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'A mystic poet of the hidden sights of our souls, Sohrab Shahid Saless was the filmmakers' filmmaker. He achieved an almost cultic character in his homeland and his two Iranian films formed the DNA of Iranian New Wave before the Iranian Revolution of 1977-9 catapulted him into Europe and then the US where he died lonely and forlorn. Azadeh Fatehrad has given the world of cinema a priceless gift by editing a much overdue volume celebrating both phases of Shahid Saless's Iranian and foreign filmmaking careers: in one he mapped the solitude of our souls, and in the other the exilic permanence of our very existence.'
Hamid Dabashi, author of Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present, Future
An Iranian immigrant struggling to integrate into 1970s German society, the filmmaker Sohrab Shahid Saless (1944-98) has become a neglected figure in discussions of diaspora cinema. In this - the first English-language book to reflect on his work and its implications for creativity in the diasporic conditions of urban displacement - a range of international scholars provide a comprehensive account of Shahid Saless's films and production methods.
Outlining his affinity with celebrated directors like Chantal Akerman and Abbas Kiarostami, as well as visual artists like Romuald Karmakar, the contributors firmly position Shahid Saless as a filmmaker who speaks forcefully to the traumas of displacement and migration.
Azadeh Fatehrad is an artist and curator. She has conducted projects across Europe and the Middle East, including at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam and the Archiv für Forschung und Dokumentation Iran in Berlin. She is also the co-founder of 'Herstoriographies: The Feminist Media Archive Research Network' in London.
Cover image: Sohrab Shahid Saless at Golden Gate Bridge, photographed by Bert Schmidt, November 1979
Cover design:
[EUP logo]
edinburghuniversitypress.com
ISBN 978-1-4744-5639-5
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List of contents
Foreword by Vahid Alaghband
Introduction by Azadeh Fatehrad
Part I: The Life and Work of Sohrab Shahid Saless
Chapter 1: Slow, Closed, Recessive, Formalist and Dark - the Cinema of Sohrab Shahid Saless, by Hamid Naficy
Chapter 2: Point-of-View, Symbolism and Music in Sohrab Shahid Saless'
Utopia, by Christopher Gow
Chapter 3: The Blind Owls of Modernity. Of protocols, mirrors and grimaces in Sohrab Shahid Saless' films, by Matthias Wittmann
Chapter 4: 'A Simple Event' from a Historical Perspective: What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Realism?, by Majid Eslami
Part II: Creative Exiles
Chapter 5: Sohrab Shahid Saless and the Political Economy of the New German Cinema, by Michelle Langford
Chapter 6: The Aesthetic of Diaspora in Moving Image Practice, by Azadeh Fatehrad
Part III: The Stateless Moving Image
Chapter 7: Curating the Nomadic - Film and Video at Ambika P3
, by Michael Mazière
Chapter 8: A Certain Tenderness, by Gareth Evans
Chapter 9: Statelessness as Practice: Sohrab Shahid Saless and the work of exile, by Pierre d'Alancaisez
Chapter 10: Screening Sohrab Shahid Saless' Work: Contemporary Perspectives, by Dario Marchiori
Interview by Behrang Samsami with Bert Schmidt
Filmography
Film about Shahid Saless:
Sohrab, A Journey (2016) produced by Omid Abdollahi
Index
About the author
Azadeh Fatehrad is a Researcher at the Visual and Material Culture Research Centre, Kingston University. Fatehrad has conducted diverse projects across Europe and the Middle East, including at the International Institute of Social History (IISH), Amsterdam and AFDI Archiv für Forschung und Dokumentation Iran Berlin eV,Berlin. She is co-founder of 'Herstoriographies: The Feminist Media Archive Research Network' in London and she is on the editorial board of the peer-reviewed Journal for Artistic Research (JAR).
Summary
In this the first English-language book to reflect on his work and its implications for creativity in the diasporic conditions of urban displacement a range of international scholars provide a comprehensive account of Shahid Saless's films and production methods.
