f o rewo rd
Nonfiction cinema directors draw their inspiration from the real world and, in the process, cede some control to fate. Fiction filmmakers, meanwhile, exert complete control over their work. This simplistic dichotomy drives the film world’s taxonomists — be they festival program- mers or video store employees — to slot movies into “Narrative” and “Documentary” categories. In this pro- cess, we marginalize vital, innovative cinema that locates a healthy tension between these two authorial desires.
Now entering its second year, Neither/Nor is the True/ False Film Fest’s annual inquiry into the history of “chimeric” cinema, i.e. films that contain elements of both fiction and nonfiction.
In our inaugural year, writer Eric Hynes focused on chimeric cinema made in New York City during the late 1960s, in the immediate aftermath of Direct Cinema. This year, we decided to look outside our own country and focus on Iran, a country that turned heads throughout the 1990s with its many inventive, self-reflexive films.
This year’s Neither/Nor guide is the estimable Godfrey Cheshire, who, since writing the 1993 Film Comment piece “Where Iranian Cinema Is,” has emerged as one of the world’s leading authorities on Iranian cinema. Godfrey has spent much time in Iran and has interviewed many of its most famous directors — including Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf — on numerous occasions.
In his invaluable essay, Godfrey traces the story of Iranian chimeric cinema, starting with its earliest films and leading all the way up to its 1990s blossoming. It’s an engrossing narrative revolving around mentorship and rivalry, ingenuity and tradition.
We’re incredibly grateful to Godfrey for sharing his immense insights into these films, and we look for- ward to continuing to explore more chimeric tradi- tions next year.
about godfre y cheshire
GODFREY CHESHIRE is a film critic, journalist and filmmaker based in New York City. Beginning in 1993, his writings on Iranian cinema have appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Variety, The Village Voice, Film Comment, Sight & Sound, Cineaste, Dissent and other publications. Beginning in the late ’90s, he made several extended trips to Iran to study the country and its cinema. In 2008, First Run Features released his feature Moving Midway, a documentary about his family’s North Carolina plantation, which he wrote and directed; recently, The Museum of Modern Art acquired the film for its permanent collection. He is a former chairman of the New York Film Critics Circle and a member of the National Society of Film Critics.
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