Uprisings and resistance: contemporary issues of cinema and visual arts in Iran and across the diaspora
Beirut
Organization: Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth
Guest Editors: André Habib (Université de Montréal) – Claudia Polledri (Université de Montréal) – Bamchade Pourvali (Université Gustave Eiffel).
Argument
How can we look at Iranian cinema and the visual arts in relation to Iran today when the country has been experiencing an important episode of uprising and resistance, since September 16, 2022? Indeed, as in 1979, 1999, and 2009, and as in 2017 and 2018, it is obvious that images play a decisive role in the constitution of events. Iranian artists and filmmakers are indeed demonstrating an exceptional mobilization and effervescence in order to bear witness to the ongoing protests, but also to support them and mobilize international public opinion. Whether they collect the facts or provoke them, film, photography, drawing, video clips, ephemeral installations that have appeared, among others, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Guggenheim Museum, are all means of expression relayed by social networks (Tik Tok, Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) and become tools of resistance in their own right.
Certainly, the use of these images was already present in Iranian films for the last fifteen years, reflecting the evolution of a society. In fact, Iranian cinema since the 2000s has undergone many changes. Films devoted to the condition of women, feature films against the death penalty, and the young girls as a modern figure resonate with the current protest movement whose motto is "Woman, Life, Freedom". The appearance since 2007 of an Iranian cinema of the diaspora with Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud is affirmed as one of the specificities of Iranian cinema in the present time allowing to speak about a transnational society which is revealed, in parallel with cinema, by the existence of television channels abroad. These images and sounds participate in the formation of a new Iranian identity whose contrast with the official image, imposed by the regime, is more and more conflicting.
We are thus witnessing a history that is both slow and precipitous. How has Iranian cinema accompanied the evolution of civil society? In what way cinema and contemporary artistic practices dialogue with past uprisings and their representations? How does the work of restoring old films from before and after the 1979 revolution, in addition to encouraging reflection on the history of cinema, shed new light on the past that current events are reanimating?
It is these different aspects of cinema and visual arts in Iran and this dialogue between present and past that we would like to address in this issue of Regards – revue des arts du spectacle, by following the situation of the country and that of Iranian citizens and artists as closely as possible.
Research axes (non-exhaustive list)
· Inventory of the practices of Iranian visual artists (photography, installation, performance, etc.) between testimony and resistance.
· What developments in the representation of the Iranian uprisings of 1979, 1999, 2009, 2017-2018, 2022-2023?
· Iranian cinema in the diaspora: exile and ongoing struggle.
· The image of a society inside and outside: films, series, TV shows.
· A shared private image (Tik Tok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube).
· The restoration of films from before and after the 1979 revolution and their revival in contemporary works
· New genres in Iranian cinema: feature films on the condition of women, films against the death penalty, the young girl as a modern figure.
Submission guidelines
Authors wishing to submit an abstract (in French, English or Arabic) are invited to send it to the following email address before June 10th, 2023: regards@usj.edu.lb
Authors should provide the following information:
· An abstract of the article (approx. 500 words)
· 5–10 keywords
· A short, indicative bibliography
· A mini biography (approx. 100 words)
The abstracts will be examined by the editorial committee, and the authors will receive an answer third week of June 2023. The articles should be submitted before September 10, 2023.
Scientific Committee
· Hamid Aidouni, PR (Université Abdelmalek Essaadi, Maroc)
· Karl Akiki, MCF (Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth, Liban)
· Riccardo Bocco, PR (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies Genève, IHEID, Suisse)
· Fabien Boully, MCF (Université Paris Nanterre, France)
· Dalia Mostafa, MCF (University of Manchester, Angleterre)
· José Moure, PR (Université Paris Panthéon Sorbonne – Paris 1, France)
· Jacqueline Nacache, PR (Université de Paris, France)
· Ghada Sayegh, MCF (IESAV, Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth, Liban)
· Kirsten Scheid, Associate PR (American University of Beirut, Liban)
Editor-in-chief: Joseph Korkmaz, PR (Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth, Liban)
Guest Editors: André Habib (Université de Montréal) – Claudia Polledri (Université de Montréal) – Bamchade Pourvali (Université Gustave Eiffel).
Bibliography (indicative, non-exhaustive)
Ata Ayati et David Rigoulet-Roze, La République islamique d’Iran en crise systémique. Quatre décennies de tourments, « Iran en transition », L’Harmattan, 2022.
Hamid Dabashi, Masters & Masterpieces of Iranian Cinéma, Mage Publishers, Washington DC, 2007.
Anahita Ghabaian Newsha Tavakolian, Iran, année 38. La photographie contemporaine iranienne depuis la révolution de 1979, Ed. Textuel, 2017.
Mamad Haghighat, Frédéric Sabouraud, Histoire du cinema iranien, 1900-1999, “Cinéma du reel”, BPI, Centre Pompidou, 1999.
Parviz Jahed (edited by), Iran, Directory of World Cinema, Volume 10, Intellect Bristol, UK / Chicago, USA, 2012.
Parviz Jahed (edited by), Iran 2, Directory of World Cinéma, Volume 35, Intellect Bristol, UK/Chicago, USA, 2017.
Pamela Karimi, Alternative Iran. Contemporary Art and Critical Spatial Practice, Stanford University Press, 2022.
Michket Krifa, Regards Persans. Iran, une révolution photographique. Paris, Musées, 2001.
Hamid Naficy, A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 1, The Artisanal Era, 1897-1941, Duke University Press, 2011.
Hamid Naficy, A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 2 : The Industrializing Years, 1941-1978, Duke University Press, 2011.
Hamid Naficy, A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 3 : The Islamicate Period, 1978-2010, Duke University Press, 2012.
Hamid Naficy, A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 4, The Globalizing Era, 1984-2010, Duke University Press, 2012.
Shiva Rahbaran, Iranian Cinema Uncensored, Contemporary Film-Makers Since The Islamic Revolution, I. B. Taurus, 2016.
Hamid Reza Sadr, Iranian Cinéma. A Political History, I.B. Tauris, 2006.
Matthias Wittmann, Ute Holl, Counter-Memories in Iranian Cinema, Edinburgh University Press, 2021.
https://journals.usj.edu.lb/regards
Toufic Ishaya El-Khoury