Three Films by Forugh Farrokhzad and Ebrahim Golestan

Details:

These three films demonstrate the rich aesthetic possibilities of the sponsored film. The House is Black (1961), directed by Forugh Farrokhzad, is considered a masterpiece of Iranian cinema. The film, screening in a recent Cineteca di Bologna restoration, focuses on a leper colony, and Farrokhzad, a modernist poet, brings a lyrical and humanist but unsentimental grace to the subject. Wave, Coral, and Rock (1958-1961) is a poetic reflection on the processes of labor and industrialization under Iran’s new oil regime. A highly collaborative film, it betrays the uneven concerns of various transnational and nationalist interests. Finally, Golestan’s The Hills of Marlik (1963), also newly restored, focuses on an archeological excavation, considering the land’s use in the past, present, and future. In Farsi with English subtitles.

Films screened:

• The House is Black  (Forough Farrokhzad, 1962, Iran, Digital, 26 min)
• Wave, Coral and Rock (Ebrahim Golestan, 1961, Iran, 16mm, 40 min)
• The Hills of Marlik (Ebrahim Golestan, 1963, Iran, Digital, 15 min)

New restorations of Farrokhzad's The House is Black and Golestan’s The Hills of Marlik thanks to Cineteca di Bologna. Print of Wave, Coral, and Rock courtesy of the Film Studies Center at the University of Chicago.

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PART OF THE BLOCK CINEMA SERIES
SELECTIONS FROM THE GOLESTAN FILM WORKSHOP

The Golestan Film Workshop, founded by Ebrahim Golestan, was a collective of leftist Iranian artists that mostly produced commissioned films for the National Iranian Oil Company and other institutions in the 1950s and 60s. This series, programmed to complement the exhibition Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection, includes several recent restorations of these signature works of Iranian modernist cinema.

Contact The Block Museum of Art for more information: (847) 491-4000 or email us at block-museum@northwestern.edu