Recovered Memories

In 1979, when the Islamic Revolution was under way, observers and professionals in the film industry were initially concerned about the future of cinema in Iran. Cinema Rex in Abadan and other cinemas were burned down in the name of morality. However, after overcoming uncertainty, Iranian cinema began to produce more films than ever before. Despite censorship, film became a tool to challenge social conditions. Desiring to tell their own stories, after the revolution women filmmakers such as Pouran Derakhshandeh, Tahmineh Milani and Rakhsan Banietemad produced several works. Self-reflexive and courageous, they tell of the needs of modern women in Iran. Of all the paradoxes that have emerged in Iranian society in recent decades, none is more complex than the question of gender and its representation. 

Gender and sexual identity cannot be expressed freely in the public sphere. This fictional representation continues in film, distorting the image of Iranian women in particular. Recovered Memories presents cinematic works that deal with questions of the representation of intimacy, repression in everyday life, economic constraints and gender roles from a female perspective. This three-part programme is a reappraisal of female collective memory with contemporary films by Iranian women filmmakers who spare no effort in making their voices heard.

Afsun Moshiry is a film curator and cultural activist working and living in Berlin.

Funded by Berliner Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa