Five years ago the notion of an Iranian cinema meant nothing to most Americans. Prejudiced by coverage of the Islamic revolution, they may have assumed Iranians were only allowed to produce propaganda. Yet since the release of Jafar Panahi’s The White Balloon in 1995, that’s been changing. Now Iranian movies are regarded as vital and exciting–in 1997 Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry shared the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and last year Majid Majidi’s Children of Heaven was nominated for an Academy Award. Both The White Balloon and Children of Heaven focus on the problems of ordinary children, and this may have fostered a new misconception that most Iranian films were simple neorealist exercises avoiding complex adult situations. But these films represent only a small fraction of the country’s output.
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A child is at the center of Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s new feature, The Silence, which will be screened this weekend at the Film Center at the School of the Art Institute. But radical shifts in subject matter have marked the career of this extraordinary filmmaker. 1989’s The Cyclist details the exploitation of an Afghan refugee, while 1996’s A Moment of Innocence reconstructs an traumatic incident from Makhmalbaf’s youth–he stabbed a policeman and was sentenced to jail for several years during the shah’s regime.
There’s a lot to be jealous about. Every October the Film Center screens ten Iranian features, most of which are U.S. premieres. Over the years, Iran’s most important filmmakers–including Kiarostami, Makhmalbaf, and Dariush Mehrjui–have appeared at the festival’s screenings. With Simon’s help, Facets Multimedia has released a dozen key Iranian works on video, with more planned, and venues around the country try to piggyback the festival’s offerings by borrowing its features. Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa, an Iranian film professor who teaches at Columbia College, has helped with programming and making contacts in the Iranian community here. “Now there’s an organization called Friends of the Festival, which is made up of local Iranian people who are very interested in film,” explains Simon. “They raise money and make it possible for us to bring in directors and actors.”
