Persepolis

CINEMA TEHRAN, OSLO is a multicultural Cinematheque and cultural evening focusing on Iranian film and the Iranian diaspora. We are a monthly event arranged by Anicca Pictures at VEGA SCENE (2022-2023). From August 2023, we will be part of the regular program at Cinemateket in Oslo, run by The Norwegian Film Institute.

PROGRAM

17:00 - Iranian food (Ghorme sabzi, 100,-)
17:30 - Introductions 10 min
17:40 - TBA (LIve Performance)
18:00 - Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (2007) 1t 36 min (English Sub)
19:30 - Dr K. Soraya Batmanghelichi Analysis + Q&A - (English)
20:30 - The End

PERSEPOLIS

Based on Satrapi's graphic novel about her life in pre and post-revolutionary Iran and then in Europe. The film traces Satrapi's growth from a child to a rebellious, punk-loving teenager in Iran. In the background are the growing tensions of the political climate in Iran in the 70s and 80s, with members of her liberal-leaning family detained and then executed, and the background of the disastrous Iran/Iraq war.

DIRECTOR

Marjane Satrapi (born 1969, Rasht, Iran) is an Iranian artist, director, and writer whose graphic novels explore the gaps and the junctures between East and West.

Satrapi was the only child of Westernized parents; her father was an engineer, and her mother was a clothing designer. She grew up in Tehran, where she attended the Lycée Français. After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, her family’s Western way of life drew the attention of Iranian authorities, and by 1984 her parents had decided to send her to Austria to attend school. A failed relationship there exacerbated her alienation and contributed to a downward spiral that left her homeless and using drugs. She returned to Tehrān at age 19, studied art, and moved back to Europe after a short-lived marriage in 1993. In France, she earned a degree in art; by the mid-1990s, she was living permanently in Paris.

Satrapi published the books Persepolis 1 (2000) and Persepolis 2 (2001) in France; they were combined as Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood when translated into English in 2003. In Persepolis, she used a stripped-down visual style that shows the influence of German Expressionism to tell the story of her childhood in Tehrān. It is a story that Western readers found at once familiar—a restive adolescent who loves Nike shoes and rock music—and foreign—she is stopped and threatened with arrest for wearing those shoes as she walks through a city damaged by bombing raids during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88). Sometimes described as a graphic memoir, Persepolis melds the format of a graphic novel with a prose-only memoir. Satrapi adapted her book as a film, also called Persepolis (2007), which was nominated for an Academy Award for the best-animated feature. - britannica.com / Written by J.E. Luebering

REVIEWS
Persepolis is worth every second of its superb 100 minutes. - Shubhra Gupta

Persepolis is an emotionally powerful, dramatically enthralling autobiographical gem, and the film's simple black-and-white images are effective and bold. - Rotten Tomato

Here is an adaptation so inspired, so simple and so frictionless in its transformation of the source material that it's almost a miracle. Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of growing up during the Islamic revolution is a gripping story. - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“Persepolis” is frequently somber, but it is also whimsical and daring, a perfect expression of the imagination’s resistance to the literal-minded and the power-mad, who insist that the world can be seen only in black and white. - A.O. Scott, NY Times

A French animated autobiographical masterpiece about one Iranian woman's intense quest for the holy grail of freedom. - Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

PANEL/CONVERSATIONALIST

K. Soraya Batmanghelichi is the Associate Professor for the Study of Modern Iran at the University of Oslo. A feminist scholar and women's activist, she researches contemporary women's movements, sexuality, and gendered public space in Iran and the modern Middle East. Her monograph, Revolutionary Bodies: Technologies of Gender, Sex, and Self in Contemporary Iran, was published by Bloomsbury Academic in January 2021. Other recent publications on sexuality, government morality, cyberfeminism, and women's activism in Iran can be found in the Journal of Anthropology of the Middle East, Gender and Sexualities in Muslim Cultures, Feminist Media Histories Journal, and the Journal of the Society for Contemporary Thought and the Islamicate World, among others.

MUSIC

Javid Afsari Rad (b. 1965) is a composer and musician who plays the string instrument Santur. With musical richness and meditative focus, Javid masterfully captures moods that take listeners from a contemplative state to open wonder. He plays various instruments, but the Persian santur is his main instrument. He originally comes from Iran, where he studied classical Persian music, and has lived in Norway since 1986.

Javid is also a composer and artistic director of the ensembles ComboNations, Rumi Ensemble and Norwegian World Orchestra. The music he composes is strongly inspired by the Persian tradition he studied in Iran and his studies of Western classical music in Norway. He has toured much of the world and has composed several commissioned works, including one for NRK Broadcasting Orchestra in 2006.

FOOD
Iranian food is made by Gilan Mat, a family-driven cafeteria and food truck based in Oslo.

LINKS

facebook.com/cinematehranoslo

instagram.com/cinematehranoslo

aniccapictures.com/cinematehranoslo

CINEMA TEHRAN, OSLO er støttet av: Fritt Ord, Oslo Kommune Kulturetaten, Vega Scene og Anicca Pictures AS.