Eleventh International Conference on The Image

Abstract

Twenty-three years: from 1910 to 1933. That was the period that marked the beginning and the end of first feminism activity in Iran. From the first journal of women, Danesh, until the dissolution of the last feminist association by the government of Pahlavi I, the movement of women’s rights has continued covertly between censorship and criticism. Iranian women have been at the center of social and political changes and challenges before, during and after the Islamic revolution in 1979. In recent years, however, the new generation of Iranian women is negotiating the notions of “femininity,” sexuality, and modernity with the core of power in Iranian society. Along with this negotiation, Iranian cinema, as the screen of the visual reflection of Iranian culture and society, has recently seen an unprecedented representation of women on the big screen. This study approaches the works of some of the important women filmmakers of Iranian cinema like Milani, Derakhshande, Banietemad and others who, after the revolution, decided to make films more related to women’s rights, creating the new “New Iranian Cinema” as a paradigm of a new national identity.