''The House Is Black'' ( fa, خانه سیاه است) is an acclaimed Iranian documentary

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

directed by

Forugh Farrokhzad Forugh Farrokhzad ( fa, فروغ فرخزاد; 28 December 1934 – 14 February 1967) was an influential Iranian poet and film director. She was a controversial modernist poet and an iconoclast,* feminist author.Forugh Farrokhzad died at the age ...

. The film is a look at life and suffering in a

leper Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a long-term infection by the bacteria ''Mycobacterium leprae'' or ''Mycobacterium lepromatosis''. Infection can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This nerve damag ...

colony and focuses on the human condition and the beauty of creation. It is spliced with Farrokhzad's narration of quotes from the Old Testament, the Koran and her own poetry. The film features footage from the Bababaghi Hospice leper colony. It was the only film she directed before her death in 1967. After shooting this film she adopted a child from the colony. Although the film attracted little attention outside Iran when released, it has since been recognized as a landmark in Iranian film. Reviewer Eric Henderson described the film as " e of the prototypal essay films, ''The House Is Black'' paved the way for the

Iranian New Wave Iranian New Wave refers to a movement in Iranian cinema. It started in 1964 with Hajir Darioush's second film ''Serpent's Skin'', which was based on D.H. Lawrence's '' Lady Chatterley's Lover'' featuring Fakhri Khorvash and Jamshid Mashayekhi. ...

." In 1963, the film was awarded the grand prize for the category documentary at the

International Short Film Festival Oberhausen The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, founded in 1954, is one of the oldest short film festivals in the world. Held in Oberhausen, it is one of the major international platforms for the short form. The festival holds an International C ...

in West Germany.

References

Notes

Hamid Dabashi Hamid Dabashi ( fa, حمید دباشی; born 1951) is an Iranian-American professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York City. He is the author of over twenty books. Among them are ''Theology of Disc ...

, ''Masters & Masterpieces of Iranian Cinema'', 451 p. (Mage Publishers, Washington, DC, 2007); Chapter II, pp. 39–70: ''Forough Farrokhzad; The House Is Black''.

External links

* 1960s short documentary films 1963 documentary films 1963 films Documentary films about health care East Azerbaijan Province Iranian short documentary films Leprosy 1960s Persian-language films Films about disability {{short-documentary-film-stub