The workshop “Independent and Poetic Cinema in Iran and the World,” led by Parviz Jahed, film critic, scholar, researcher, and documentary filmmaker, took place on Monday, December 1, at Honar Shahr Aftab Cineplex in Shiraz as part of the sidebar programs of the 43rd Fajr International Film Festival.
Opening the session, Jahed noted that the very idea of independent cinema in Iran has been compromised. He explained that many people use the “independent” label as a marketable tag, even though true independent cinema is not meant to serve commercial purposes. Instead, he described it as a cinematic approach that emerged as a form of cultural resistance against capital, market forces, power structures, financial systems, and political institutions. This movement, he emphasized, first appeared in the West and was introduced in the early 1960s by renowned American filmmaker John Cassavetes.
Jahed went on to describe Cassavetes, the American actor of Greek descent, as the founder of a new form of filmmaking within American cinema. His motto was: “Work outside the dominant system.” According to Jahed, Cassavetes built a filmmaking model entirely separate from mainstream production – small, personal, and family-based. His mother, sister, and close friends often acted in his films, and he financed his work through his acting roles in commercial movies. He earned money from the industry only to spend it on independent cinema.
He added that Cassavetes consistently worked outside the Hollywood system – at one point even mortgaging his own house to finance a film, which ultimately cost him the property. He built a studio inside his home, where he shot many of his films. Jahed also pointed out that in some countries, state control over cinema meant that no private production model existed. Lenin, for instance, famously called cinema the most important art and sought to use it as a political tool for advancing communism.
According to Jahed, independent cinema is not merely about budget or economics. Though financing plays a role, its essence is fundamentally aesthetic. It stands in opposition not only to commercial models but also to dominant narrative and formal structures. A true independent filmmaker, he said, does not compromise and refuses to submit to conventional formulas.
He highlighted that independent filmmakers must often fight on multiple fronts – funding, distribution, and censorship – because their works are frequently labeled as lacking market appeal or facing permit challenges. Independent cinema, he explained, also tends to embrace anti-structural narratives and a kind of avant-gardism absent from mainstream filmmaking.
Addressing the Iranian context, Jahed remarked that underground cinema in Iran is inherently different from its American counterpart. In the United States, filmmakers worked freely but resorted to showing films in cafés due to limited distribution opportunities. Another key characteristic of independent cinema, he said, is the rejection of stardom – major stars simply have no place within its framework.
Moving to authorship, he stated that auteur cinema is fundamentally anti-literary. Mise-en-scène, within auteur theory, is not just the arrangement of actors and camera; it includes the very act of writing the screenplay. For an auteur, the filmmaker must discover and remain faithful to their own voice, resisting the influence of festival politics and market-driven agendas. Limited budgets, he argued, can themselves become aesthetic strengths.
Reflecting on the situation in Iran, Jahed explained that debates around independent cinema have always existed. Receiving funding does not necessarily equate to submitting to state authority. After the Revolution, the ties between cinema, politics, and government created complexities, with attempts to control narratives. Yet filmmakers continued to emerge who insisted on expressing their own perspectives.
He concluded by observing that many films gaining international attention today have lost their individuality. Though they claim to be independent, they are not; they follow the guidelines of festival brokers. The label of independent cinema, he said, has in many cases lost its authenticity and meaning.
