Il Cinema Ritrovato on Tour • Presented by Archives on Screen

Marjan

Introduction by and post-screening Q&A with Farzaneh Ebrahimzadeh Holasu

Sunday, February 16 • 3:30pm • Tickets: $12 General (+ $2 online fee), $8 Members (no fee), $8 Students (door)

ABOUT THE FILM

Marjan (1956) is the first Persian feature film directed and produced by a woman in Iran. Filmmaker Shahla Riahi (Ghodrat-ol-Zaman Vafadoost) plays the lead role of Marjan, a Roma woman whose doomed romance with a young school teacher has multiple endings, according to key sources. Shot on 35mm black-and-white film with a runtime of 105 minutes, Marjan was the inaugural production of Arya Film Studio, founded by Riahi herself in 1956. Unfortunately, only two reels of the film can be viewed today, preserved by the Iranian film collector Ahmad Jorghanian, while further surviving reels in the Iranian National Film Center remain completely inaccessible. Film scholar Farzaneh Ebrahimzadeh Holasu will present the surviving fragments in person.

Il Cinema Ritrovato Program Notes

Marjan and Arya Film: The First Film and Studio Founded and Produced by an Iranian Woman

Marjan (1956) is the first Persian feature film in Iranian cinema directed and produced by a woman. Shahla Riahi, (Ghodrat-ol-Zaman Vafadoost), was a celebrated actress in theater, cinema, and television, as well as a renowned voice actress for radio performances and dubbing artist. She broke new ground as the first Iranian woman to direct a sound feature film. Marjan, shot on 35mm black-and-white film with a runtime of 105 minutes, was the inaugural production of Arya Film Studio, founded by Riahi herself in 1956.

Unfortunately, only two reels of the film have survived which are believed to have been preserved by Ahmad Jorghanian, an Iranian film collector, while the surviving reels in Iranian National Film Center are inaccessible.

Riahi played the lead role of Marjan, alongside prominent theater actors. The film’s songs were performed by popular female singers Yasamin and Mahvash. Marjan premiered in three Tehran cinemas—Diana, Park, and Khorshid—in September 1956 and enjoyed moderate success.

In a bold artistic choice, Riahi centered the film’s narrative on a female character, telling the story through her perspective. Scholars have since described the film as a collaborative directorial effort, but Riahi, in an interview, declared that she chose not to credit her directorial role. As she explained, “Out of respect for Mohammad Ali Jafari, I did not list myself as the director and only credited myself as the producer.” Marjan is not only significant for breaking the male monopoly in Iranian filmmaking, paving the way for future female directors, but also for its courageous decision to place a woman at the heart of the story, in contrast to the typical productions of the time, where women were often relegated to secondary roles overshadowed by male protagonists.  –Farzaneh Ebrahimzadeh Holasu