cinema trust Kamiar Mohsenin in The newspaper of trust He wrote: Today, modern Iranian cinema is in its most chaotic condition. In general, we can see four groups that are apparently suspicious and distrustful of each other.
The first group is domestic cinematographers who want to stay and work in this country with an independent idea. The same group which, ironically, most of them, in these few years, in one of the most difficult cultural and artistic periods, have not been able to move much and consider the reasons for the lack of progress in their work to be the actions of the other three groups.
The second group is the Iranian cinematographers abroad who have gone to the other side of the country against their will due to the existing conditions and gradually, with the increase in the number of experts, they avoid the regulations and codes of film production inside the country and take advantage of the opportunities arising from the management of the taste of the cultural space in the country. The country has greatly increased its share in international production and supply. A group that, despite the success they have achieved, has always been accused of making cases for others.
The third group are cinematographers who do not believe in the independent idea and are willing to follow the idea of a politician or investor in any situation. Part of this group is always in the process of work and may change colors, and another part finds a way to work in the cinema only during difficult periods.
The fourth group is the cultural managers who, until today, have not been caught by the bureaucracy that governs the culture and art of the country, but in most cases, they have been the cause of its aggravation.
If the existence of these groups is confirmed, the pathology of Iranian cinema at the current stage can be traced under the following headings.
Disability of independent cinema inside the country and unbalanced flow of production
It can be said that with the unbridled increase in prices and wages on the one hand and the blocked roads of independent cinema to international markets on the other hand, the majority of the domestic production flow was at the disposal of two dependent and purified flows. The independent cinema’s serious relationship with government-affiliated centers and uncertain capital sources and the lack of proper financial efficiency in the course of international supply, the possibilities of production in this field have been greatly reduced. In such a situation, the direct connection of governing bodies and some active producers with organizations that have high financial resources caused the two main currents of the domestic market to be captured. First of all, the films that escape the reality of the market, under the title of fake comedy, by taking advantage of the unusual possibility of crossing some red lines and some hand-me-down jokes, are released on the side of the affiliated streams and in some cases, they respond to the wishes of the audience who want to get rid of the bitter realities of this For several years, they only go to the cinema halls to forget and laugh; And secondly, organ films, which by forging other genres, low-impact products and mostly without audience, are considered to induce special and unconventional discourses to the viewers and burn a large amount of the entire budget of the cinema. Although in these two currents, in an unpredictable way, from time to time, thought-provoking movies are produced, under normal conditions, it should be seen in a worthy and necessary way, in the current exceptional conditions, in the time of heavy anger of the people. Official cinema does not get much chance to be seen.
On the other hand, considering what has happened in Iran in the past and has been reflected in the media around the world as the new concerns of the protesters, the films produced inside the country in many cases do not present an image in accordance with the hot media issues and the expectations of the international audience, and in some cases not so much. In the envelope, they say that they do not find an easy way to communicate with non-Iranian audiences. Even though it is a part of the tradition of Iranian art due to the historical requirements to be wrapped up and immersed in industries such as metaphor, irony, etc., it must be said that the main leap of modern Iranian cinema to reach an international audience is through films with simple narratives and Human themes were introduced and, ironically, in a different atmosphere, in the form of films that were often produced in various government agencies, it was widely introduced to the international markets.
Of course, it is worth noting that in the course of production in recent years, the degree of freedom is also different depending on the degree of dependence, and these double standards cause more serious misunderstandings. For example, some intimates who have the possibility of crossing red lines have been free to send women dancing, wearing hats, etc. in front of the camera, and others, especially those who have a history of any kind of protest, do not have such a possibility, and it is even possible be prosecuted.
In this situation, i.e. at a time when a will outside the cinema family can have a tremendous impact on the fate of cinema and cinematographers based in Iran, exiting this forced disconnection has strange complications.
If this violence continues, it can be said that the unbalanced flow of production and supply will continue in a predictable way – a flow that relies on fake comedy films that may have other creators and producers due to the change of government; And advertising films that may in some cases promote a different discourse than what has been seen in the recent period. In this flow, there is still no place for genre films, because in cinema that considers categories such as children and teenagers, social and sacred defense as genres, there is still no understanding of this concept; There is no hope for the success of films affected by social themes, because the most important changes in society in the past years, despite the fact that they have appeared in every corner and street, are not recorded in the official cinema; There is no hope for the release of successful underground films, whether titles made with foreign capital or titles made with very limited domestic capital, because they have talked about categories that, of course, cannot be screened.
So breaking out of this painful deadlock that has led to low-level comedic films and intolerable commercial products is a difficult path that is unlikely to be reached by relying on cultural managers – managers who build their credibility and authority, not from within. The cinema family, which receives from the upper body and may even play a role in the implementation and decision-making of anti-cultural policies in the last three and a half years.
The undeniable capacities of Iranian cinema
While in today’s chaotic market of Iranian cinema, films that are of concern to cinema and society are less likely to reach the stage of pre-production and some people in power in the country blame the filmmakers, it can be clearly seen that The works of Iranian filmmakers, especially those films that have been made with the presence of producers based abroad, have played a role not only in international festivals, but also in major celebrations of the cinema industry around the world. The introduction of these films as representatives of other countries to compete in the Oscar category for the best international film shows that the problem is not with Iranian cinema, but with the lack of integration of the national filmmaker with the ruling cultural policies. This lack of coordination has intensified the bipolar atmosphere in this area at the present time. Clearly, it can be seen that if some Iranian filmmakers who have chosen unlicensed cinema stay away from cinema and fall into the trap of sloganeering, the majority of those few filmmakers who are still committed to obtaining a license, in the games of internal organs, to an unconvincing portrayal of popular discourses. Some parts of the government take refuge.
In such a situation, there are three approaches for domestic cinema: the first is an authoritarian approach that tries to advance the same mechanisms of the 60s, albeit with greater intensity, without sufficient knowledge of the social conditions and the state of the cinema society at the present moment. ; The second is a realistic approach that tries to see the entire process of Iranian cinema production, regardless of production license and screening license, regardless of the producer residing in Iran and the producer outside of Iran, in the first place, to reach an understanding of the conditions and situation, and then, without wasting time. A lot of things will remain inactive, and thirdly, based on the existing realistic approach, pragmatic solutions to build trust should be put on the agenda.
It can be said that in the first two forms of the case, a wider coercion will be predictable from the cinema community, and in the third form of the case, parts of […] He will do his best to prevent pragmatic solutions from being implemented. These issues, along with the headlines of the seventh program about the seventh art, which in many cases, due to the lack of knowledge and realism, seem to be doomed to failure, make cinema people extremely pessimistic about the future.
If such an event happens, it can be predicted that more cinema people will turn to making underground films, albeit without permission, and in the absence of domestic capital resources and considering the possibility of a successful international release, they will go to foreign companies or resident Iranian producers. They will resort abroad and transform a new face of Iranian cinema, which of course has obvious differences from the long-familiar and official image, into the usual image of Iran. In this case, the undeniable capacities of Iranian cinema will be revealed to some extent beyond this, and the official cinema will be locked in these two branches that were designed by the policy makers and managers in the last three and a half years and will be destroyed.
Lack of proper understanding of management
Some managers don’t understand that they don’t have a duty other than managing subordinate departments to provide services to experts and people in order to preserve the existing heritage and open new ways. They think that they can extend their leadership over subordinate departments to experts and people. It is as if these office holders have no understanding of management and do not think of anything other than ownership, and they put any decision that leads to their continued presence on the agenda. Because of his credibility and authority [….] They try to destroy what is left by their predecessors, with fake and unreal passion, and with slogans that are liked by some parts of the government, relying on aligned forces and far from specialized approaches, they lay the foundation stone of unstable buildings. They should lie down and leave no legacy for future generations. The same approach that in the field of urban ownership, and not its management, allows itself to destroy the green space in a polluted metropolis like Tehran and close the breathing space for citizens, in the field of cinema ownership, the ways of activities of many influential figures of cinema It blocks and marks a period in which perhaps less memorable films were made and less debatable cinematic events took place.
The problem of the cultural director is that because he sees himself outside the cinema family, he is ready to give in to such approaches at any moment and perform inappropriately to justify what he does. In a field that has a strong need to prepare space for artistic birth, nothing but a corpse is imprinted in the mind of such a manager. The result of this line of thinking can be the same way that in the last three and a half years, with the slogan of purification, and as a result, the creation of an atmosphere devoid of security around cinematographers protesting the status quo, has led to major tragedies.
Iranian cinema with a manager who is not from the cinema family and cannot attract the considerable collective trust of the members of this family, with a manager who does not have international success in the field of artistic creation, with a manager who does not get involved with higher authorities for his interests, with a manager who does not know the difference between ownership and management, will go through more complex challenges with a manager who has been walking in an anti-cultural direction in these three and a half years.