Seifollah Samadian, secretary of Tassvir Sal (Image of the Year celebration) and Image Film Festival, spoke about a special exhibition that has been held at Milad Tower these days, coinciding with the Fajr Film Festival, featuring photographs and posters of Crystal Simorgh winners from different eras of the festival.
According to Artmag.ir, he answered ISNA reporter’s questions about how this exhibition came to be.
How has the Tassvir Sal Festival Secretariat’s collaboration with the Fajr Film Festival been shaped after all this time, and on what basis has it been based?
The visual collaboration between the Fajr Film Festival and Tassvir Sal actually began at the 34th Fajr International Film Festival under the secretaryship of dear Reza Mirkarimi, and continued in the 35th.
In the meantime, in addition to the global commemoration we had for Abbas Kiarostami at the international festival, we organized an exhibition about his work and invited foreign guests related to his field of cinema.
Four exhibitions were held on the sidelines of the Fajr Festival, starting with the photo exhibition “120 Years of Iranian Cinema”, a series in collaboration with photographers and cinema producers, especially the Iranian Cinema Photographers Association, which was a photographic review of the landmark films in the history of Iranian cinema; from “The Daughter of Lor” to 120 years of cinema in Iran.
Another collaboration was the “Unphotographed Photographs” project, which began with an exhibition and photo book of Dariush Mehrjoui‘s film “The Cow” and continued with Nasser Taghvaei‘s “Captain of the Sun” and Lamoris’ “Wind of Saba.”
This three-volume book series, each printed on 92 pages, was selected from photographic frames of filmed images of various sequences in the film, which ultimately told the full story of the film.
How did your collaboration this year come about?
On December 1, we met with Mr. Manouchehr Shahsavari, the festival’s secretary, to discuss what we could do together in the poster, photo, and trailer sections between the Film Festival and the Fajr Film Festival. Ultimately, it was decided that, in continuation of the Iranian Cinema Image, this year, we would collect the images of the winners of the Simorgh and the honorary diplomas of the poster and photo sections of the Fajr Film Festival, and, along with a review of the original posters of the 43rd edition of the festival, present them in the form of an exhibition and book, simultaneously with the 43rd edition of the festival.
It goes without saying that due to the lack of a coherent archive to access the original, professional-quality files of the works, collecting accurate information and also qualitatively correcting a significant portion of the files was very complex and required a period of about two months. Fortunately, with the sympathy and cooperation of Masoud Najafi, the festival’s public relations manager, Sepideh Hyderabadi and their colleagues at the Cinema Museum, and Behnaz Shirbani, from the Cinema Photographers Association, we were able to hold an exhibition of photos and posters of the winners of the Crystal Simorgh and the Diploma of Honor of the Fajr Film Festival from 1988 to 1984, simultaneously with the start of the 43rd edition of the festival at Milad Tower.
The compilation and printing of a book of the winning photos and films of the festival’s eras was also the next important goal and action, which was fortunately achieved and will be unveiled and presented during the festival. The image on the cover of the book is a photo of Sahab Zaribaf from the film “Sun” by Majid Majidi, and the poster on the back cover of the book is by Ebrahim Haghighi and features a photo of Aziz Saati.
An exhibition of photos and posters of the winners of the Crystal Simorgh of the Fajr Film Festival from different eras has been set up in the space in front of the special cinema media booths in Milad Tower.
