Bahram Beyzaie's Cinematic and Dramatic Worlds

Despite strict censorship after the 1979 revolution, Persian literature and Iranian cinema, music, art and theatre found new ways to evolve and flourish.

Bahram Beyzaie, whose innovative approaches to cultural production had helped revitalize indigenous Iranian artistic forms for modern purposes before the revolution, continued his work as a leading filmmaker and playwright in the decades following the revolution. This book examines Beyzaie's unique synthesis of world cinema and performing arts and Iranian literature, folktales, myths and ritual traditions across more than 70 screenplays, plays, films and monographs produced between 1979 and 2021, including key films such as Bashu, the Little Stranger and Killing Mad Dogs. It also engages with the various aspects of Iranian culture which Beyzaie's works deal with and examines the semiotic and thematic structures of his creative works, particularly his films, with the view to revealing their dialogue with Iran's past, present and future.

Saeed Talajooy is a Senior Lecturer in Persian at the University of St Andrews, UK. His publications include chapters and articles on Iranian theatre and cinema, a co-edited volume entitled Resistance in Contemporary Middle Eastern Cultures: Literature, Cinema and Music (2012), a Special Issue of Iranian Studies on Bahram Beyzaie (2013), a monograph entitled Iranian Culture in Bahram Beyzaie's Cinema in Theatre: Paradigms of Being and Belonging (I.B.Tauris, 2023) and an edited volume entitled The Plays and Films of Bahram Beyzaie: Origins, Forms and Functions (I.B.Tauris, 2024).