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IRANIAN DOCUMENTARY FILM CULTURE: CINEMA, SOCIETY, AND POWER 1997-2014 ____________________________________________________________________________________ A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board ___________________________________________________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ____________________________________________________________________________________ by Persheng Sadegh-Vaziri December 2015 Examining Committee Members: Patrick M. Murphy, Advisory Chair, Media and Communication Roderick Coover, Film Media Arts Naomi Schiller, Anthropology & Archaeology, Brooklyn College Hamid Naficy, Radio-TV-Film, Northwestern University Nora M. Alter, External Member, Film Media Arts © Copyright 2015 by Persheng Sadegh-Vaziri All Rights Reserved ! ii! ABSTRACT Iranian documentary filmmakers negotiate their relationship with power centers every step of the way in order to open creative spaces and make films. This dissertation covers their professional activities and their films, with particular attention to 1997 to 2014, which has been a period of tremendous expansion. Despite the many restrictions on freedom of expression in Iran, especially between 2009 and 2013, after the uprising against dubious election practices, documentary filmmakers continued to organize, remained active, and produced films and distributed them. In this dissertation I explore how they engaged with different centers of power in order to create films that are relevant to their society. To focus this topic, my research explores media institutions, their filmmaking practices, and the strategies they use to produce and distribute their films. This research is important because it explores the inherent contradictions in the existence of a vibrant documentary film community in a country that is envisioned as uniformly closed and oppressive in the West. The research is also personally motivated, because I have close connections to the Iranian documentary film world, where I previously made films and produced television programs. I conduct the study with a multi-faceted approach, utilizing participant observation in the field in a four-month period, in-depth interviews with key players, personal reflections, and textual analysis of the films. I focus on about twenty filmmakers and their films, chosen from a pool of more than 500 documentary filmmakers, giving a cross section of this community based on their age, sex, and their professional history and success within Iran and internationally. ! iii! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people paved the way for the writing and completion of this dissertation. First and foremost, I am indebted to my advisor Patrick Murphy, who was instrumental to its completion. With his invaluable mentorship and the generous allotment of his time, he guided me to overcome various scholarly and administrative hurdles. His expertise in media and cultural theory helped me navigate a difficult terrain. My committee members, particularly Hamid Naficy, the foremost scholar of Iranian cinema, gave me invaluable direction and guidance. His research and writings had profound impact on my work. Naomi Schiller meticulously read my work and tirelessly steered me to strengthen my theoretical framework. Rod Coover and Nora Alter provided me with their expertise in film theory. My Professors and the staff in Media & Communication, Film Media Arts, and Anthropology Departments provided the foundations for this scholarship. I am grateful to all the Iranian documentary filmmakers who shared their time and their films. They are my colleagues who work courageously under difficult conditions. They provided me with inspiring stories of their filmmaking odyssey, always with good humor and graciousness. The three founders of Iranian Documentary Filmmakers Association opened many doors for conducting this research. Filmmaker and writer Pirooz Kalantari gave so much of his time and guidance for investigating the field and connecting to other filmmakers and groups. Ebrahim Mokhtari provided the framework for me to understand the inner workings of Iranian film institutions. Scholar, Mohammad Tahaminejad freely gave of his valuable time to read over my draft and correct my errors. Other filmmakers like Shirin Barghnavard, Mina Keshavarz, the prominent Rakhshan Banietemad and Mahvash Sheikholeslami and film organizers, Mrs. Bastani, Amir ! iv! Hossein Sanaie, Shirin Naderi and so many others who are mentioned in the text of the dissertation, generously allowed me to enter their world. Their creativity and hard work is what inspired the writing of this dissertation. I want to thank Brian Drolet who was always willing to help me edit various versions of the chapters and Babak, for motivating me to start on the path of scholarship after years of working in film production. My sister, Sahba and my close friends encouraged me along this long and eventful journey. And finally, thanks to Kim Spencer for his love of Iran and for hiring me in the first place to work on documentaries on Iran. It opened the door to my fascination with Iranian cinema. ! v! TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS …........................................................................................... iv CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 1 Research Questions ................................................................................................ 2 Time Frame ............................................................................................................ 6 Background: History of Iranian Documentaries after the Revolution ................. 11 Shi’a Discourse and Its Alternatives ..................................................... 13 Documentary Films After the War .........................................................16 The Independent Filmmakers and the Research .................................................. 22 Personal History and Working in Iran ................................................................. 24 Geopolitics and Film Production ......................................................................... 31 2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORY.................................................................. 34 Discourse ............................................................................................................. 39 Censorship and Films ............................................................................. 46 Anti-Western Discourse .........................................................................53 The State and Cinema ............................................................................ 58 The Intelligentsia ................................................................................... 60 Iranian Aesthetics and the Discourse of Nationalism ............................ 64 Subjectivity in Iranian Documentaries.................................................................72 Conclusion – Documentary Trends .................................................................... 75 ! vi! 3. METHOD .....................................................................................................................79 Following the People - Thick Description and Reflexivity............................ 83 Observer as Participant ......................................................................... 85 Voice and the Question of Power and Gender ............................................... 89 The Interpretive Community ................................................................. 94 Encountering the Field and Gaining Access .................................................. 97 Interviews ............................................................................................ 101 Festivals as ‘Interface’ Spaces ............................................................ 103 Following the thing - Textual Analysis of Documentary Films .................. 105 Following the Conflict – The Filmmakers and Institutions ......................... 107 Summary ...................................................................................................... 109 4. THE INSTITUTIONS OF IRANIAN DOCUMENTARY CINEMA ....................... 112 Figure1: Elected / Unelected Institutions ............................................ 113 Iranian Documentary Filmmakers Association (IRDFA) ................... 117 IRIB Iran’s National Television ................................................................. 122 Governmental Funding and Privatization ........................................... 130 Art & Experience ................................................................................ 133 Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (MCIG) ................................... 134 Documentary & Experimental Film Center (DEFC) ......................... 135 Production and Distribution Permits .................................................. 141 The Vérité International Documentary Film Festival ........................ 143 Case Study: House of Cinema and IRDFA ....................................... 146 The Conflict ........................................................................ 148 Transnational Television and the Iranian Audiences ......................... 149 ! vii! Summary ...................................................................................................
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