The Departed: the filmmakers we lost in 2017

Naiel Ibarrola and I are back in Sight & Sound for a new series of what we call cine-comic-strip, illustrating the departed filmmakers of 2017. The complete collection, composed of 13 panels, can be viewed here.

Notebook 10th Writers' Poll

In MUBI Notebook's annual poll, the contributors pair their favorite new films of the year (2017) with older films seen in the same year to create fantastic double features. Here is what I can offer as one of 2017's so many ideal and less than ideal double-bills. The first bill features the underappreciated Wajib, the third feature by Annemarie Jacir and her best work so far. -- EK

NEW: Wajib (Annemarie Jacir, Palestine)
OLD: Time Without Pity (Joseph Losey, 1957)

On the surface, simply pairing two father-son films (of which there are probably far too many out there), striking the so-called universal chord. However, here, the universality is only secondary, if not entirely irrelevant, to what binds them internally—it is in their particularities of that relationship and their ties to the place (Nazareth/London) that a decent double-bill might emerge. Both films never abandon their political agendas but somehow move to more personal territories. They, in fact, are about those "territories", personal or impersonal: characters with their vague hope traversing in hostile cities in which the place of the saved and the savior is interchanged.

Best of the Last Films

Terror in a Texas Town

فهرست «فيلم‌(هاي) آخر» محبوبم از تاريخ سينما براي ماهنامۀ حالا تعطیل شدۀ «صنعت سينما» (پانزدهم فروردين 1393)

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فيلم آخر، بدون اين‌كه كارگردان قصد ساختن فيلم آخرش را داشته باشد. جبر حاكم بر شرايط فيلم‌سازي يا انتخاب فردي، با وجود عمر نسبتاً طولاني فيلم‌ساز باعث شده تا اين فيلم «آواز قوي» او باقي بماند:

Il Cinema Ritrovato in London#1

Assunta spina

Catholics have the Vatican. Muslims make the pilgrimage to Mecca. Cinephiles have Il Cinema Ritrovato. It's the name of a unique film festival which has been running now for 31 years. The annual setting for the festival is Bologna which boasts majestic architecture, great food and the oldest university in Europe, helping to turn the location into a film set.

The festival, hosted by Cineteca di Bologna, screens films from all over the world. It is dedicated to film history, but in a way that will fully convince anyone that the past is a vital part of the present – or as Henri Langlois said about Chaplin, it is the future. Il Cinema Ritrovato brings to an international audience films which have rarely been seen, films that have never been seen in decent copies and films that may have been seen before, but never in the city's main piazza with 4,000 passionate viewers in attendance and a philharmonic orchestra providing musical accompaniment. The festival never ceases to amaze visitors.New restorations, new prints, and remarkable discoveries on an almost daily basis are characteristic of this annual eight-day affair, a 500-film marathon that Sight & Sound magazine recently called "The Shock of the Old."

A Simple Event (Sohrab Shahid Saless, 1973)

Update: Playing at GOETHE-INSTITUT LONDON on November 9, 2017, 7 PM.

From my Iranian New Wave programme notes, Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna, 2015. -- EK

YEK ETTEFAGH-E SADEH
Iran, 1973 Regia: Sohrab Shahid Saless
T. int.: A Simple Event. Scen.: Sohrab Shahid Saless (uncredited), Omid Rouhani (uncredited). F.: Naghi Maasoumi. M.: Kazem Rajinia. Int.: Mohammad Zamani, Anne Mohammad Tarikhi, Habibullah Safarian, Hedayatullah Navid, Majid Baghaie. Prod.: Sazman-e Cinemaie Keshvar.

A few days in the life of a young boy living by the Caspian Sea. At school he is falling behind his classmates and almost expelled. He helps his father to fish illegally, and at home watches as his mother’s health deteriorates.

original poster

Sohrab Shahid Saless’s debut feature was made clandestinely with the budget and crew assigned to him for a short film by the government-run Sazman-e Cinemaie Keshvar, for whom he had previously made around 20, mostly uncredited shorts. The film was shot in Bandar Shah. Saless, who admired Chekov, chose the location for its “Russian-looking” atmosphere and the fact that it was at the end of the railroad – at a dead end, like the lives of his characters. Mohammad Zamani, who had never been to a cinema, plays the young boy and one can feel the weight of the world on his frail shoulders. Mysteriously quiet and empty, the film’s characters are apparently devoid of any feeling, yet still capable of making an enormous emotional impact on the audience.

Underline#1 [a new magazine]

I'm editing a new magazine on arts for British Council Iran called Underline. The digital quarterly publication can be downloaded for free here in both Persian and English editions. This is the editorial from the first issue, Autumn 2017. -- Ehsan Khoshbakht

Editorial

The Swinging Sixties – a period of cultural change characterised by optimism, hedonism and extraordinary artistic creativity – was not only a British phenomenon…

Before elaborating any further, allow me to share the good news: Underline, the online arts journal of the British Council Iran, is now a proper quarterly e-magazine, available both as a free download and for online browsing. We believe the magazine format can give greater coherence to the stories we want to tell.

The articles in this issue are themed around the changing culture of the 1960s – the happiest (and hippest) note struck for UK-Iran cultural relations.

Following the arrival into Iran of new British cultural exports – chiefly cinema, music, theatre productions and literary translations – the scepticism of the post-Coup years temporarily dissolved. Iran was a country striving to become revitalised and modern. Iranians were not content to be merely passive recipients of these new trends. They adapted, transformed and reinterpreted that which captivated them from abroad and made their own cultural exports during this significant period of transition.

Underline#1

آندرلاین نام مجله هنری تازه‌ای است که من سردبیری‌اش را به عهده دارم و شماره اولش، به دو زبان فارسی و انگلیسی، را می‌توان به رایگان در وبسیات بریتیش کانسیل دانلود کرد. این سرمقاله شمارۀ اول است. احسان خوش‌بخت

سرمقاله

انقلاب فرهنگی دهه 1960 میلادی منحصر به اروپای غربی و آمریکای شمالی نبود و آن‌چه به نام «Swinging Sixties» شناخته می‌شود فقط بریتانیا را به تحرکی سرخوشانه وانداشت. اما قبل از توضیح بیش‌تر و پیدا کردن ارتباط آن با ایران اجازه بدهید خبری خوب را با شما در میان بگذاریم:

آندرلاین، مجله هنری شورای فرهنگی بریتانیا، که چند سالی است به صورت وبسایت فعالیت می‌کند از این پس، به جز وبسایت، یک فصلنامه الکترونیکی نیز خواهد بود که می‌توانید به صورت رایگان دانلود کنید، یا هم‌چنان روی وبسایت ما بخوانید.

Cinema Centenaries 2017

دانیل داریو

صدساله‌های سینما از اسماعیل کوشان تا دانیل داریو

صدسالگی یکی از بهانه‌های رایج برای یادآوری، ستایش یا بررسی دوباره است و برای سینما، هنری که به نسبت بقیه هنرها هنوز جوان است، عدد صد می‌تواند معانی بیش‌تری هم داشته باشد.

امسال در نقاط مختلف دنیا آثار بعضی از سینماگرانی که صدساله شده‌اند در برنامه‌های بزرگداشت و یادبود دوباره دیده خواهند شد، در حالی که از بعضی دیگر فقط یک نام و تاریخ تولد یا مرگ باقی مانده است.

اگر بعضی از کسانی که امسال صدمین سالگرد تولدشان است شانس زیادی نیاوردند و عمر زیادی نکردند - مثل یک متولد 1917، جان اف کندی که چیزی بیش از نیم قرن پیش ترور شد - بعضی دیگر مثل دایانا اینگرو و لورنا گری که هردو بازیگر بودند، صد سال کامل عمر کردند و همین اواخر درگذشتند.

این فهرستی است از برخی از مهم‌ترین، محبوب‌ترین و جریان‌سازترین صدساله‌های سینما در سال 2017.

Notes on Yves Montand

ایو مونتان، قهرمان همه و هيچ‌كس

تاكسي مي‌گيرد و برخلاف همه فيلم‌ها و همه بازيگران سينما كه انگار تمام راننده تاكسي‌هاي شهر آدرس خانۀ آن‌ها را از حفظند با دقت به راننده آدرس مي‌دهد. به كافه مي‌رود و قهوه سفارش مي‌دهد و با دقت تمام فنجانش را سرمي‌كشد. مطمئنيم برخلاف بقيه فيلم‌ها و بازيگران، ليوان خالي نيست يا با چيز ديگري پر نشده، او واقعاً اصرار دارد قهوه‌اش را فراغ بال در آن صحنه بخورد. او ايو مونتان (91-1921) است، يكي از خاكي‌ترين ستاره‌هاي تاريخ سينماي فرانسه، و يكي از بزرگ‌ترين بازيگراني سينماي مدرن اروپا. مرد آيين روزمره زندگي، و در نقطه مقابل، مرد تصميم‌گيري‌هاي خطير و درگير (يا بيشتر قرباني) بازي‌هاي سياسي كه در همه حال، در سلول زندان، سالن‌هاي متشنج سخنراني و جلسات خصوصي استراق‌ سمع شده، مردي عادي است كه خيلي ساده دلش براي ليوان داغ قهوه و بازگشت به خانه تنگ شده است. براي او آپارتماني كوچك، قلمرويي عظيم است و معاشرت با دوستان در آخر هفته، موهبتي بزرگ.

Survival of the Unfit: On Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa’s Jerry & Me

Originally appeared on MUBI Notebook, June 2013. -- EK

Survival of the Unfit: On Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa’s Jerry & Me

CINEPHILIA & REVOLUTION

A familiar practice in Persian film literature is that of the “cinematic memoir”—personal reminiscences of the film culture of pre-Revolutionary Iran.

Bolstered by a nostalgic tone, these autobiographical texts deal with the themes of childhood, adolescence and encounters with cinema in a Westernized Iran. The authors of such memoirs frequently depict Iran as a haven for cinephiles. Considering the number of films that were shown in pre-Revolutionary Iran and the diversity of their origins, this may be taken as an accurate characterization.

Such melancholic documentations of the past echo the feelings of a generation lost, misplaced and confused after the Revolution; people who are utterly unable to re-situate themselves in the new post-Revolutionary nation and after the trauma of an eight year war. However, this longing for a paradise lost can function as a kind of subjective history of film culture in Iran; while by studying them one would also be able to draw a picture of how Iran responded to Western culture in the period between 1950s and the late 1970s.

Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa, 1980s

Revolutions provide a clear point of reference for grasping the time and space in the nation’s psyche. History—otherwise obscure—becomes deceptively clear and classifiable. With a contemporary revolution written on the pages of a country’s history, everything becomes divided into two very distinctive and clashing modes of aesthetics: before the revolution and after the revolution. These are the terms most frequently used in a revolutionary country—more than “hello” and “goodbye”!