Close Up – Iranian Cinema: Past, Present and Future by Hamid Dabashi

Hamid Dabashi presents a comprehensive, passionate, and insightful personal account on the evolution of Iranian art cinema in Close Up – Iranian Cinema: Past, Present and Future. By presenting the works of key films and filmmakers within the contextual framework of Iranian history – in particular, from the state-sponsored, forced modernization programs initiated by the […]

Smell of Camphor, Frgrance of Jasmine, 2000

An early encounter in Smell of Camphor, Fragrance of Jasmine humorously, but astutely illustrates the aimlessly resigned plight of the impassive, perennially unemployed director Bahman Farjami (Bahman Farmanara) as he apologetically acknowledges to a former actor turned businessman that he hasn’t made a film in 24 years. The episode, which occurs after Bahman visits the […]

The Wind Will Carry Us, 1999

A group of men from the city of Tehran traverse the rural Iranian countryside on a jeep, guided by a set of descriptive, yet unavoidably imprecise directions, seemingly lost. The driver (Behzad Dourani), respectfully called “Engineer” by the villagers, eventually encounters his appointed contact along the side of the road: a gentle, courteous boy named […]