for up-to-date, authoritative information on a full range of critical topics of interest. Coverage of the Islamic Republic here falls into the general categories of history, politics, economics, society and culture. The most significant aspects of the life in Iran since the revolution-the era of the Islamic Republic so far-are stressed. The wide range of entries shows the richness and complexity of Iranian society, its multiple and varied facets, its expressions and outward manifestations, and its nuanced responses to political repression, instability, war, pervasive crisis and the chronic tension between modernity and tradition. Some of the entries designed to highlight these important phenomena revolve around the country's ethnic mosaic, the social role and position of women, veiling, the educational system, sports, intellectuals, the arts and artistic expression, literature, poetry, cuisine, healthcare, and the family. Other entries range from regionalism and urban development to the petroleum industry, agriculture, the banking system, issues of wealth and poverty, class structure and economic mobility, and the private sector. In a number of significant areas economic, social and cultural phenomena intersect. These intersections are reflected in entries on broadcasting and communications technology, the Internet, public relations, electronic and print media, and family planning and healthcare. A chronology, selected bibliography, and photos complement the entries.