Image under Construction.
Revolution of Forms in Iranian Cinema before and after 1979

The images of Iranian cinema are images under permanent construction and pressure. Not only has the Iranian cinema regenerated and reshaped its forms against the backdrop of the Islamic Revolution’s iconoclastic storm and the subsequent eight years of war (1980 – 1988), those forms (and their socio-critical implications) have been challenged by unwritten and permanently shifting red lines. Tight regulations have forced filmmakers to create a multiple encoded, subtle and unique cinematic language. Between red lines of censorship and the tactics of circumvention the Iranian Cinema has become an important socio-political laboratory for the construction of perceptions and forms of relationships.

Cinema in Iran has always been ambivalent. On the one hand a gift that has helped people to construct identity and collectivity, on the other hand a poison: a form of «epistemic violence» (Spivak) imported from Europe and a magic tool in the hands of the Shah, powering a forced patchwork-modernization. During and after the Islamic Revolution (1978 – 79) this ambivalent gift called 'Kinematograph' has been shattered and rebuilt in order to help create a new Islamic society. 

One can also say that the Iranian cinema is a cinema in the state of permanent resistance. Resistance against constraints of the Shah regime that prohibited all criticism of the officially fabricated success story called industrialization. And resistance against the religious, cultural and political proscriptions of «mullahcracy». Since Iranian cinema after 1979 can only be understood in a palimpsestic relation and reaction to the afterimages produced in the times before 1979, the International Conference «Image under Construction» strives to establish a dialogue between revolutionary cinematic forms before and after 1979. The talks and discussions given and conducted by Farsi-speaking guests from Iran, Europe and USA (the conference language will be English) deal with popular and avant-garde cinema before and after 1979, with the 'oil superego' unconsciously dominating the Iranian modern visual culture, with collectivity as cinematic form, the relation between digital cameras and a generation of new filmmakers in Iran, with trans-generational aspects and 'the children of the revolution', with new waves in contemporary cinema, the play of Iranian cinema on our emotions, with the plague and creative force of censorship and with «vie-ws from elsewhere»: potentials of the Iranian Diaspora, displaced cinephiliac memories and cross-cultural fields.

Veranstaltet vom Seminar für Medienwissenschaft der Universität Basel  (Lehrstuhl für Medienästhetik, Prof. Dr. Ute Holl) in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Stadtkino Basel und eikones

Program

Wednesday, 2 Nov
Stadtkino Basel

18.00 – 20.30 Stadtkino Basel	Words of Welcome (Ute Holl, Matthias Wittmann, Hemen Heidari) Filmscreening with an Introduction by Ehsan Khoshbakht (Mashhad/London): The Brick and the Mirror (Iran 1965, Ebrahim Golestan, 131’)
21.00	Get together

Thursday, 3 Nov
Stadtkino Basel / eikones Forum

10.00 – 11.00 Stadtkino Basel	Ehsan Khoshbakht (Mashhad/London) «Brick and Mirror» and the Rise of Fear and Trembling in Iranian Arthouse Cinema of the 1960s and 1970s
11.00 – 11.30	Coffee Break
11.30 – 12.30 Stadtkino Basel	Morad Montazami (London) Cinema and Oil in Iran: Conflicting Narratives
12.30 – 14.00	Lunch Break
14.00 – 15.00 eikones Forum	Sara Saljoughi (Toronto) A New Form for a New People: The Problem of Collectivity in the Iranian New Wave
15.00 – 15:.30	Coffee Break
15.30 – 16.30 eikones Forum	Shiva Rahbaran (London): New Iranian Cinemais Dead. Long Live New Iranian Cinema: On the Future of Iranian Film
18.30 – 20.15 Stadtkino Basel	Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa (Chicago) View from Elsewhere Filmscreening: Jerry and Me (USA 2013, Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa, 38’) Q&A with Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa
20.15	Apéro (Stadtkino Basel)
21.00 Stadtkino Basel	Filmscreening Saless: Far From Home (USA/Iran 1998, Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa, 16’) Introduction by Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa Still Life (Iran 1974, Sohrab Shahid Saless, 93’)

Friday, 4 Nov
eikones Forum / Stadtkino Basel

10.00 – 11.00 eikones Forum	Alena Strohmaier (Marburg) Potentials and Obstacles of the Iranian Diaspora Media Space
11.00 – 11.30	Coffee Break
11.30 – 12.30 eikones Forum	Niloufar Taghizadeh (Heidelberg/Teheran) We Children of the Revolution (Work in Progress)
12.30 – 13.30	Lunch Break
13.30 – 14.30 eikones Forum	Maryam Mohajer (London): Why am I crying? A look into various elements in Iranian films that play on our emotions in order to make us sad, shed a tear or cry our hearts out
14.30 – 15.30 eikones Forum	Shahram Mokri (Teheran): The Relation between Digital Camera and New Filmmaker Generation in Iran
16.00 – 18.15 Stadtkino Basel	Jamsheed Akrami (Wayne, New Jersey) A Defaced Cinema. Film Censorship in Iran Filmscreening A Cinema of Discontent (Iran 2013, R: Jamsheed Akrami, 86’) Introduction and Q&A with Jamsheed Akrami
18.30 Stadtkino Basel	Filmscreening Fish & Cat (Iran 2013, R: Shahram Mokri, 134’) Introduction and Q&A with Shahram Mokri
21.30	Filmscreening Films by Kamran Shirdel (Iran, 1965-1974, R: Kamran Shirdel)

Saturday, 5 Nov   
eikones Forum

10.00 – 11.00 eikones Forum	Majid Eslami (Teheran) The Lake against the Forest: «Fish & Cat» (Shahram Mokri)
11.00 – 11.30	Coffee Break
11.30 – 12.30 eikones Forum	Mazyar Eslami (Teheran) Poetics of Disintegration. On the Cinema of Asghar Farhadi
12.30 – 13.00	Conference Conclusion / Lunch
15.15	Sneak Preview (Stadtkino Basel): Filmfarsi (Iran 2016, Ehsan Khoshbakht, 105’) Introduction and Q&A with Ehsan Khoshbakht
17.45	Filmscreening Starless Dreams (Iran 2016, R: Mehrdad Oskouei, 76’)

Moderation: Stefanie Baumann, Hemen Heidari, Ute Holl, Marjam Mohajer, Niloufar Taghizade, Matthias Wittmann

Retrospektive im Stadtkino Basel: http://stadtkinobasel.ch/filmreihe_stadtkino.php?rid=270&m=2