Film Society

Dear Friends of The Film Society:

We wish you a happy and wonderful New Year. Thank you for your
past support and interest in The Film Society.

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Film Society is an educational, cultural, and not for profit institution,
without any affiliation to any political or religious entity.

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Coming Soon:

Painting With Camera:

Three Short Films by:
Keivan Alimohammady and Omid Bonakdar

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COMING SOON

A Tribute To: Forugh Farrokhzad

FORUGH FARROKHZAD:

A JOURNEY ALONG THE LINE OF TIME

a film by:

HASSAN FAYYAD

Featuring:

NAHID KABIRI
AND
AMIR GHASEMI ZADEH

CINEMATOGRAPHY:

ESMAEIL EMAMI AND HASSAN FAYYAD

Forugh Farrokhzad, is considered the most daring, revolutionary and the greatest Iranian woman-modernist poet, and filmmaker. Half a century ago, Farrokhzad made a landmark, award-winning documentary film, and symbolically called it The House Is Black. Decades later, it is still relevant, beautiful, and intensely moving. The film, brings back to life the injustices to the people of societies long oppressed by their own governments and like her stunning poetry, it stretches the boundaries of hope, love, freedom and humanity, although, ironically, The World Is Still Black.

She made the experience of being a captive woman in a corrupt and patriarchal society, like many other ones, a central issue of her poetry and fought for women's rights at a time that all odds were against her, and long before the feminist movement came along. This project is dedicated to her memory, as she lives in our hearts, and remains with us through the brilliance of her work and her voice: “It is only the voice that lives on.”

FORUGH FARROKHZAD: A JOURNEY ALONG THE LINE OF TIME is a lyrical portrayal of the tumultuous life and works of a renowned poet, filmmaker, actor and painter, Forugh Farrokhzad, through dramatic readings, archival footages, photos, paintings, letters, manuscripts, and interviews with some noted scholars, critics, poets, artists, and friends.

In addition, Farrokhzad's poems are visually explored and interpreted through a tapestry of images that in comparable ways depict the emotional anguish of Farrokhzad’s poetic universe and controversial artistic life. Her life was her poetry and her poetry her life.

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A Letter From Ebrahim Golestan

Mr. Golestan's fascinating letter indicates that how hard it was in those days to make a film in Iran and at the same time, how smart and inventive were the people he had trained to work with him. It is really astonishing. As it is a very informative and a very important historic document, I am posting it on our website for the benefit of those interested in his works as well as in Iranian Cinema.

Hassan Fayyad

Dear Mr Fayyad,

Sorry for the late reply, and thanks for your initiative to correct the
mistake which is usually made and eternally unimportant. Owing to
the circumstances in which I began filming, the whole of my ways of
film making was rather different from what is the normal and the
usual way elsewhere. In all the films that I made the number of the
co-workers and assistants that I had never exceeded six persons.
None of them had any knowledge of filming and sound recording
when I engaged them.

The best artistically was Mahmoud Hangwall.
He was in sound work from recording to editing and mixing. He was
the one with the greatest of artistic talents. He was sent to me by a
friend who, like him was, from Khorasan. The friend had found him
working in a damp cellar with the first signs of rheumatism or worse,
and had asked me to give him a job as a menial worker, a cleaner. He
was first taught how to splice films and tapes. In a few week’s time he
showed a liking for sound evaluation and recording. Then he simply
soared. If you have a copy of a short film called “Water and Heat"
that I made with Foroogh, you would see the unprecedented kind of
sound that he actually MADE and arranged. This was three or four
years before the eerie sequence of an oil refinery in Deserto Rosso
by Antonioni. He was also the major contributor to the sound track
of "A Fire".

The other valuable man of the team was Samad Purkamali
who was a messenger boy for me and Parviz Ra'ein when we shared a
tiny office in the 1950’s, he for the Associated Press and me when I
was covering news for various international TV news services and
companies.

Then one day, a few years later I took a taxi and I saw that he was the
driver. He explained to me that he was running a taxi during the day
and he was working at nights as the desk manager of a small hotel
when he used time to prepare himself for the end of the year finishing
exams of Dabirestan. I offered him to join my set-up and just sit and
rehears his subject for the exams, concentrating solely on preparing
himself for the crucial end of the school year so that once the exams
were over he could consider if he liked a work at my place and if not,
take those three or so months as having been my guest, my gift for
the time he was so effective in his job as my messenger. He began
next morning, and after two or three months he passed his exams
with success and chose to work for me if I had any technical matter
and job for him to learn. I arranged for him to take a few months of
training in Europe, with Phillips in Eindhoven, Holland, and with
Arnold Richetr in Germany who were the makers of the Arriflex cameras,
and with Film Centre in London, the agency organization under
Stuart Legg the very well-known documentarian and writer. Samad
finished the programs that were prepared for him in those centers
in less than half the foreseen time. Luck was smiling at us and
although I had placed an order for a sound mixing console with
the firm of J. Arthur Rank and Samad had been practicing with
them in London, a representative of the American Westrex who
had come to Tehran offered me the recently developed transistorized
mixer—out of competitive concern at much reduced cost for immediate
shipment. All my brand new sound recordings arrived and I had also
engaged from London a very nice man who had been involved in sound
installation and recording at Pinewood Studios. All of these
developments enhanced Samad’s capabilities so much that the noble person
that was John Woodiwiss, the Pinewood man, came to me to say that his
conscience makes him tell me that with Samad around there was no need for me to
spend great sums for his salary and expenses and he likes to go back to
London. In those days there still existed the legendary noble
Englishmen.

Samad took care of actually constructing recorder units, and when he saw
that I was looking at a catalogue for a camera-crane he asked to look
at it. He finally came up with a suggestion that he could arrange for making
one in Tehran.

He even thought of searching in the Iranian Air Force’s depot of broken
aluminum parts, mostly propeller blades, and from the details in the
catalogue he eventually got a carpenter make a matrix with wood, and
by melting ad recasting those broken propellers he finally produced the
crane which could carry the heavy Mitchell camera and two operators,
with the arm turning 340 instead of the catalogue’s 270 degrees, plus
a displacement from 25 cm lower to 80cm higher than that of the one
in that British catalogue. As for cost, we spent about one fifth of the
price in the catalogue, and we did not have to pay either for the transport
and shipping nor for the import and Customs duties. When everything was
organized and smoothly running at my studio, Samad suggested that I
allow him to go and open a repair shop of his own with a legally
binding contract that whenever I needed him he would do my works first and
free! I accepted his going and dropped the legally binding proviso. He opened
a successful business and he helped every time I needed him--right up
to the time when I was restricted out of my work and had to leave Iran
in 1974. He had his prosperous shop until he left the country, and died
young and talented, in U. S.

Another member of the team was Solomon. or Soghomon, or Soleiman
Minassian. The three names are the different pronunciation of the same
word in Latin or Armenian languages, or in Arab Persian. He had been
jailed in his youth for distributing leftist newspapers after the
organization of the leftist military officers was discovered with some executed and
some jailed. Soghomon's crime was aggravated because he was Armenian and
he was in the northern provinces. This was in 1954. He was released in
1958 and had gone to work in the building trade. A fellow prisoner who
had been with him and prior to that had been working as a junior clerk for
the oil company in Abadan and had been engaged to work as an office worker in
my set up had told me that he knew a sturdy young man whom he had
encountered a day or so ago in the street and, he suggested, that he
could carrying the heavy luggage and filming boxes when crews go on location
in the south. He suggested I should see him. He was brought in and one
could see that he could perform that sort of heavy duty. I asked him
of his pay expectation. He said he was getting 80 rials per day. This was two
cents below the value of just one dollar in 1958, the time of the interview.
I asked him “240 tomans a month?” He said he did not get the day to day job
every day. He said he would be lucky any day if he could be selected by the
"Boss", the head-builder. I really was appalled. I decided that I could not pay
him nearly less than half of what I was paying to the boy at the office who swept
the place and brought tea to the office employees. He could not believe
when I told him that I would pay him something like 600 tomans a month. To
make him believe the size of the offer I told him that it was because it was
hard work and heavy gears and all in a very hot climate. He was sent with the
team that were filming sequences of a documentary that became “Wave, Coral &
Rock.”

The crew was happy with his swiftly and intelligently carrying the heavy
Load and his keen and fast identifying the various pieces they required.
He also assisted Samad in the making of the crane. He had great
Endurance but not enough finesse. His curiosity was helping him understand the
Various equipments but had not much sense of solving the aesthetic points. But
as he could listen well and forcefully execute the arrangements to me he was
a valuable camera operator that had to be closely watched and directed.
But that was not a great problem if it was you who had to plan and
arrange the quality of the lights and shadows and the angle of view and the
choice of the scene. In this respect, anyway, I had all my years of
photography as well as the camera handling, and was the interpreter of my own stories and themes.

Minassian had a brother who had just finished his military
service and had a better education as he had not spent his years in
jail, as his elder brother had. He was also a very good, patient and keen
up observer and learner. Herand worked in editing and sound and
grew in an excellent way.

There was also Zakaria Hashemi who had come to me to act in
a film as a "siahi lashkar" but his dormant talent flourished from
the few first scenes of the second film in which I had given him
the leading male role. He is Hashem of the Brick and Mirror.
He was given an accommodation in my studio and he was
discovered by Foroogh as a writer. The best war book ever
written in Farsi is his. And he also went to direct several
films. His own training was when we were making Khesht
va Ayeneh and in scenes and sequences when he did not
have to be on camera, he was helping everybody in everything,
and there is no better training in this.

Dear Mr. Fayyad, I began with a limited intention of replying your letter
and I drifted into this long one without a plan or even intention.
Looking at the length of this I think it could be of some use to
someone who is running a film club. I wish you success.

E. G.

You will please skip any mistake in typing that has occurred. I see that it is really too long to look for errors either in spelling, typing, or just plain writing.

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Dear Friends of the Film Society:

Film Society is also offering the following services:

Film and Video Production
Film and Video Editing
DVD Authoring
Sound Sweetening
Audio and Video Clips for the Web
Web Design
please contact: 818-667-8846

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Film Society

Screening Address:
Felicia Mahood Auditorium
11338 Santa Monica Blvd.
LOS ANGELES, CA 90025

(TWO BLOCKS WEST OF 405 FREEWAYS.
CORNER OF SANTA MONICA BLVD. AND CORINTH AVE.
NEXT TO L.A. PUBLIC LIBRARY)

AMPLE FREE PARKING

(PLEASE ENTER FROM CORINTH AVE.)
Extra Parking is also available at the Corner of Corinth Ave
and Iowa Ave.

Web: www.filmsocietyhf.org
filmsociety7@aol.com
Information: 818-667-8846

Mailing Address:

Film Society
4124 Defender Dr.
Agoura Hills, CA 91301
USA

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HOMESICK BLUES

Avazhaye Ghamnak

Selected Poems of
LANGSTON HUGHES

Translated into Persian by:

HASSAN FAYYAD

To See Promo Click Here

Published by Sales Publication

Price: $20.00 Including shipment to Europe, Canada,and United States. Contact: fayyad@aol.com or
818-667-8846

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To listen to the stage reading of
The Doll Behind The Curtain

By Mahmood Behrouzian
and
Roya Aryanpad

Click Here

The Doll Behind The Curtain
is written by Ezzat Goushegir

Based on a short story by
Sadegh Hedayat

Designed and produced by
Hassan Fayyad

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KianiBook

The seven plays in this anthology
are from:
India, Turkey, Egypt, Japan,
Nigeria, China, and Iran
The book is available at
www.authorhouse.com
www.amazon.com
www.barnesandnoble.com
For the reviews of the plays
Click on the link below

www.shamerzaa.com

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MOON SUN FLOWER GAME

foroughwebmoon

The DVD of the Claus Strigel's unique film: Moon Sun Flower Game is a valuable gift for yourself and your loved ones. This great film is about Forough Farokhzad, an extraordinary woman and her adopted child (as a single woman): Hossein Mansouri.

Farokhzad was a great filmmaker and poet who fought for women rights at a time when all odds were against her, and long before the feminist movement came along.
To See Promo Video Click Here

To purchase the DVD of Moon Sun Flower Game. please mail your check of $30.00 ( includes shipment) to the following address:

Film Society
4124 Defender Dr.
Agoura Hills, CA 91301
USA

Credit Cards are accepted. Please call:
818-667-8846 or
Contact: fayyad@aol.com

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Click Below to go to

Visit FORUGH FARROKHZAD'S SITE
ForoughFarrokhzad.org

Forough