Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 1998, Pages 131, 134

The Mideast in Mid-America

Iranian Film Festival in Chicago Celebrates Eighth Anniversary of Socially Conscious Art

By Raeschma Razvi

This fall marked the eighth anniversary of the Festival of Films from Iran, making it the longest-running yearly festival of Iranian films shown in the U.S. With a home at the Film Center at the Art Institute of Chicago, the festival showcases current and past film gems, and hosts a handful of directors who screen their films and then answer questions from the audience. These audiences—made up largely of Iranians, art students and film enthusiasts—have come to expect a range of excellent films due to the quality programming of the Film Center. This festival provides a much-needed humanistic glimpse at Iranian society and how this society is looked upon by its cinematic artists. Because the films provide windows into one type of Islamic society, the festival fills a major cinematic gap in a city that rarely, if ever, attracts Arab or Islamic-Asian cinema.

Iranian Women in Film, the Media, and History

This year the festival added another dimension: a panel discussion on Iranian women in film, the media, and history. Sponsored by the Illinois Humanities Council, the panel of local scholars coordinated their areas of expertise to provide an informative, seamless session on the prickly topic of women in cinema. Dr. Janet Afary, professor at Purdue University, opened the session with an overview of women's issues in Iranian history this century, discussing family law, feminism among the intellectuals, and the disparity in lifestyle between lower and upper economic classes of women.

Dr. Norma Moruzzi of the University of Illinois at Chicago talked about audience expectations of women in Iranian cinema. She described how certain filmmaking restrictions are acknowledged by the audiences as codes that can't be broken. For example, she says, "all women [in films] must wear hijab and loose clothing even in a scene where they're getting ready for bed. The audience knows that's not real. But they start to adjust to the modesty artifice of Iranian films, just like the directors adjust to rules."

Moruzzi gave two examples of films that have played with such conventions. The satire "Pickpockets Don't Go to Heaven" stages such clever scenes: a man finds himself inside a refrigerator box with two eyeslots cut out as he shadows the landlord Æan example of the comic "hijab-ing" of a character. In another scene a man and woman seem ready to kiss; the way it's filmed the audience almost expects it, but at the last moment he kisses the prison guard instead. These scenes, say Moruzzi, "bend the rules and our expectations of them."

Another film she cited, "Hamsar" (Spouse), defied convention by the choice of main character and conflict. In this story a woman is promoted to be her husband's boss, and he has a hard time dealing with it. Ultimately he comes to terms with the situation and they try to live together peacefully. Moruzzi said that she couldn't think of a Western example of a film "with a woman as a strong hero with a realistic husband; a happy ending and she stays boss." The film, which played Chicago in a previous festival, "had the most negative response of any I've seen at a filmfest here," says Moruzzi. "It was really striking how hostile the response was, especially toward the actress. Most comments were, maybe not surprisingly, from men."

Dr. Jamsheed Akrami of William Paterson College followed this with footage from his video documentary "Dreams Betrayed" about political filmmaking before the revolution. He showed clips that illustrated that commercial films often portrayed women as the seductress or femme fatale, or as dominated by male characters. Post-revolution, he says, "nothing changed more radically than the representation of women." Women in films now had a stronger presence. Akrami calls it "ironic that pre-revolution women were victimized in film and yet after the revolution, you see strong women characters in film."

Another probably unrecognized benefit to women in the post-revolution film industry was pointed out by moderator Mehrnaz Saeed Vafa, a film instructor at Columbia College. "Because of the hijab requirement [for actresses]," she says, "it's now okay for women from respectable families to study acting and be actresses in films."

The Directors Make an Appearance

Four directors were scheduled to make an appearance, and only one canceled because shooting had begun on his new feature. Of the other three, Varuzh Karim-Masihi brought three of his earlier short films, adding to the archival treasures component in this year's festival. One of the "most delightful" shorts of the pre-revolutionary Iranian cinema, "The Cuckoo" (1975), tells the story of a little boy whose everyday work routine is blissfully broken by the performances of a wandering troubadour.

Abolfazl Jalili, writer/director, had two award-winning features in this year's line-up. Film International magazine said that each of his recent films "is a new experiment that stands far apart from the mainstream of Iranian cinema. Having been experimental works, those films have managed to present unique portraits of contemporary Iran and Iranians." "Det Means Girl" (1994) uses vividly composed images to relate the story of a factory guard and his crippled sister, and the increasingly mystical treatments her recovery requires.

Kianoush Ayyari, also with two features in the festival, brought "Beyond the Fire" and the once-banned "The Abadanis." "Beyond the Fire" is a tale of greed dividing two brothers in the early '70s, as the National Iranian Oil Company expands its drilling operations.

Although renowned film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf did not come to Chicago, a 1996 feature of his did arrive. Like Abofazl Jalili's "A True Story," Makhmalbaf's "A Moment of Innocence" takes its narrative drive from a casting call for actors. What emerges in both films—and indeed, in the best of the Iranian cinema—is the complex relationship between art and life, between ideals and reality.

Makhmalbaf's latest provides a dramatic reconstruction of his own attack as a young revolutionary on a policeman years ago under the Shah's regime, and includes the policeman's own memories of the event. Makhmalbaf's account of the origins and intent of A Moment of Innocence says a lot about the wellspring that feeds current Iranian cinema:

"I had published a casting call in the principal newspapers in order to hire the cast of "Salaam Cinema." Among the thousands of candidates who showed up was the policeman whom I had stabbed years before. I was by then disappointed with politics. I had gotten out of prison and I no longer needed his weapon. On the other hand, he needed my weapon—the cinema—which serves neither to do politics nor to wound again. It was thanks to cinema that we finally tried to understand each other and to avoid combating one another again. My purpose and that of other film people in my country is to arrive at life, at love among people. The rest is a means, but I believe that you can pursue this end only through culture. This is what the film affirms: you have to use the flower and not the knife. You cannot reach democracy through arms."

(Correction: The photos of the ISNA convention in Chicago attributed to Raeshma Razvi on the inside back cover of the December 1997 issue should have been credited to Christian Melady.)