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| The Stranger and the Fog |
“CINEMA IS A MACHINE OF EMPATHY”: RESTORING AND CURATING IRANIAN’S CINEMATIC HERITAGE. AND CURATING IRANIAN’S CINEMATIC HERITAGE.
An interview with Ehsan Khoshbakht
By André Habib (Université de Montréal)
The international recognition of Iranian cinema parallels its presence on the world festival circuit, from Gaffari’s 1963 Night of the Hunchback, through Kiarostami’s Palme d’or for The Taste of Cherry to Rossoulof’s in extremis addition to the 2024 Cannes Festival selection. These last few years, festivals (in particular Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Locarno) have been pivotal in diagnosing the “state of affairs” in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the ongoing creative struggle and resistance filmmakers have opposed to the regime. We could also add that, over the past ten years, it is also via festivals, and particularly those specialized in showcasing film restorations, that we have witnessed a reappraisal and renewed appreciation for works, mostly shot before the revolution, that had fallen into relative oblivion and which all, in some respect, display eloquent forms of politic and poetic resistance. It is safe to say that nowhere is this truer than at the Cineteca di Bologna, via its now world-renowned Cinema Ritrovato festival and through the work of the Immagine ritrovata laboratory. Crucial to this new wave of rediscoveries is Ehsan Khoshbakht, who has, since 2018, worked as co-director of the Cinema Ritrovato festival, apart from curating many ambitious programs across the world (notably, recently, the October 13th to November 27th MoMA program, Iranian Cinema Before the Revolution, spanning fifty years and presenting close to 70 feature and short films). He is also a filmmaker, an architect and an essential figure, with others, of the contemporary reassessment of the importance and richness of the history of Iranian cinema. Shortly before the launch of the Fall of 2023 MoMA cycle, we had a chance to interview him for this special issue of Regards.
