Tehran Lost and Found: Films From the Edge of the Revolution
Change permeates the air throughout both The Sealed Soil and Chess of the Wind. Sealed Soil, the first completed film by a woman in Iran to survive the new regime, was smuggled out of the country to finish editing in 1977. Depicting one woman’s quiet rebellion against patriarchal structures of a small village, it is now a rediscovered gem in the world cinema canon.
Screened only once prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, before the government banned it, Chess of the Wind is a bit of a miracle, as the original negatives were found by his own children in a Tehran junk shop nearly 40 years later, in 2014. Restored by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project in 2020, this gothic tale of institutional corruption and class inequality endures as an Iranian cinematic masterpiece.
Week 2: October 10, 11, 12
The Sealed Soil dir. Marva Nabili (1977); Iran; Farsi; 90 min
Chess of the Wind dir. Mohammad Reza Aslani (1999); Iran; Farsi; 102 min
Programmed by Sarah
Friday, October 10 at 6:00 PM & 8:30 PM
Saturday, October 11 at 6:00 PM & 8:30 PM
Sunday, October 12 at 3:00 PM & 5:30 PM
*** The Sealed Soil will screen first (at 6 pm on Fri & Sat, 3 pm on Sun) followed by Chess of the Wind (at 8:30 pm on Fri & Sat, 5:30 pm on Sun).