cinema trust The director of the movie “Conflict” said: “Today, the main and real audience of cinema, that is, the moviegoers, have been eliminated, and the directors either make satirical films or produce films with organs.”
Quoting from public relations, review of the movie “Conflict” directed by Mohammad Reza Lotfi It was done with the presence of this director and hosted by Rozbeh Rahiminejad and Ehsan Tahmasabi, a film critic and writer, in the screening program that is broadcasted on Ikran Media.
In this meeting, Lotfi said: The idea of conflict was formed from an article in 1990, in which it was mentioned that every American citizen passes in front of a CCTV camera 68 times a day. Our country may have increased 10 times.
He added: The idea of narrating the work was formed from the point of view of a CCTV camera. I wanted to use this idea in the film narrating Maryam’s disappearance, but I was a little afraid and needed more research, and I decided that the second film would be through the lens of CCTV cameras.
He reminded: I am interested in psychology, sociology and different mysticisms and I am familiar with these spaces and I came to the story of how a modern person deals with CCTV cameras and it took two years of research and the story went further. .
The director of the movie “Conflict” stated that this work was made jointly with the Czech Republic and stated: We started filming on March 14, 1997, and the filming ended on April 24, 1998, and the work was edited by the end of September. The 1998 film went through its technical stages, and because the film was not normal, we had to enter the world of the film in every section.
Lotfi emphasized: The name of the first film was Reset, and it was accepted in the festival with the same name. They said that the name of the film should not be foreign, and the name conflict was imposed on us, and of course, conflict is a foreign name. We were supposed to sign a contract with the German broadcaster in Prague on March 14, but a few days after the Corona festival, the world was closed. Our goal was for the film to have a foreign tour first and then to be screened, and we started broadcasting abroad in early 1400, until September 1401, we went to about 18 foreign festivals, and finally, after various events in 1402, the distributor was determined.
He said: We had a screening license during the disciplinary period, during the Mohammad Khazai period, they told us that you must present 5 copies of the film to the council for renewal. I knew that if the film goes to that council, the film will be greatly modified, and finally, the film’s license was extended after consulting the producer with Ruhollah Sohrabi.
Ehsan Tahmasabi, a film critic and writer, also said about the film form: For a filmmaker who is independent and does not have access to experimentalism and knows that he is far from the next work, he needs cinematic madness and euphoria to choose a different form.
Making such a film is a risk for the filmmaker. Body cinema has become so strong that modernization is a difficult task and this film will be released in the main part of Iranian cinema.
Lotfi recalled: The producer and I insisted on screening the conflict in the mainstream. The film was shot with seven cameras in some places and with five cameras in some places, and the main reason for the long editing was to find the desired form, and we edited three versions.
Stating that the use of form in conflict is right, Tahmasabi added: Being linear would harm the film, and being non-linear is very correct and has helped the filmmaker’s mischief.
Lotfi said about Reza Behbodhi’s performance in the movie Conflict: My second work experience with Reza Behbodhi was formed in Conflict. The script of Maryam’s disappearance I gave it to him and at first he accepted it because the film was formal and he was at the editing table. I invited him, and after five hours of conversation, he was satisfied and said that I don’t understand you, but it is clear that you are master of the story, and after the successful experience in that work, I suggested the conflict to Reza Behbodhi.
Referring to the performance of Reza Behbodhi, Tahmasabi reminded: I think this is the best performance of Reza Behbodhi in Iranian cinema. The film is highly character-oriented and relies on the actor’s performance. This film is difficult for the actor because on paper the film is not very clear. The theme of loneliness of contemporary man is evident in the film. The Oedipus complex and Reza Tamandan’s dependence on his mother are also in the work and he approached the film from this world. The border between reality and fantasy is very clear for this character, and the conditions of Iranian cinema have taken us to the point where we missed criticizing such works.
Stating that this film is the last generation of independent cinema in Iranian cinema, Lotfi said: I feel that from the macro view of Iranian cinema, it has been plowed to eliminate independent, progressive and social cinema and reach two categories of films; Organic and semi-comedy films. Due to the increase in the cost of production and the entry of unknown, uneducated and nameless producers, the balance of production has been disrupted. An actor whose two films have been released recently and whose three films have not sold 400 films, his monthly salary is 5 billion tomans, which is unreasonable.
Referring to the unfinished narration of Sima produced by Farabi, Tahmasabi reminded: This film is very bad and organizations like Farabi cannot deal with these films when they want to enter such works.
The director of the conflict movie stated: Farabi’s nature was formed during the period of negative cinema and he was supposed to bring subsidies to the cinema. When cinema became digital, this foundation remained and entered production, which is wrong. The duty of governments is to support culture, but here these institutions have become competitors of the private production sector, and nowhere in the world does the public sector produce, and this is wrong, and this has caused government works to be of low quality.
Lotfi emphasized: During the Khazai period, many filmmakers were angry with the management system, and the management said that we will bring filmmakers ourselves, and look at how many unknown first films have entered Iranian cinema. This was the view of the cinema management during the Khazai period, and today there are whispers that Faridzadeh will reconcile between the filmmakers and the management system, and maybe there is a will for this sector.
He stated: Unfortunately, the audience of my film has been cut off from cinema for years. We don’t have the cinema audience in the cinema. With respect to those who go to the cinema, the majority of those who go to the cinema are the audience of comedy concerts, which instead of the ticket of 800 thousand tomans, they see Ludgi for 80 thousand tomans. Cinema audiences are either in cafes or at home watching serious movies of the day. It has been a decade since we removed the cinema audience from the cinema. They removed the real cinema audience from theaters and replaced it with the Black Army and forced the filmmaker to either make humor or produce a film with organic organizations. Once upon a time, Dog Killing, A Girl with Sneakers and Two Women were the best-selling films in Iranian cinema, and today, different conditions prevail.