The House Is Black
Khaneh Siyah Ast- IRAN / 1962 / Persian / B&W / DCP (Original: 16mm) / 21 min
Director, Editing: Forugh Farrokhzad
Photography: Soleiman Minasian
Sound: Mahmud Hangvai, Samaa Poorkamari
Production Assistants: Herand Minasian, Amir Kararri
Producer: Ebrahim Golestan
Production Company: Golestan Film Company
Source: National Film Archive of Iran
Poet Forough Farrokhzad’s film documents the lives of people with leprosy at the Babadaghi Leper Colony near the northwestern Iranian town of Tabriz. Created at the request of the Society for Assistance to Lepers and among the few films of the time to document those suffering from disability, The House is Black’s unique “poetic realism” captures everyday existence in the facility through the director’s own poetry and quotations from the Quran and Bible.
The Uncle with a Moustache
Amo Sibilo- IRAN / 1969 / Persian / B&W / Digital File (Original: 35mm) / 28 min
Director, Writer: Bahram Beizai
Original Story: Fereydoun Hedayatpour
Photography: Ne’mat Haghighi
Editing: Abbas Ganjavi
Music: Esfandiar Monfaredzadeh
Cast: Sadegh Bahrami
Production Company, Source: Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children & Young Adults (Kanoon)
A single house on an empty lot. An old man living alone, growing irritated by children loudly playing each day near his house. One day, when their ball breaks through one of his windows, he runs outside and angrily chases them out of his yard. However, his sense of solitude is only deepened in the ensuing silent days during which the children, afraid of the old man, do not return. This film gives life to the simplest of settings—a desolate lot and its single house, some children and an old man—in a classic work of the Iranian New Wave.
Deliverance/Release
Rahaee- IRAN / 1971 / Persian / Color / Digital File (Original: 35mm) / 24 min
Director: Nasser Taghvai
Scriptwriters: Nasser Taghvai, Mohsen Taghvai
Photography: Nemat Haghighi
Cast: Mashalah Ghasemi, Shahbaz Parsipour
Production Company, Source: Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children & Young Adults (Kanoon)
In a port city in southern Iran, a boy named Dada sets out to sea with his friends on a rowboat, catching a beautiful red fish. His friend Mashu, who wants to keep the fish, begins an argument that results in an allout fight among the friends about who will keep the catch. Dada attacks Mashu with a rock to take back the fish, however he is locked up in a tiny cell for injuring his friend. The story of this boy, forced to meditate over what happened with the fish in the throes of his own captivity was shot entirely on location, and is brimming with a youthful, vibrant energy from both its actors and setting. This film is full of deeply impressionistic shots characteristic of Iranian New Wave cinema, which vividly capture the contrast between the open sea traversed by the boys, the scramble and swirl in noisy passageways as they fight over fish, and the dim silence of the boy’s small, locked room. Met with international acclaim and took the Grand Prize at the Venice Children’s Film Festival.