Kamran Shirdel was born in 1939 and studied first architecture and then film at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. After graduating in 1964, Shirdel returned to Tehran and joined a group of film-makers producing documentaries for the Ministry of Culture. Over the next few years, Shirdel produced six films which frankly analyzed and revealed the dark side of society by making use of a social consciousness familiar from Italian neo-realism. All these films were immediately banned, in certain cases the material was confiscated during production. Shortly after the revolution of 1979, the films and the unedited material were released for a short time and Shirdel was able to finish the films.

For more than 30 years, Kamran Shirdel had to limit his activity to making commissioned films for the industry. Only in 2001, he produced his next author’s film, “Solitude Opus 1”. In 2000 Shirdel created the Kish Documentary Film Festival which offers a platform to Iranian documentary film-makers.

You can watch all Shirdel classics on Docunight On-Demand: Women’s Prison, Women’s Quarter, Tehran Is The Capital Of Iran, The Night It Rained, and Solitude Opus 1.

Gracefully tells the story of a drag queen who had been performing on stage for decades before the revolution and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, he has been banned from any kind of performance. He lives on a farm and spends most of his time farming and he sometimes dances for elderly people at nurseries.

* World Online Premiere *
– Now available everywhere in the world
Online Screening from May 20 – May 27, 2020
Q&A with the director Mina Akbari on Sunday, May 24, at 12pm Pacific Time / 3pm Eastern Time / 7pm GMT / 11:30pm Tehran Time

Directed by: Mina Akbari
2018 / 70 mins
Persian with English Subtitles

Journalist Mina Akbari’s FORMERLY YOUTH SQUARE opens with a photograph of a group of 70 journalists taken about 20 years ago in Javanan Square. Of those, only six continue to work in their profession, including the filmmaker. Many emigrated after the 2009 unrest that followed allegedly rigged elections, a few were imprisoned, and others simply left the field. Akbari narrates the film and interviews many of the journalists from the shuttered Jame’e newspaper. They speak about repression and their professional histories, referring to the difficulties and pitfalls of their careers in Iran. Formerly Youth Square drew such a large audience because such sensitive topics are rarely discussed in public forums and because the filmmaker is herself a respected journalist.

During the past 6 years, one question I kept getting was “where can we watch these films”? Mostly, the answer was, unfortunately nowhere. There were many challenges, from running a continuous streaming service to a different licensing and all other limitations and challenges that come with anything we do with that part of the world. Besides that, there were many great older documentaries, such as Kamran Shirdel’s films, or Ebrahim Mokhtari’s trilogy, that were not suitable for our monthly screenings but are very valuable films and should be available. Last but not least, I was frequently asked about Docunight screenings outside of North America, which, unfortunately, was not possible. All those questions and requests have been addressed now.

I’m happy to announce Docunight On-Demand, a subscription-based service (for $6.99) focused on Iranian documentaries. We are starting with about 40 films, and will be adding more films every month. We expect to have 150-200 documentaries by the end of the year, a mixture of old and new documentaries, films that we have or have not screened at Docunight before, ALL AVAILABLE INTERNATIONALLY. For a better watching experience, we have TV apps for all major streaming platforms as well: Roku and Amazon FireTV apps are ready and can be downloaded now, and the Apple TV app will be ready by the end of this week. You can find links to our On-Demand service on our brand new website: www.archive.docunight.com.

For our monthly screenings, even though it’s not possible to watch films together on big screens, we are restarting our monthly screening, now called Docunight On-Screen, by adding a limited online screening option. As we did before, every month we will pick a documentary to screen, now available online for one week only. In this new version of Docunight On-Screen, we will have an online Q&A with the director or other people involved in the film. These Q&As will be streamed live, and you will have the opportunity to ask your questions.

It’s important to note that our On-Screen films are different than our On-Demand service. While we hope to eventually add our On-Screen films to our On-Demand service, because of the different licensing model, there’s no guarantee or set time for having these films available on our On-Demand platform.

We will have a separate post for this month’s On-Screen service, which I’m personally very excited about.

I hope you enjoy our brand new Docunight On-Demand, and our extended Docunight On-Screen. Please go to archive.docunight.com to sign-up for either or both!

(Please note that we are still working on the website. Kindly, please take a minute to let me know if you saw any mistake or missing information. Thank you.)

We are making a large selection of Iranian documentaries available on Docunight On-Demand and will continue adding new titles every month. The initial list is a selection of some of the films we have screened at our events in the past 6 years, as well as some new titles.

Please join our Docunight On-Demand and start watching Iranian Documentaries anywhere, in your browser, or on your TV using AppleTV, Roku, or Amazon FireTV!

A ROCKY-esque tale of determination and grit, PLATFORM follows three Iranian sisters as they compete to become international champions of Wushu, a Chinese martial art. The sisters’ thrilling underdog story explores not only their dedicated training but also their surprising place in society as they challenge traditional gender roles on the path to success.

(Special thanks to @venerafilms)

Fight Feast (Bazm-e Razm) is about the vicissitudinous story of Iranian music between 1979-1989, the years just after the revolution through the end of the Iran-Iraq war. The narrative of restrictions and obstacles told by musicians, composers, and state authorities. The confrontation between music and politics. The simultaneous narration of two stories: the story of young people who sacrificed their lives for their homeland, and the story of musicians who on one hand entered the battlefields by their own language and on the other hand kept Iranian music alive and thriving.

The Story of Boulevard is a documentary about Keshavarz Boulevard, one of Tehran’s important streets, The film is in effect a line-up of histories, events, and narratives of the place and it’s deep-rooted desires and contradictions waxing and waning, a course that makes Boulevard a collective belonging.

Davood Ashrafi is an independent filmmaker based in Tehran. A graduate of Cinema from the University of Art and a member of Khane Cinema. He worked for years in feature films as a camera assistant and is now a cinematographer. In his work, he is interested in the intersection between documentary and fiction film. His documentary The Story of Boulevard won the Art & Experience prize at the 11th Cinema Verite Festival and Best film with the focus of Tehran at Shahr 7th International Film Festival.

The Mannequins of Ghale Hassan Khan tells the story of the birth and life of some mannequins. They are all created in the same way but their faith is not the same.

Sam Kalantari, bornin 1976 in Tehran, is considered to be the fourth generation of Iranian documentary filmmakers. He began filmmaking academically the same time as he entered university to study civil engineering, he entered the realm of Iran’s professional filmmaking scene by making his first short film “The Unknown Desire” (Tamanaye Majhoul) in 2001. After completing his studies in Ireland, he entered the international realm of Iranian cinema as the director of films “from the House No.37” and “He”.

“Homework” is a documentary Abbas Kiarostami directed in 1989 after realizing he was having difficulties assisting his son with his homework. Kiarostami interviewed young male students at a local school to find out what kind of problems kids faced completing their homework, which in Iran requires a great deal of parental assistance (or did at the time).

Official Selection, Hot Docs Film Festival
Official Selection, New Horizons Film Festival

Inside this traditional Iranian dating agency, the manager, Mrs. Sadri, and her female employees are determined to find their clients a husband — regardless of their personal feelings or preferences.

Shuffling through files and making agitated phone calls, they constantly remind their mortified customers that it’s the man who gets to choose and that a woman without a spouse doesn’t have an identity. Even a temporary marriage would be better than remaining unwed, they say. Which doesn’t mean these surprising brokers don’t harshly lecture their male clients as well, or that their conservative views don’t come with a good dose of humor — especially since two of them are, ironically, single.

Shot almost entirely inside the confines of their tiny office, The Broker conveys a sense of claustrophobia that mirrors many women’s situations and offers a shocking, tragicomic reminder that the fiercest agents of the patriarchy aren’t always men.