november 13 - december 3, 1998

photo: LEILA

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About Dariush Mehrjui:

Watching Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle Thief convinced Dariush Mehrjui to become a filmmaker. Born in Tehran in 1939, he studied philosophy and filmmaking at UCLA, learning how to direct actors from Renoir. Returning after graduation to Iran, he wrote and directed the thriller Diamond 33 (1967), a James Bond parody. With his second film, the strangely beautiful fable THE COW, Mehrjui earned international recognition; his success signaled the emergence of the New Iranian Cinema on the world scene. Mehrjui consistently ran afoul of the Shah's censors; THE COW, banned, had to be smuggled out to Paris and thence to the Venice Film Fetival, and his subsequent films--POSTMAN and THE CYCLE--were suppressed at home even as they won prize after prize on the international festival circuit.

Mehrjui's work is enriched by the director's philosophical grasp of the workings of the soul and the mind, as well as his visual embrace of the kind of existential details that comprise socio-political life in Iran. In Film International magzine, Shahzad Rahmati describes Mehrjui's style as the embedding of complex themes and topics "like a kernel within the outer shell of his works, which have a touch of simplicity....The deep concepts and themes are seated strongly within the work. They do not leave the frame, nor do they trouble you or impose themselves on the mind and sight of the viewer. They are intertwined with every moment of the film and the lives of its heroines on the screen." Though the New York Film Festival, New Directors New Films, and the Walter Reade have all featured this important Iranian director's films, this is our first opportunity to mount a retrospective of Dariush Mehrjui's cinema. We are proud to do so, and to invite you to enjoy this very special series of films.

Accompaning the Dariush Mehrjui series:

Iranian Cinema before 1979
with two very special NY premieres

The Film Society of Lincoln Center first surveyed emerging Iranian cinema back in 1992, and has continued to showcase the extraordinary works of directors such as Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Dariush Mehrjui, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Jafar Panahi and others in the New York Film Festival, New Directors New Films, and at the Walter Reade Theater. This series offers a selection of films made just prior to the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979, along with New York premieres of new films by Bani-Etemad (Nargess and The Blue-Vieled) and Jafar Panahi (The White Balloon). Join us for yet another tour of a cinematic tradition widely hailed as the film world's most exciting New Wave.

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