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Iranian cinema (or ''Persian cinema'' ) with thousands of International film awards became one of the finest in the world, with festivals of Iranian films being held annually throughout the world. Many critics now rank Iran as the world's most important national cinema artistically, with a significance that invites comparison to Italian Neorealism and similar movements in past decades. Besides ''Cinema of Iran'', Iranian or Persian cinema also includes cinema of the Iranian Continent such as Tajikistan , Afghanistan . It may also refer to movies made in Persian Language in other regions as Europe and United States or movies made by Iranians in languages other than Iranian Ones . EARLY PERSIAN CINEMA If one were to trace the first visual representations in Iran ian history, the bas-reliefs in Persepolis (c.500 B. C) would be one of the earliest examples. There were many ( Puppet Shows ), Saye-bazi (shadow plays), Rouhozi (comical acts), and Ta'zieh (a form of Persian passion play, presenting tragic dramas based on the martyrdom of Hossein, an extremely important figure in Shi'asm). Cinema was only five years old when it came to Persia at the beginning of the 20th century. The first Persian filmmaker was likely Mirza Ebrahim Khan Akkas Bashi , the official photographer of Muzaffar Al-Din Shah , the Shah (king) of Persia ( 1896 - 1907 ). After a visit to Paris in July 1900 , Akkas Bashi obtained a camera and filmed the Shah 's visit to Belgium . CONTEMPORARY IRANIAN CINEMA stars in the box office hit "Mozahem".]] Khan Baba Motazedi founded the first cinema theater in Iran. In 1932, Abdolhossein Sepanta who has been acknowledged as the father of Iranian sound movies made the first Iranian Sound Film named The Lor Girl . Later in 1935, he directed as many movies such as Ferdowsi (the life story of the most celebrated epic poet of Iran), Shirin-o-Farhaad (an Iranian classic love story), and Black Eyes (the story of Nader Shah's invasion to India). Later in 1937, he also directed Laili-o-Majnoon , an eastern love story similar to western story of Romeo And Juliet . The present Iranian film art and industry owes a lot of its progress to two industrious personalities, Esmail Koushan and Farrokh Ghaffari . By establishing the first National Iranian Film Society in 1949 at the Iran Bastan Museum and organizing the first Film Week during which English films were exhibited, Ghaffari laid the foundation stone of alternative and non-commercial films in Iran. Pre-revolution Persian cinema produced memorable movies such as The Bride of the Sea produced by the late Arman (1965), Siavash at Persepolis produced by the late Ferreidun Rahnoma (1967), Brick and Mirror produced by Ebrahim Golestan (1967), The House of God produced by Jalal Moghaddam (1966), The Husband of Ahoo Khanom produced by Davood Mollapour (1968). With the screening of the films Kaiser and the Cow produced by Masoud Kimiay and Darius Mehrjoui in 1969, alternative films established their status in the film industry. Attempts for organizing a film festival that had commenced since 1954 within the framework of the Golrizan Festival, bore fruits with the Sepas Festival in 1969 and the endeavors of Ali Mortazavi which resulted in the formation of the Tehran World Festival in 1973. Post-revolutionary Iranian and Persian cinema has been praised in many international forums due to its distinct style, themes, authors, idea of nationhood, and manifestation of culture. Many world class Iranian directors emerged during last few decades as Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi . Intellectual cinema in Iran is enjoying more and more young talented directors. The continuous presence of Iranian films in prestigious international festivals as Cannes Film Festival , Venice Film Festival and Berlin Film Festival attracted world attention to Iranian masterpieces . Iranian films have repeatedly been nominated or become the winner of prestigious prizes as ''Golden Lion'' of The Venice Film Festival , ''Palme d'Or'' of Cannes Film Festival and ''Golden and Silver Bear'' of Berlin Film Festival. In 2006, six Iranian films, with six different styles, represented Iranian cinema in Berlin Film Festival. This has been considered by critics as a remarkable event in the history of Iranian cinema. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/arts/story/2006/02/060209_pm-berlin-film-festival.shtml][http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4726682.stm] Iranian Kurdish Cinema In 1999, '' The Wind Will Carry Us '' (Bād Mā Rā Khāhad Bord) by Abbas Kiarostami was the first movie partly shot in Kurdistan and presented at international film festivals (Venice Film Festival and Cannes Festival). Kurdish cinema found international reputation in 2000, mainly after the presence of two movies from Kurdistan and in Kurdish language simultaneously in Cannes festival namely, '' The Blackboard '' (Takhte Siāh) by Samira Makhmalbaf and '' A Time For Drunken Horses '' (Zamāni barāye Masti Asb-hā) by Bahman Ghobadi . The movies were the first movies in Kurdish language in the history of Kurdish cinema. In 2002 ''Songs from my Mother's Land'', another movie by Bahman Ghobadi in Kurdish was presented at the Cannes festival. The movie won many prizes in several other international festivals. In 2005, Iranian director Jamil Rostami won Fajr Festival 's Simorgh for the best director in Asia and Middle East for his Kurdish-language movie, ''Requiem of Snow''. Iranian Intellectual Cinema Since 1960s, a movement in Persian cinema started which created the so called ''New Wave''. Directors like , Jafar Panahi , Majid Majidi , Bahram Beyzai , Darius Mehrjui , Mohsen Makhmalbaf , Masoud Kimiay , Sohrab Shahid-Sales , Parviz Kimiavi , Samira Makhmalbaf and Abolfazl Jalili . The factors leading to the rise of the New Wave in Iran were, in part, due to internal conditions; that is due to intellectual or even political movements that came into existence at the time. A romantic climate was developing after the 19 August 1953 coup in the sphere of arts. Next to it, a socially committed literature took shape in the 1950's and reached a peak in the 1960's which we may consider as the "golden era" of contemporary Persian Literature . Along with China, Iran has been lauded as one of the exporters of great cinema in the nineties. World-renowned German filmmaker Werner Herzog , along with many film critics from around the world, has praised Iranian cinema as one of the world's most important artistic cinemas. {Link without Title} In the artistic and esthetic realm, features of New wave of Persian cinema, for example the works of Abbas Kiarostami , can be classified as Postmodern . Despite some shared characteristics with European cinema (e.g. Italian Neo-realist cinema), no one can deny the existence of a specific Iranian cinematic language that champions the poetics of everyday life and of the ordinary person in a new style, blurring the boundaries between Fiction and reality, feature and documentary. The new Iranian cinematic language and the unique approach have inspired European cinema directors to imitate the style. Michael Winterbottom ’s award-winning “In This World” is the most noticeable homage to contemporary Iranian cinema. This new, humanistic aesthetic language, determined by the film-makers’ individual and national identity, rather than the forces of globalism, has a strong creative dialogue not only on homeground but with audiences around the world. [http://archiv.hkw.de/en/dossiers/iran_dossierroseissa/kapitel2.html Iranian Popular Art-Cinema Parallel to Persian neo-realist and minimalist art-cinema, there exist a so called ''polpular art-cinema'' in Iran. Filmmakers who belong to this circle are interested in films which have broader range of audiance than minimalist cinema which are mainly accessible to a narrow spectrum of highly educated people. However such filmmakers believe that their movies are also artistically sound. Such type of films have emerged throughout history of Iranian cinema. Filmmakers like Naser Taqvaei and Ali Hatami are best examples of this cinematic movement. In addition to popularity, their works have also been praised by critics due to their artistic style. Interestingly Some of these filmmakers also belong to the intellectual cinema (e.g. ''Mehman e Maman'' by Darius Mehrjui ). In Persian Poetry , Mehdi Akhavan-Sales has established a bridge between the ''Khorassani'' and ''Nima'' Schools. That is what Masoud Kimiaei has done in ''Qaysar''; i.e., he established a connection between ''intellectual'' and ''popular'' films. {Link without Title} Iranian Women's Cinema , a multi-award winning actress and director]] Following the rise of Iranian ''New wave'', there are now record numbers of film school graduates in Iran and each year more than 20 new directors make their debut films, many of them women. In the last two decades, there has been a higher percentage of women directors in Iran than in most countries in the West. {Link without Title} The success and hard work of the pioneering , Rakhshan Bani-Etemad , Zahra Dowlatabadi , Niki Karimi , Samira Makhmalbaf , Mahin Oskouei , Hana Makhmalbaf , Pouran Rakhshandeh , Sepideh Farsi , Maryam Keshavarz , Yassamin Maleknasr and Sara Rastegar . Iranian writer-director Rakhshan Bani-Etemad is probably Iran's best known and certainly most prolific female filmmaker. Rakhshan Bani Etemad has established herself as the elder stateswoman of Iranian cinema with documentaries and films dealing with social pathology. One of the best-known female film directors in the country today is Samira Makhmalbaf, who directed her first film The Apple at 17 years old. Samira Makhmalbaf won the 2000 Cannes Jury Prize for her following film ''Blackboards'', about the trials of two travelling teachers in Kurdistan . Besides women involved in screenwriting and filmmaking, there are numerous award winning Iranian actresses whose uniques styles and talents attracted critics. The most notable Iranian actresses are: Niki Karimi , Mahaia Petrosian , Shokouh Mahde-Olia , Leila Hatami (''Best actress award, Locarno International Film festival and Montreal World Film Festival(2002))'', Taraneh Allidousti (''winner of Best actress award, Locarno International Film festival, awarded in August 2002''), Pegah Ahangarani (''winner of Best Actress Award, the 23rd Cairo International Film Festival''), Azita Hajian (''winner of Crystal Simorgh for the Best Actress, the 17th Fajr International Film Festival'') and Shohreh Aghdashloo (''first Iranian woman to be nominated for an Academy Award ''). Iranian Comic Cinema Iranian Animation Cinema Iranian Azeri Cinema In 2002, Iranian director, Mehdi Parizad , shot a documentary on Azeri filmmaking. On January 10 2005, The Azeri cinema event opened at Tehran's Contemporary Arts Museum. Iranian War Cinema War cinema in Iran was born simultaneously with the beginning of Iran-Iraq war. However it took many years until in finds its way and identity by defining characteristics of ''Iranian war cinema''. Many renowed directors as Mohsen Makhmalbaf , Ebrahim Hatamikia , Rasoul Molla-Gholipour , Kamal Tabrizi , Jamal Shourjeh , Morteza Avini , Mojtaba Raei , Azizollah Hamidnejad , Ahmad Reza Darvish , Shahriar Bohrani and Mohammad Bozorgnia were involved in developing ''Iranian war cinema''. Commercial Cinema in Iran Mohammad Ali Fardin remained an over-rated actor who represented a commercial cinema that was an embarrassment to Iranian national identity. Before Fardin, one could argue, our country simply did not have a commercial cinema. {Link without Title} The 1960s was a significant decade for Iranian cinema, with 25 commercial films produced annually on average throughout the early ‘60s, increasing to 65 by the end of the decade. The majority of production focused on melodrama and thrillers. The commercial Iranian cinema genre is largely unknown in the West as the films are targeted at local audiences. There are two categories of this type of film. The first is what many critics label as “propaganda” films. Many of these films relate to the victory of the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the ensuing Iran–Iraq war, and are filled with strong religious motifs. The second category, loosely defined as the “unofficial Hollywood remake”, consists of movies that are highly formulaic, cast with popular actors and possess the typical elements of India's popular cinema in their appeal (of course, with distinct differences). They tell stories of unrequited love where the hero and his love interest don't so much kiss but walk off into the metaphorical sunset as the end-credits roll. The appeal of these films lies in their “western” attributes, which contributes significantly to the escapism they offer. Part of the appeal of these commercial “remakes” is in their “non-Iranian” identity. {Link without Title} PERSIAN CINEMA IN AFGHANISTAN Cinema of Afghanistan is slowly rising after a long period of silence. Before September 11th attacks, Mohsen Makhmalbaf attracted world attention to Afghanistan by his celebrated movie , '' Kandahar ''. ''Kandahar'' was an attempt to tell the world about a forgotten country. Later on, Yassamin Maleknasr , Abolfazl Jalili , Samira Makhmalbaf and Siddiq Barmak did significant contribution to Persian cinema in Afghanistan. Siddiq Barmak is also director of the Afghan Children Education Movement (ACEM), an association that promotes literacy, culture and the arts, founded by Iranian film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf . The school trains actors and directors for the emerging cinema of Afghanistan. In “Djomeh” (2000), made by one of Abbas Kiarostami ’s assistants, Hassan Yektapanah , the story focuses on the plight of one of the two million young Afghan refugees in Iran without legal status. When the non-professional Afghan actor, used in this film, was invited to the Hamburg Film Festival, and then denied re-entry to Iran, his story became another film, “Heaven’s Path” (2002), by the architect-actor-film-maker Mahmoud Behraznia , who lives in Germany. PERSIAN CINEMA IN TAJIKISTAN In Tajikistan , Mohsen Makhmalbaf , the internationally known Iranian movie director, is playing the same role as he played in the reconstruction of the cinema of post-Taliban Afghanistan. ''1st Didar Film Festival'', the first Film festival in Tajikistan, was held in 2004. In 2003, ''Iran’s Film Week'' was held in Dushanbe , Tajikistan . Several Iranian films including ''My Eyes for You'', ''Last Supper'', ''Bride'', ''Avicenna'', and ''Passion'', went on screen at the ''Vatan Cinema'' in Dushanbe. IRANIAN AMERICAN CINEMA SEE ALSO
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