Iranian Cinema

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Cinema is definitely one of the most preferred, innovative and suitable form of link connecting the politics and culture of a country. Iran, has a very rich legacy of supreme cinematic brilliance and each phase of development of Iranian cinema is linked with the country’s political upsurge. The volatile changes in the political situation in the country have had considerable impact on culture and cinema in particular. The impact of state control on cinema is quite evident since in pre and post Revolutionary Iran. The means and mechanisms and censorship have been used by State to control political content of Iranian cinema. There have been complex negotiations and tussles between the state authorities and the extremely talented filmmakers who…show more content…
But when Khomeini came to power, he understood that cinema was one of the cultural manifestations and can be put to service for education of man. Thus cinema began to be used as an ideological tool for cleansing the society of western corruption by Pahlavi regime. This was seen as a process of Islamization of cinema not only to establish a new Islamic political and economic base but also reinvent society, cultural and intellectual life. There was a transformation taking place in the political culture of Iran and a new aesthetics of cinema coming up. There was complete cultural and ideological shift from the Pahlavi regime and the focus was on banning of negative images and subjects, portrayal of women’s bodies and veiling. Promotion of Islamic subjects and images, restriction on women’s cinema and Sacred Defense films about war with Iraq became genres of cinema and art. After revolution, time honored themes of Iranian movies like women and love, were put under strict Islamic jurisprudence. Sexual segregation and imposition of strict dress code for women had to be followed by film makers now. Cinema, music, theatre, press and publishing came under the control of the new Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance(MCIG). After Khomeini’s death in 1989 and end of war, morality codes were relaxed and many rebel film makers came up gradually to oppose the state controlled Islamic cinema. Yet, restrictions on films continued. With Khatami being elected as president in 1997 elections, the artistic community and prominent film makers took active part in politics. Khatami supported progressive cinema. MCIG came under Mohajerani and Seyfollah Dad became a new cinema Deputy, both open minded and well educated personalities. New direction came in film making. Discrimination on film funds based on allegiance of film’s content to Islamic rules was removed. Films began to be rated only

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