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Rakshi Banietemad is one of Iran's first female film directors. This book, the first English language study of her films and career, contains chapters by some of the most prominent scholars of Iranian cinema, as well as younger scholars with fresh points of view.
Taking an interdisciplinary perspective, the book gives special attention to Banietemad's under-studied documentaries and films, including Under the Skin of the City (2000) and Tales (2014), while offering new perspectives on well-known works such as The Blue Veiled (1994) and The May Lady (1997). The contributors focus on questions of aesthetics and poetics, social realism, gender dynamics and the 'afterimages' and 'counter-memories' of revolution and war, and the book also includes an in-depth interview with Banietemad herself.
Maryam Ghorbankarimi is a Lecturer in Film at Lancaster University. Her research concentrates on Iranian Cinema and transnational cinema and cultures, specifically the representation of gender in Middle Eastern cinemas.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
Notes on Contributors
A Note on Transliteration and Style
Part I: Introduction
An Overview of Banietemad's Career and Films - Maryam Ghorbankarimi
A Conversation with the Director - Maryam Ghorbankarimi
Part II: Aesthetics, Politics and Narrative Structure
1. From Black Comedies to Social Realism: Rakhshan Banietemad's Early Feature Films - Farshad Zahedi
2. Under the Skin of Society: Rakhshan Banietemad's Social History of Post-Revolutionary Iran - Matthias Wittmann
3.
Tales and the Cinematic
Divan of Rakhshan Banietemad - Michelle Langford
4. The Artistic and Political Implications of the Meta-Cinematic in Rakhshan Banietemad's Films - Zahra Khosroshahi
Part III: Gender, Love and Sexuality
5. Modes of Expression not Subject to the Law of Male Desire: Considering the Role of Voice-Over and Enunciation in the work of Rakhshan Banietemad - Rosa Holman
6. Affective Listering, Sonic Intimacy and the Power of Quiet Voices in Rakhshan Banietemad's the May Lady: Towards a Cinema of Empathy - Laudan Nooshin
7. The Blue-Veiled: A semiological Analysis of a Social Love Story - Asal Bagheri
8. Masculinitties in Banietemad's Tales: Reshuffling Gender Dynamics Under Socioeconomic Pressures - Nina Khamsy
9. Representing Sexuality on Screen in Walled Societies: A Comparative Analysis of Iranian Film (The May Lady) and Chinese Film (Army Nurse) - Yunzi Han
Part IV: Fact, Fiction and Society
10. Rakhshan Banietemad's Art of Social Realism: Bridging Realism and Fiction - Maryam Ghorbankarimi
11. Embracing All My Trees: an Ecocritical Reading - Fatemeh-Mehr Khansalar
12. Hidden Transcripts of Subordinates and the Art of Resistance in Our Times - Bahar Abdi
Filmography
Bibliography
About the author
Dr Maryam Ghorbankarimi is Lecturer in Film Practice at the University of Lancaster.
