Events

BRICK AND MIRROR

(1965, DCP, 131m, Farsi with English subtitles) dir Ebrahim Golestan 

With this landmark debut feature, director Ebrahim Golestan delivers a jolt of modernism to pre-revolution Iranian cinema, laying the groundwork for the first new wave. When a mysterious woman (feminist literary icon Forugh Farrokhzād, and director of The House Is Black) abandons a baby in the backseat of his cab one night, Tehran taxi driver Hashem (Zakaria Hashemi) begins a journey through the city’s unfeeling bureaucracy as he attempts to find a home for the infant—a situation that soon puts him in conflict with his nurturing girlfriend Taji (Taji Ahmadi). Melding the influences of Persian poetry, 1960s European art cinema, and Wellesian expressionism, Brick and Mirror offers a portrait of a crumbling relationship that reflects on many contemporary social and political dynamics.

THE HOUSE IS BLACK

(1964, DCP, 22m, Farsi with English subtitles) dir Forugh Farrokhzād 

The only film directed by trailblazing feminist Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzād finds unexpected grace where few would think to look: a leper colony where inhabitants live, worship, learn, play, and celebrate in a self-contained community cut off from the rest of the world. Through ruminative voiceover narration drawn from the Old Testament, the Qur’an, and the filmmaker’s own poetry as well as unflinching images that refuse to look away from physical difference, Farrokhzād creates a profoundly empathetic portrait of those cast off by society—an indelible face-to-face encounter with the humanity behind the disease. A key forerunner of the Iranian New Wave, The House Is Black is a triumph of transcendent lyricism from a visionary artist whose influence is only beginning to be fully appreciated.