The Iran-Iraq War as Seen in Iranian Films

n the wake of the 1979 Revolution in Iran, the new régime aimed for an independent domestic cinema with Islamic and educational content in the service of the revolution. Cinema as both an industry and an art-form went through a process of cleansing and purification. As a result, many young non-professional Islamic revolutionaries started making their own state-funded ideological films. However, this new wave of Iranian cinema didn’t find its true cause until the start of the Iran-Iraq war. War became the main focus of these young Islamic filmmakers. This new wave of Iranian cinema, known as the Sacred Defence Cinema, has gone through several phases and continues to be an important but less known part of the cinema of Iran. This presentation is an aesthetic and socio-political analysis of the Sacred Defence Cinema through all its phases. The presentation includes both documentary and fiction films, with a focus on two of the most prominent figures of this cinema: Morteza Avini and Ebrahim Hatamikia.