Iranian Cinema: From Aesthetics to Politics

March 7–April 23, 2026

Rahkshan Banietemad's visit to Berkeley has been canceled. Join us for a rare visit by celebrated Iranian filmmaker and screenwriter Rakhshan Banietemad, who will be in person April 22–23 to speak about her work in both documentary and feature filmmaking. Also screening are three classic films made by filmmakers associated with the Iranian New Wave.

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Rakhshan Banietemad, Mohsen Abdolvahab: Gilaneh, 2005
Rakhshan Banietemad: Under the Skin of the City, 2001
Bahram Beyzaie: Bashu, the Little Stranger, 1986
Rakhshan Banietemad: All My Trees, 2015
Dariush Mehrjui: The Postman, 1972
Sohrab Shahid Saless: Far from Home, 1975

Upcoming
Films
Upcoming
Events
Selected
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Past
Films
Past
Events

Past Films

The Postman
Dariush Mehrjui
Iran, 1972
4K Digital Restoration
Saturday, March 7 4:45 PM
Legendary filmmaker Dariush Mehrjui (The Cow) sets Georg Büchner’s notorious 1836 play Woyzeck in modern Iran. “Resembles in its ferocity nothing less than Chaplin or De Sica” (Amos Vogel).
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Far from Home
Sohrab Shahid Saless
West Germany, Iran, 1975
4K Digital Restoration

Also screens on Sunday, March 15 (with an introduction by Deniz Göktürk).
Wednesday, March 11 3:30 PM
Introduced by Minoo Moallem
A Turkish guest worker makes his way through a frigid Germany in this moving glimpse at exile, solitude, and migration. Director Sohrab Shahid Saless, a key figure in the early Iranian New Wave, lived in exile in Germany.
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Far from Home
Sohrab Shahid Saless
West Germany, Iran, 1975
4K Digital Restoration

Also screens on Wednesday, March 11 (with an introduction by Minoo Moallem).
Sunday, March 15 1 PM
Introduced by Deniz Göktürk
A Turkish guest worker makes his way through a frigid Germany in this moving glimpse at exile, solitude, and migration. Director Sohrab Shahid Saless, a key figure in the early Iranian New Wave, lived in exile in Germany.
View Details
The Postman
Dariush Mehrjui
Iran, 1972
4K Digital Restoration
Wednesday, March 18 3:30 PM
Legendary filmmaker Dariush Mehrjui (The Cow) sets Georg Büchner’s notorious 1836 play Woyzeck in modern Iran. “Resembles in its ferocity nothing less than Chaplin or De Sica” (Amos Vogel).
View Details
Bashu, the Little Stranger
Bahram Beyzaie
Iran, 1986
4K Digital Restoration
Sunday, March 29 1 PM
A young war orphan along the Iran/Iraq border somehow escapes to northern Iran in this powerful work, cited in a 1999 Iranian critics poll as the greatest Iranian film of all time. Admirers include Amir Naderi and Jafar Panahi.
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Bashu, the Little Stranger
Bahram Beyzaie
Iran, 1986
4K Digital Restoration
Wednesday, April 8 3:30 PM
A young war orphan along the Iran/Iraq border somehow escapes to northern Iran in this powerful work, cited in a 1999 Iranian critics poll as the greatest Iranian film of all time. Admirers include Amir Naderi and Jafar Panahi.
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All My Trees
Rakhshan Banietemad
Iran, 2015
Rahkshan Banietemad's visit to Berkeley has been canceled.
Wednesday, April 22 3:30 PM
Introduced by Minoo Moallem
This program features two documentaries that focus on the environment and the power of women to change society: All My Trees, a portrait of the founder of Iran’s first environmental NGO by Iran’s greatest female filmmaker, and Mother of the Earth.
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Under the Skin of the City
Rakhshan Banietemad
Iran, 2001
Rahkshan Banietemad's visit to Berkeley has been canceled.
Thursday, April 23 4 PM
Introduced by Minoo Moallem
“The First Lady of Iranian cinema” (Film Comment) uses a working-class Tehran family’s lives as a window into the struggles and strangled hopes of an entire nation.
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Gilaneh
Rakhshan Banietemad, Mohsen Abdolvahab
Iran, 2005
Rahkshan Banietemad's visit to Berkeley has been canceled.
Thursday, April 23 7 PM
Introduced by Minoo Moallem
An “ordinary” Iranian mother leads her children through two separate wars, across two separate decades, in this alternatively tender and provocative showcase of the human cost of war.
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Iranian Cinema: From Aesthetics to Politics

March 7–April 23, 2026

Rahkshan Banietemad's visit to Berkeley has been canceled.

BAMPFA partners with Minoo Moallem, Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at UC Berkeley, on a series that dovetails with her spring semester course. We present recent digital restorations of three classic Iranian films—The Postman (Dariush Mehrjui, 1972); Far from Home (Sohrab Shahid Saless, 1975), which is cross-listed with this season’s Fassbinder and the New German Cinema; and Bashu, the Little Stranger (Bahram Beyzaie, 1986)—the filmmakers of which were all associated with the Iranian New Wave movement.

For this collaboration, UC Berkeley hosts the celebrated Iranian film director and screenwriter Rakhshan Banietemad (born 1954, Tehran). She will present two documentaries that focus on the environment and the power of women to change society: her own All My Trees, and Mother of the Earth...

Rahkshan Banietemad's visit to Berkeley has been canceled.

BAMPFA partners with Minoo Moallem, Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at UC Berkeley, on a series that dovetails with her spring semester course. We present recent digital restorations of three classic Iranian films—The Postman (Dariush Mehrjui, 1972); Far from Home (Sohrab Shahid Saless, 1975), which is cross-listed with this season’s Fassbinder and the New German Cinema; and Bashu, the Little Stranger (Bahram Beyzaie, 1986)—the filmmakers of which were all associated with the Iranian New Wave movement.
For this collaboration, UC Berkeley hosts the celebrated Iranian film director and screenwriter Rakhshan Banietemad (born 1954, Tehran). She will present two documentaries that focus on the environment and the power of women to change society: her own All My Trees, and Mother of the Earth, directed by Mahnaz Afzali, for which Banietemad served as artistic consultant. She will also present two of her feature films: Under the Skin of the City, which turns the lives of a family into an analogy of the struggles and strangled hopes of an entire nation; and Gilaneh (codirected by Mohsen Abdolvahab), a family drama set against the backdrop of the war between Iran and Iraq and the US bombing of Baghdad fifteen years later, which stands as a poignant expression of the human cost of war.
—Susan Oxtoby, Director of Film and Senior Film Curator

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Rahkshan Banietemad's visit to Berkeley has been canceled.

Rakhshan Banietemad’s visit is cosponsored by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Department of Middle Eastern Language and Cultures, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, and Department of Film & Media, UC Berkeley.
Thank you Minoo Moallem, Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at UC Berkeley.