structural:reformatting, structural:expansion
Rakhshān Banietemad is an Iranian film director and screenwriter. Her title as "First Lady of Iranian Cinema" is not only a reference to her prominence as a filmmaker, but also connotes her social role of merging politics and family in her work. Her signature style is that she focuses on a character representing a part of society to explore it while staying objectively neutral. The first period of Banietemad's cinematic activity originates from dark humor. Still, in the second period of her work, dark humor gives way to serious and influential films, and deeper and broader issues are addressed. Banietemad has a more realistic view of life. She excels in representing contemporary situations, often about the changing roles of women, but also covering a broad spectrum of social issues, including war, poverty, domestic abuse, and class mobility. Banietemad's characters embody a sense of nostalgia in women, with examples like Tooba, Nobar, and Sara. Yet, in revisiting these characters, they are rewritten, re-described, and reinvigorated in dialogue with Iran's present. An oral history of Rakhshan Banietemad's career offers a rich lens into Iranian cinema and culture over nearly three decades. In the early stages of her career, documentaries were her dominant form of filmmaking. Even after she gained international esteem for her dramatic features, she continued to make documentaries with tremendous success. Our Times, for example, was the first documentary ever to be released in movie theaters in Iran. It was broadcast on the Franco-German television network ARTE and shown at prestigious festivals such as the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and the Sundance Film Festival. Banietemad's documentary practice has been so effective that her works often change the lives of her subjects. She says she has “never ended the strong connection that she has always felt with documentaries.”