DOCSLIB.ORG

Familiar and Foreign: Identity in Iranian Film and Literature

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Familiar and Foreign: Identity in Iranian Film and Literature FAMILIAR AND FOREIGN FAMILIAR AND FOREIGN IDENTITY IN IRANIAN FILM AND LITERATURE Edited by Manijeh Mannani and Veronica Thompson Copyright © 2015 Manijeh Mannani and Veronica Thompson Published by AU Press, Athabasca University 1200, 10011 – 109 Street, Edmonton, AB T5J 3S8 ISBN 978-1-927356-86-9 (print) 978-1-927356-87-6 (PDF) 978-1-927356-88-3 (epub) doi: 10.15215/aupress/9781927356869.01 Cover design by Marvin Harder, marvinharder.com. Interior design by Sergiy Kozakov. Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Familiar and foreign : identity in Iranian film and literature / edited by Manijeh Mannani and Veronica Thompson. Includes bibliographical references. Issued in print and electronic formats. 1. Persian literature—History and criticism. 2. Motion pictures—Iran—History. 3. National characteristics, Iranian, in literature. 4. National characteristics, Iranian, in motion pictures. 5. Persian literature—Western influences. 6. Motion pictures—Iran—Western influences. I. Thompson, Veronica, 1963-, editor II. Mannani, Manijeh, 1964-, editor PK6412 I34 F34 2015 891'.5509 C2015-904428-6 C2015-904429-4 We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CFB) for our publishing activities. Assistance provided by the Government of Alberta, Alberta Multimedia Development Fund. This publication is licensed under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–Noncommercial– NoDerivative Works 4.0 International: see www.creativecommons.org. The text may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that credit is given to the original author. To obtain permission for uses beyond those outlined in the Creative Commons license, please contact AU Press, Athabasca University, at [email protected]. The illustrations in chapter 4 are from Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, by Marjane Satrapi, translation copyright © 2003 by L’Association, Paris, France, and from Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return, by Marjane Satrapi, translation copyright © 2004 by Anjali Singh. Used by permission of Pantheon Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House, LLC. All rights reserved. Chapter 3, “Autobiomythography and Self-Aggrandizement in Iranian Diasporic Life-Writing: Fatemeh Keshavarz and Azar Nafisi,” by Manijeh Mannani, is a revised version of an essay that originally appeared under the title “Reading Beyond Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran,” in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 29.2 (2009): 322–34. Copyright 2009, Duke University Press. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. Chapter 10, “Film as Alternative History: The Aesthetics of Bahram Beizai,” by Khatereh Sheibani, is a revised version of “Mirroring the Past, Envisioning the Future,” chapter 5 in Khatereh Sheibani, The Poetics of Iranian Cinema: Aesthetics, Modernity and Film After the Revolution (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011). Reprinted by permission of the publisher. Contents Familiar and Foreign: An Introduction • Manijeh Mannani and Veronica Thompson 3 1 The Development of the Artistic Female Self in the Poetry of Forugh Farrokhzad • Safaneh Mohaghegh Neyshabouri 17 2 Overcoming Gender: The Impact of the Persian Language on Iranian Women’s Confessional Literature • Farideh Dayanim Goldin 31 3 Autobiomythography and Self-Aggrandizement in Iranian Diasporic Life- Writing: Fatemeh Keshavarz and Azar Nafisi • Manijeh Mannani 61 4 Graphic Memories: Dialogues with Self and Other in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and Persepolis 2 • Mostafa Abedinifard 83 5 Mr. and Mrs. F and the Woman: Personal Identities in Zoya Pirzad’s Like All the Afternoons • Madeleine Voegeli 111 6 Anxious Men: Sexuality and Systems of Disavowal in Contemporary Iranian Literature • Blake Atwood 129 7 Reading the Exile’s Body: Deafness and Diaspora in Kader Abdolah’s My Father’s Notebook • Babak Elahi 149 8 Persian Literature of Exile in France: Goli Taraqqi’s Short Stories • Laetitia Nanquette 173 9 Farang Represented: The Construction of Self-Space in Goli Taraqqi’s Fiction • Goulia Ghardashkhani 189 10 Film as Alternative History: The Aesthetics of Bahram Beizai • Khatereh Sheibani 211 11 Technologies of Memory, Identity, and Oblivion in Persepolis (2007) and Waltz with Bashir (2008) • William Anselmi and Sheena Wilson 233 Contributors 261 Remember the flight The bird is mortal Forugh Farrokhzad Familiar and Foreign An Introduction Manijeh Mannani and Veronica Thompson t a time when the Iranian government figures prominently in mainstream media for its foreign policy and nuclear program and when a diversity A of voices and perspectives is lacking in the West, it seems pertinent to engage with artistic and literary works that offer more nuanced depictions of Iranian society than are generally available. In the face of predominantly simplistic and monolithic representations of Iran as a repressive, profoundly patriarchal, and politically intractable nation full of religious fanatics imbued with a hatred of the West and prone to terrorism, Iranian artists reveal a very different society, one whose cultural traditions are rooted in a lengthy and complex history that some- times sit uneasily with the demands of modernity. The artists under considera- tion in this volume engage with Iranian culture and Western responses to Iran in two ways: their works question the strategies—and in some cases, the ideol- ogy—that have been imposed internally on Iranian society, and they challenge the new Orientalist discourse that defines the character of Western conceptions. The essentialist approach of Western media, governments, and even financial institu- tions that underlies their responses to an Islamic government demonizes Iranians in Iran who have no say in the dealings of the government, as well as Iranians in diaspora with no ties to or interest in political matters. The artists represented in this collection tackle a range of issues in response to internal and external constructions of Iranian identity, or hoviyyat.1 The question of identity is at the heart of Persian literature and was central to classical Persian poetry, which is essentially spiritual in nature. In the poems of Attar, Jami, Rumi, 3 doi: 10.15215/aupress/9781927356869.01 and Hafiz, to name just a few, the central theme is a spiritual quest, the goal of which is to gain proximity to the Beloved. The first requirement for the individual on a spiritual quest is to “annihilate his ego (nafs) and become selfless. It is only after he has divorced himself from his material needs and the worries of his own existence and the world that the seeker can approach the Divine” (Mannani 162). The annihilation of nafs, as well as the ongoing Manichaean tensions between the demands of “heart and mind” and “body and mind” that are the defining charac- teristics of the not-yet-unified Self in Sufi poetry, prefigure modern conceptions of the fragmented Self. In classical poetry, the spiritual quest ultimately culminates in a unified Self, while the modern Self remains divided and insecure. Spirituality, once the defining characteristic of Persian poetry (which was, until recently, the pre-eminent genre of Persian literature), has partially given way to more secular preoccupations in modern Iranian literature. As Ramin Jahanbegloo argues, “the conflict between traditional and modern understandings of the rela- tionship among religion, state, and society” has dominated the Iranian intellec- tual agenda particularly during the past decades (15). Tradition and Eurocentric modernity collided following both the Constitutional Revolution (1906–11) and the 1979 Islamic Revolution in particular and distinct ways, as each encoun- ter was inflected by the specifics of its historical moment. The Constitutional Revolution introduced Western modalities of thought, and this political change was subsequently reflected in social and cultural narratives.2 Subsequently, the anti-imperialist Islamic Revolution vehemently opposed all Western values and thoughts. Over the past three decades, the Iranian government has been ada- mantly, but unsuccessfully, pursuing its anti-Western principles and imposing strict conformity to religion. The widespread embracing of a Western lifestyle among most Iranians, especially the younger generation, and the 2009 Green Movement illustrate the failed attempts to excise Western influence. This appar- ent infatuation with Western culture exists in juxtaposition with a nostalgic pride in Persian tradition. Perhaps no critic has identified this duality and the arising complications better than Dariush Shayegan, who, in Cultural Schizophrenia: Islamic Societies Confronting the West, delineates the underlying contradictions in Iranian society and the way in which Iranians are caught between the desire to be “modern and archaic, democratic and authoritarian, profane and religious, ahead of the time and behind it” (22). In his 2011 monograph, Modernity, Sexuality, and Ideology in Iran, Kamran Talattof takes the issue to a higher level and explicates the reasons behind Iran’s failure to achieve modernity in its Western denomination. 4 Introduction doi: 10.15215/aupress/9781927356869.01 He proposes the use of a different “approach,” which he calls “modernoid, or resembling modernity,” to clarify why “its culture has become unstable, changing constantly in a chaotic fashion” and consistently lacking “a modern conceptualiza- tion of sexuality” (9). Within Iranian discourse,
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Exclave: Politics, Ideology, and Everyday Life in Königsberg-Kaliningrad, 1928-1948
    UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Exclave: Politics, Ideology, and Everyday Life in Königsberg-Kaliningrad, 1928-1948 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6r33q03k Author Eaton, Nicole M. Publication Date 2013 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Exclave: Politics, Ideology, and Everyday Life in Königsberg–Kaliningrad, 1928-1948 By Nicole M. Eaton A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Yuri Slezkine, chair Professor John Connelly Professor Victoria Bonnell Fall 2013 Exclave: Politics, Ideology, and Everyday Life in Königsberg–Kaliningrad, 1928-1948 © 2013 By Nicole M. Eaton 1 Abstract Exclave: Politics, Ideology, and Everyday Life in Königsberg-Kaliningrad, 1928-1948 by Nicole M. Eaton Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Berkeley Professor Yuri Slezkine, Chair “Exclave: Politics, Ideology, and Everyday Life in Königsberg-Kaliningrad, 1928-1948,” looks at the history of one city in both Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Russia, follow- ing the transformation of Königsberg from an East Prussian city into a Nazi German city, its destruction in the war, and its postwar rebirth as the Soviet Russian city of Kaliningrad. The city is peculiar in the history of Europe as a double exclave, first separated from Germany by the Polish Corridor, later separated from the mainland of Soviet Russia. The dissertation analyzes the ways in which each regime tried to transform the city and its inhabitants, fo- cusing on Nazi and Soviet attempts to reconfigure urban space (the physical and symbolic landscape of the city, its public areas, markets, streets, and buildings); refashion the body (through work, leisure, nutrition, and healthcare); and reconstitute the mind (through vari- ous forms of education and propaganda).
    [Show full text]
  • We Cover the Risk So You Can Focus on the Reward
    CRT - Mixed Sale February 2019 1 WE COVER THE RISK SO YOU CAN FOCUS ON THE REWARD. You’ve worked hard for your assets. Protect them against misfortune. KUDA COVERS YOUR RACEHORSE: Mortality Cover, Lifesaving Surgery and Critical Care Cover, Medical Care Cover, and Public Liability Cover. KUDA COVERS EVERYTHING ELSE: We cover all your valued assets: Personal and Commercial Insurance, Sport Horse Insurance, and Game and Wildlife Insurance. If you trust us with covering your valued thoroughbred, you can trust us to cover all your assets. CALL US TODAY FOR COVER FROM THE LUXURY LIFESTYLE INSURANCE SPECIALISTS. WÉHANN SMITH +27 82 337 4555 JO CAMPHER +27 82 334 4940 ninety9cents 42088T ninety9cents Kuda Holdings - Authorised Financial Services Provider, FSP number: 38382. All policies are on a Co-Insurance basis between Infiniti Insurance and various syndicates of Lloyds. Kuda Holdings approved Lloyds coverholder PIN 112897CJS. 2 CRT - Mixed Sale February 2019 42088T Kuda Turf Directory Print Ad Luxury lifestyle insurance 210 x 148 FA2.indd 1 2018/12/19 2:48 PM CRT - Mixed Sale February 2019 3 VENDOR INDEX Lot Colour Sex Breeding On Account of Cheveley Stud. (As Agent) 43 Chestnut Mare Oxbow Lake by Fort Wood (USA) 45 Chestnut Mare Tippuana by Fort Wood (USA) 51 Chestnut Mare Silent Treatment by Jet Master 56 Chestnut Mare Rachel Leigh by Fort Wood (USA) 70 Bay Mare Miss K by Kahal (GB) 72 Chestnut Mare Giant's Slipper (AUS) by Giant's Causeway (USA) 76 Grey Mare Ado Annie by Trippi (USA) 84 Bay Mare Lavender Bells by Al Mufti (USA) On Account of Harold Crawford Racing.
    [Show full text]
  • Download File (Pdf; 3Mb)
    Volume 15 - Number 2 February – March 2019 £4 TTHISHIS ISSUEISSUE: IIRANIANRANIAN CINEMACINEMA ● IIndianndian camera,camera, IranianIranian heartheart ● TThehe lliteraryiterary aandnd dramaticdramatic rootsroots ofof thethe IranianIranian NewNew WaveWave ● DDystopicystopic TTehranehran inin ‘Film‘Film Farsi’Farsi’ popularpopular ccinemainema ● PParvizarviz SSayyad:ayyad: socio-politicalsocio-political commentatorcommentator dresseddressed asas villagevillage foolfool ● TThehe nnoiroir worldworld ooff MMasudasud KKimiaiimiai ● TThehe rresurgenceesurgence ofof IranianIranian ‘Sacred‘Sacred Defence’Defence’ CinemaCinema ● AAsgharsghar Farhadi’sFarhadi’s ccinemainema ● NNewew diasporicdiasporic visionsvisions ofof IranIran ● PPLUSLUS RReviewseviews andand eventsevents inin LondonLondon Volume 15 - Number 2 February – March 2019 £4 TTHISHIS IISSUESSUE: IIRANIANRANIAN CCINEMAINEMA ● IIndianndian ccamera,amera, IIranianranian heartheart ● TThehe lliteraryiterary aandnd ddramaticramatic rootsroots ooff thethe IIranianranian NNewew WWaveave ● DDystopicystopic TTehranehran iinn ‘Film-Farsi’‘Film-Farsi’ ppopularopular ccinemainema ● PParvizarviz SSayyad:ayyad: ssocio-politicalocio-political commentatorcommentator dresseddressed aass vvillageillage ffoolool ● TThehe nnoiroir wworldorld ooff MMasudasud KKimiaiimiai ● TThehe rresurgenceesurgence ooff IIranianranian ‘Sacred‘Sacred DDefence’efence’ CinemaCinema ● AAsgharsghar FFarhadi’sarhadi’s ccinemainema ● NNewew ddiasporiciasporic visionsvisions ooff IIranran ● PPLUSLUS RReviewseviews aandnd eeventsvents
    [Show full text]
  • The Devils' Dance
    THE DEVILS’ DANCE TRANSLATED BY THE DEVILS’ DANCE HAMID ISMAILOV DONALD RAYFIELD TILTED AXIS PRESS POEMS TRANSLATED BY JOHN FARNDON The Devils’ Dance جينلر بازمي The jinn (often spelled djinn) are demonic creatures (the word means ‘hidden from the senses’), imagined by the Arabs to exist long before the emergence of Islam, as a supernatural pre-human race which still interferes with, and sometimes destroys human lives, although magicians and fortunate adventurers, such as Aladdin, may be able to control them. Together with angels and humans, the jinn are the sapient creatures of the world. The jinn entered Iranian mythology (they may even stem from Old Iranian jaini, wicked female demons, or Aramaic ginaye, who were degraded pagan gods). In any case, the jinn enthralled Uzbek imagination. In the 1930s, Stalin’s secret police, inveigling, torturing and then executing Uzbekistan’s writers and scholars, seemed to their victims to be the latest incarnation of the jinn. The word bazm, however, has different origins: an old Iranian word, found in pre-Islamic Manichaean texts, and even in what little we know of the language of the Parthians, it originally meant ‘a meal’. Then it expanded to ‘festivities’, and now, in Iran, Pakistan and Uzbekistan, it implies a riotous party with food, drink, song, poetry and, above all, dance, as unfettered and enjoyable as Islam permits. I buried inside me the spark of love, Deep in the canyons of my brain. Yet the spark burned fiercely on And inflicted endless pain. When I heard ‘Be happy’ in calls to prayer It struck me as an evil lure.
    [Show full text]
  • Tribes and Empire on the Margins of Nineteenth-Century Iran
    publications on the near east publications on the near east Poetry’s Voice, Society’s Song: Ottoman Lyric The Transformation of Islamic Art during Poetry by Walter G. Andrews the Sunni Revival by Yasser Tabbaa The Remaking of Istanbul: Portrait of an Shiraz in the Age of Hafez: The Glory of Ottoman City in the Nineteenth Century a Medieval Persian City by John Limbert by Zeynep Çelik The Martyrs of Karbala: Shi‘i Symbols The Tragedy of Sohráb and Rostám from and Rituals in Modern Iran the Persian National Epic, the Shahname by Kamran Scot Aghaie of Abol-Qasem Ferdowsi, translated by Ottoman Lyric Poetry: An Anthology, Jerome W. Clinton Expanded Edition, edited and translated The Jews in Modern Egypt, 1914–1952 by Walter G. Andrews, Najaat Black, and by Gudrun Krämer Mehmet Kalpaklı Izmir and the Levantine World, 1550–1650 Party Building in the Modern Middle East: by Daniel Goffman The Origins of Competitive and Coercive Rule by Michele Penner Angrist Medieval Agriculture and Islamic Science: The Almanac of a Yemeni Sultan Everyday Life and Consumer Culture by Daniel Martin Varisco in Eighteenth-Century Damascus by James Grehan Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey, edited by Sibel Bozdog˘an and The City’s Pleasures: Istanbul in the Eigh- Res¸at Kasaba teenth Century by Shirine Hamadeh Slavery and Abolition in the Ottoman Middle Reading Orientalism: Said and the Unsaid East by Ehud R. Toledano by Daniel Martin Varisco Britons in the Ottoman Empire, 1642–1660 The Merchant Houses of Mocha: Trade by Daniel Goffman and Architecture in an Indian Ocean Port by Nancy Um Popular Preaching and Religious Authority in the Medieval Islamic Near East Tribes and Empire on the Margins of Nine- by Jonathan P.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Modern Politicization of the Persian Poet Nezami Ganjavi
    Official Digitized Version by Victoria Arakelova; with errata fixed from the print edition ON THE MODERN POLITICIZATION OF THE PERSIAN POET NEZAMI GANJAVI YEREVAN SERIES FOR ORIENTAL STUDIES Edited by Garnik S. Asatrian Vol.1 SIAVASH LORNEJAD ALI DOOSTZADEH ON THE MODERN POLITICIZATION OF THE PERSIAN POET NEZAMI GANJAVI Caucasian Centre for Iranian Studies Yerevan 2012 Siavash Lornejad, Ali Doostzadeh On the Modern Politicization of the Persian Poet Nezami Ganjavi Guest Editor of the Volume Victoria Arakelova The monograph examines several anachronisms, misinterpretations and outright distortions related to the great Persian poet Nezami Ganjavi, that have been introduced since the USSR campaign for Nezami‖s 800th anniversary in the 1930s and 1940s. The authors of the monograph provide a critical analysis of both the arguments and terms put forward primarily by Soviet Oriental school, and those introduced in modern nationalistic writings, which misrepresent the background and cultural heritage of Nezami. Outright forgeries, including those about an alleged Turkish Divan by Nezami Ganjavi and falsified verses first published in Azerbaijan SSR, which have found their way into Persian publications, are also in the focus of the authors‖ attention. An important contribution of the book is that it highlights three rare and previously neglected historical sources with regards to the population of Arran and Azerbaijan, which provide information on the social conditions and ethnography of the urban Iranian Muslim population of the area and are indispensable for serious study of the Persian literature and Iranian culture of the period. ISBN 978-99930-69-74-4 The first print of the book was published by the Caucasian Centre for Iranian Studies in 2012.
    [Show full text]
  • The Danger of a Single Story‟: Reading (More Than) Lolita in Tehran Saiyma Aslam1
    Kashmir Journal of Languager Research, Vol. 23 No. 1 (2020) 79 „The Danger of a Single Story‟: Reading (more than) Lolita in Tehran Saiyma Aslam1 Abstract „The danger of a single story‟ is incalculable especially when it shapes judgments in support of Western imperial aggression in the name of War on Terror. Following Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie‟s stand on discursive dangers of a single story, Peter McLaren‟s take on the need of critical pedagogy to study who benefits from popularization of certain accounts and why and Hilde Lindemann Nelson‟s research on developing “counterstory” to offset the negative image an oppressive story conveys, I argue that a contrapuntal study of Azar Nafisi‟s Reading Lolita in Tehran is needed to expose its reductive, decontextualized and neo-orientalist details about Iranian women, culture and politics. For that, I draw comparisons with Fatemeh Keshavarz‟s Jasmine and stars: Reading more than Lolita in Tehran (2007), Shirin Ebadi‟s Iran awakening: A memoir of revolution and hope (2006) and Azadeh Moaveni‟s Lipstick jihad: A memoir of growing up Iranian in America and American in Iran (2005). This article argues for a critical dialogue between memoirs and their social and political settings to offset the negative implications of reductive and decontextualized accounts and encourage greater circulation of multiple perspectives on any situation. Keywords: post 9/11, counter story, critical pedagogy, neo-orientalism, memoir. 1. Introduction The Muslim woman is a “semiotic subject” and an unfixed signifier that has been “produced and reproduced” in orientalist and neo-orientalist discourses to further the interests of the West (Zayzafoon, 2005, p.2).2 Never has this had such an unsettling repercussions than in the case of new positioning(s) she has received through a double bind: how our elite group of neo-orientalists/neo-comprador intelligencia ties horns with the US liberal, neo conservative agenda tuned more 1 Assistant Professor, Department of English, IIU, Islamabad.
    [Show full text]
  • The Poetics of Commitment in Modern Persian: a Case of Three Revolutionary Poets in Iran
    The Poetics of Commitment in Modern Persian: A Case of Three Revolutionary Poets in Iran by Samad Josef Alavi A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Near Eastern Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in Charge: Professor Shahwali Ahmadi, Chair Professor Muhammad Siddiq Professor Robert Kaufman Fall 2013 Abstract The Poetics of Commitment in Modern Persian: A Case of Three Revolutionary Poets in Iran by Samad Josef Alavi Doctor of Philosophy in Near Eastern Studies University of California, Berkeley Professor Shahwali Ahmadi, Chair Modern Persian literary histories generally characterize the decades leading up to the Iranian Revolution of 1979 as a single episode of accumulating political anxieties in Persian poetics, as in other areas of cultural production. According to the dominant literary-historical narrative, calls for “committed poetry” (she‘r-e mota‘ahhed) grew louder over the course of the radical 1970s, crescendoed with the monarch’s ouster, and then faded shortly thereafter as the consolidation of the Islamic Republic shattered any hopes among the once-influential Iranian Left for a secular, socio-economically equitable political order. Such a narrative has proven useful for locating general trends in poetic discourses of the last five decades, but it does not account for the complex and often divergent ways in which poets and critics have reconciled their political and aesthetic commitments. This dissertation begins with the historical assumption that in Iran a question of how poetry must serve society and vice versa did in fact acquire a heightened sense of urgency sometime during the ideologically-charged years surrounding the revolution.
    [Show full text]
  • Oman Embarks on New Yemen Diplomacy
    WWW.TEHRANTIMES.COM I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y 8 Pages Price 50,000 Rials 1.00 EURO 4.00 AED 43rd year No.13960 Monday JUNE 7, 2021 Khordad 17, 1400 Shawwal 26, 1442 Qatar calls for dialogue I know Bahrain like Tehran, Seoul expected Iran’s “Statue” tops at between Iran and back of my hand: to resume trade within VAFI & RAFI animation Arab neighbors Page 3 Dragan Skocic Page 3 3 months Page 4 festival Page 8 Candidates face each other in first televised debate Oman embarks on new TEHRAN – The first televised debates Some analysts said the debates had no among seven presidential candidates were clear winner and that candidates mostly held on Saturday afternoon. trade accusations against each other rather The hot debates took place between five than elaborate on their plans. principlist candidates - especially Saeed Hemmati was claiming that most can- See page 3 Jalili, Alireza Zakani, and Mohsen Rezaei didates were making attacks against him - with Nasser Hemmati. which was not fair. Yemen diplomacy The main contention was over an ap- A presidential candidate, Nasser Imani, proval of FATF and skyrocketing prices, said the days left to the election day are which most candidates held the central important. bank responsible for. Continued on page 2 Iran, EAEU soon to begin talks over establishing free trade zone TEHRAN - Iran and the Eurasian Economic tee, on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg Union (EAEU) are set to begin negotiations International Economic Forum. on a full-fledged joint free trade zone in “The EAEU made the appropriate de- the near future, the press service of the cisions regarding the launch of the nego- Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) tiations in December 2020.
    [Show full text]
  • Selection of Iranian Films 2020
    In the Name of God PUBLISHER Farabi Cinema Foundation No. 59, Sie Tir Ave., Tehran 11358, Iran Management: Tel: +98 21 66708545 / 66705454 Fax: +98 21 66720750 [email protected] International Affairs: Tel: +98 21 66747826 / 66736840 Fax: +98 21 66728758 [email protected] / [email protected] http://en.fcf.ir Editor in Chief: Raed Faridzadeh Teamwork by: Mahsa Fariba, Samareh Khodarahmi, Elnaz Khoshdel, Mona Saheb, Tandis Tabatabaei. Graphics, Layout & Print: Alireza Kiaei A SELECTION OF IRANIAN FILMS 2020 CONTENTS Films 6 General Information 126 Awards 136 Statistics 148 Films Film Title P.N Film Title P.N A BALLAD FOR THE WHITE COW 6 NO PLACE FOR ANGELS 64 ABADAN 1160 8 PLUNDER 66 AMPHIBIOUS 10 PUFF PUFF PASS 68 ATABAI 12 RELY ON THE WIND 70 BANDAR BAND 14 RESET 72 BECAME BLOOD 16 RIOT DAY 74 BONE MARROW 18 THE NIGHT 76 BORN OF THE EARTH 20 THE BLACK CAT 78 CARELESS CRIME 22 THE BLUE GIRL 80 CINEMA SHAHRE GHESEH 24 THE ENEMIES 82 CROWS 26 THE FOURTH ROUND 84 DAY ZERO 28 THE GOOD, THE BAD,THE INDECENT 2 86 DROWN 30 THE GREAT LEAP 88 DROWNING IN HOLY WATER 32 THE INHERITANCE 90 EAR RINGED FISH 34 THE LADY 92 EXCELLENCY 36 THE MARRIAGE PROJECT 94 EXODUS 38 THE RAIN FALLS WHERE IT WILL 96 FATHERS 40 THE REVERSED PATH 98 FILICIDE 42 THE SKIN 100 FORSAKEN HOMES 44 THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE 102 I’M HERE 46 THE STORY OF FORUGH’S GIRL 104 I’M SCARED 48 THE SUN 106 IT’S WINTER 50 THE UNDERCOVER 108 KEEP QUIET SNAIL 52 THE WASTELAND 110 KILLER SPIDER 54 TITI 112 LIFE AMONG WAR FLAGS 56 TOOMAN 114 LUNAR ECLIPSE 58 WALKING WITH THE WIND 116 NARROW RED LINE 60 WALNUT TREE 118 NO CHOICE 62 A BALLAD FOR THE WHITE COW (Ghasideye Gaveh Sefid) Directed by: Behtash Sanaeeha Synopsis: Written by: Behtash Sanaeeha, Maryam Mina’s husband has just been executed Moghadam, Mehrdad Kouroshnia for murder.
    [Show full text]
  • Laetitia Nanquette
    5 THE GLOBAL CIRCULATION OF AN 10 IRANIAN BESTSELLER 15 20 Laetitia Nanquette QA: MSK COLL: MM University of New South Wales, Australia 25 ..................Memoirs by Iranian women in the diaspora have long been the standard reading for western readers interested in Iran. However, The Book of Fate bestseller by Parinoush Saniee, a popular novel newly translated into English and circulation many other European languages, interpolates both the orientalist discourse 30 memoirs offer and the Iranian memoirs industry. The translation of this Iranian literature Iranian text with a feminist Islamic discourse inserts the book into a global literary field context that allows the perception of Iran to impact on western stereotypes. Assisted by its writer, literary agent, translator and publisher, it also has the 35 postcolonial agency, a ‘distributed agency’ to interpolate the dominant system of translation publishing and circulation. My methodology is a combination of close reading, postcolonial theory and Pierre Bourdieu’s analysis of the literary ................. field, which I adapt to the Iranian and English-speaking context. I analyse 40 the publishing processes in Iran and in English-speaking countries, the book covers, the reception of major literary awards, commercial success, and critical reception (critics, media attention, reviews by general readers on websites such as Amazon and Goodreads). 45 50 ....................................................................................................... interventions, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2016.1191960 © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group 55 ............................interventions 2 What comes to mind to general readers if they are asked to name some texts of 60 Iranian literature? Perhaps works of classical Persian poetry or, more likely, memoirs written in English by writers of Iranian origin, such as Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran.
    [Show full text]
  • Cinematic Modernity Cosmopolitan Imaginaries in Twentieth Century Iran
    Cinematic Modernity Cosmopolitan Imaginaries in Twentieth Century Iran by Golbarg Rekabtalaei A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations University of Toronto © Copyright by Golbarg Rekabtalaei 2015 Cinematic Modernity Cosmopolitan Imaginaries in Twentieth Century Iran Golbarg Rekabtalaei Doctor of Philosophy Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations University of Toronto 2015 Abstract Cinematic Modernity explores the ―genesis amnesia‖ that informs the conventional scholarly accounts of Iranian cinema history. Critiquing a ―homogeneous historical time,‖ this dissertation investigates cinematic temporality autonomous from (and in relation to) political and social temporalities in modern Iran. Grounding the emergence of cinema in Iran within a previously neglected cosmopolitan urban social formation, it demonstrates how the intermingling of diverse Russian, Georgian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, French and British communities in interwar Tehran, facilitated the formation of a cosmopolitan cinematic culture in the early twentieth century. In the 1930s, such globally-informed and aspiring citizens took part in the making of a cinema that was simultaneously cosmopolitan and Persian-national, i.e. cosmo-national. This dissertation explains how in the late 1940s, after a decade long hiatus in Iranian feature-film productions—when cinemas were dominated by Russian, British, and German films—Iranian filmmakers and critics actualised their aspirations for a sovereign national cinema in the form a sustained commercial industry; this cinema staged the moral compromises of everyday life and negotiation of conflicting allegiances to families and social networks in a rapidly changing Iran—albeit in entertaining forms. While critiqued for ―imitating‖ European commercial films, this cinema—known as ―Film-Farsi‖ (Persian-Language)–was highly ii informed by lived experiences of Iranians and international commercial motion pictures.
    [Show full text]