Interrelations between the Iranian Motion Picture Industry and International Film Festivals

Since the mid 1990s, international attention for Iranian cinema has reached a new dimension: The Palme d’or for Abbas Kiarostami’s Ṭaʿm-e Gīlās (The Taste of Cherry) in 1997 and the subsequent interest in Iranian directors drastically changed the way their films were perceived among foreign audiences. The focus of my research will be the evolution of the second and third generations of the sīnemā-ye motefāvet (usually translated as New Wave cinema) in the last decades, including their reception at international film festivals.

My project is located at the intersection between Islamic Studies and Media Studies and will place analyses of according films in the sociopolitical context of the Iranian motion picture industry and the domestic and foreign cultural institutions involved in its distribution.

First Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Birgit Krawietz
Second Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Wendy Shaw