Persian Language and Cinema Winter Program 2020

The intensive winter program took place in January 2020. The objective of the program was to give students an opportunity to improve their reading, speaking and oral comprehension skills in Persian while studying works of Persian literature and becoming better acquainted with Iranian cinematic tradition. One group worked primarily on twentieth-century Persian prose (Nader Ebrahimi, Jalal Al-e-Ahmad, Mahmoud Golabdarehi, Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, Bozorg Alavi, Zoya Pirzad, Simin Daneshvar, Sadegh Hedayat). The second group focused on developing skills of recitation (rhythm, intonation etc.) and interpretation of classical (Sa’di, Mawlawi, Ferdowsi, Khayyam, Abusa'id Abolkhayr, Hafez etc.) as well as modern (Nima Yushij, Sohrab Sepehri, Ahmad Shamlou, Forough Farrokhzad, Mehdi Akhavan-Sales etc.) Persian poetry and studied canons of poetry composition. In the evenings, students attended film screenings and participated in discussions about the films in Persian.

The Lovers’ Wind (Albert Lamorisse, 1978)

The Cow (Dariush Mehrjui, 1969)

Bashu, the Little Stranger (Bahram Beizai, 1986)

The Wind Will Cary Us (Abbas Kiarostami, 1999)

Fish & Cat (Shahram Mokri, 2013)

White Nights (Farzad Motamen, 2003)

We expect to offer a similar program in January 2021. Please check our website for updates or get in touch with us directly at info@mejlisinstitute.org. 

Instructors

Maryam Torabi, MA, is a scholar of Medieval Armenian and Persian literary traditions. Having studied Armenian and Persian literature in Isfahan Ms. Torabi came to Armenia to work on her doctoral dissertation, which she is currently completing in the Department of Linguistics at Yerevan State University. She focuses on the language of the eighteenth-century poet Sayat-Nova exploring his engagement with Persian poetry. Apart from teaching Armenian to Iranians and Persian to Armenians she has formerly served as the librarian of the Blue Mosque in Yerevan. 

Mehdi Hesamizadeh is a composer and poet trained in traditional music of Iran. He is interested in connections between Persian language and music and draws on his knowledge in teaching analysis and recitation of poetry. 

Bashir Sayyah is a journalist and film critic based in Tehran. After receiving a BA in English Literature he studied Theatre Directing at Tehran University of Art. He writes for Filmkhaneh and  Cinema-va-Adabiat  magazines and contributes to several translation projects that aim to make western film criticism accessible to wide audiences in Iran.