Study of the reflection of social harms in Iranian short animations featured in international festivals

Animation, due to the vastness of its visual capacity and the various techniques used in its production, has the ability to engage a wide range of the audience’s emotions and, consequently, convey a message and bring about very profound effects for the viewer.

According to Artmag.ir, animation art is not disconnected from society and its changes and transformations. The goal pursued in this research is to answer the question: How are social harms reflected in Iranian short animations that have entered international festivals?

The current research method is practical in terms of purpose, and descriptive-analytical in terms of method. Information was also obtained through library studies and fieldwork by talking to some animators. The theoretical framework used in this research is Victoria Alexander’s reflection theory.

The research showed that the creators of animations in the specified statistical community, considering the social and cultural conditions, have reflected the damages and challenges related to society in their works to the best of their ability. In fact, regarding the function of animation as a medium, artists in this field have addressed the representation of human relationships, cultural customs, moral and religious issues, as well as the existing social problems and harms, by employing various elements such as narrative or visual elements.

This article is extracted from a thesis with the same title, which was conducted and defended by the first author under the guidance of Dr. Minou Khani and the consultation of Dr. Mohammad Shokri in September 2020 at the North Tehran branch of Islamic Azad University.

Introduction
Animation, or motion graphics, is the art of bringing shape and still images to life. In another definition, the art of animation refers to moving images recorded on recorded and connected frames, with the distinction and difference from film that the artist and creator has the ability to manipulate and change each individual recorded frame.

In other words, animation is a collection of connected frames that the artist has created one by one, producing the illusion of movement.

It has been over 40 years since the first frames of animation were created in Iran. The first frames were established in the form of a 13-second film called Molla Nasreddin in 1957, thanks to Esfandiar Ahmadieh.

Between 1956-1961, a group consisting of Esfandiar Ahmadieh, Jafar Tejaratchi, Parviz Asanlu, Petros Palyan, and Asadollah Kafani established the animation section of the General Directorate of Culture and Fine Arts (today’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance). Later, Nosratollah Karimi joined them. The highest number of films produced were made by Esfandiar Ahmadieh and Nosratollah Karimi.

Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents, held the “International Festival of Film for Children and Young Adults” in 1965. However, initially, the institute did not have a role other than organizing the festival and had not prepared any products for presentation. The atmosphere of the festival and the movement of filmmaking for children on a global scale encouraged some stakeholders to establish a cinematic section within the institute.

In 1969, the cinematic center of the institute sent Noureddin Zarrinkelk to Belgium so that, after acquiring the necessary expertise, he could make the institute’s animation section more active. The track record of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults in the field of animation production, compared to similar organizations, has been quite remarkable, thanks to the comprehensive efforts of artistic managers and the engaged artists, despite limited resources.

Cinema, and consequently animation cinema, has always been recognized as an art among the people; however, the important point about this art is that as much as it is an art, it is also a medium, and its being a medium is as important as or even more important than its being an art. Therefore, due to the media nature of this art, multiple meanings and implications have always been embedded in this medium, and accessing these meanings helps us understand contemporary society as well, since the realities of a society, including culture, customs, political, economic, social issues, and so on, are portrayed.

A group of animations, especially short animations aimed at participating in festivals, provide clues for understanding the society of their time and the crystallization of its social conditions. In other words, some animations depict the realities around them and since they are somewhat reflective of reality, it can be said that they can reflect the spirit of any given time period.

On the other hand, narrative cinema seeks to attract a larger audience by resorting to tricks and methods that immerse the viewer in the film and lead them to empathize with the protagonist or other characters, thereby drawing the audience in.

Considering the advancements made, the weaknesses and vulnerabilities present in many Iranian television animation productions suggest that many of these works, especially from the perspective of thematic and content diversity related to the needs and daily lives of various audiences, may not be comparable with similar works from countries with established industries. Thus, most of these productions have failed to fully meet the real needs of domestic audiences and have not been successful in presenting themselves to the global market.

Considering that animation and its creators can play a very important role in depicting the social harms of today’s society, it can be said that this art is not unrelated to society and its changes and transformations. Therefore, this research aims to analyze short Iranian animations that have been awarded the title of selected animation in major festivals over the last five years and to answer the question of how these animations reflect the social harms of their contemporary society.

Research Methodology
The present research method is applied from the perspective of its objective, and it is essential to coordinate the theoretical approach, which is the reflection approach in the sociology of art, with its application in data analysis to discover the relationship between content and social reflection. In this study, content analysis has been used to achieve the desired and optimal result. For the content analysis of animations in the first stage, the narrative structure of the animations was considered, and in the next stage, the visual elements and symbols in the text were examined.

Data collection was conducted through library studies, observation and empirical insights, as well as field studies by interviewing some animators. To select the statistical population, the animation works from the past five years of the Iranian Documentary and Experimental Film Center, which have been able to stand out and succeed in international festivals, were examined, resulting in the selection of 9 short animations.

Background of Research
According to studies and investigations conducted, the subject of “Studying the Reflection of Social Damages in Iranian Short Animations Presented at International Festivals” has not been researched or examined in any published article or research compilation within the country so far. Additionally, in the critique and analysis of animations, there is a noticeable absence of a content-focused perspective regarding the reflection of social problems and damages.

The result of the search for background, specialized theses, and articles related to this subject is as follows:
Mohammad Javad Jamshidi, in his master’s thesis titled: “Examining Narrative in Wordless Animation,” conducted in 2016 at Tarbiat Modares University under the supervision of Mohammad Reza Hasani, discusses how various elements of animation advance their narrative without the use of verbal elements. He initially examines the form of these works for the analysis of their narrative structure and subsequently identifies the components that make up the narrative and story. He also investigates visual and auditory signs and the importance of each of these wordless signs.

Mohammad Ali Safoura, in his doctoral thesis titled: “Methods of Representing Cultural-Social Themes in Iranian Animation Productions, from 1996 to 2010 and Comparing It with Similar Productions in England in Terms of Content Structure” in 2013, conducted at the University of Art Tehran under the supervision of Kamran Afshar Mohajer, has examined and analyzed the works of Iranian animation and similar works from England in terms of content. In this research, he explored how the representation, weakness, or absence of themes and content related to daily life can significantly impact the connection with the audience.

Zeynab Sadeghi Naghdali, in her master’s thesis titled: “Examining the Element of Fantasy and Imagination in Iranian Animation in the 1990s and 2000s” in 2010 from the Faculty of Art and Architecture under the supervision of Mohammad Ali Safoura, considers animation to be the most powerful domain for depicting dreamy and hyper-realistic spaces. This capability has progressed to the extent that film has also been surpassed, to the point where cinema turns to animation to create such environments.

Royaye Nikmanesh, in her master’s thesis titled: “The Role and Structure of Dramatic Stories in Animation” in the year 2009, from the University of Art in Tehran, under the supervision of Amir Mohammad Dehestani, considers story and screenplay as one of the most important issues in the production process of animated stories. She has examined fundamental concepts such as abstraction, imagination, and fantasy, which have numerous applications in animation.

Mahin Javaheryan, in her article titled: “Iranian Animation from the Beginning of the 1990s to Present Day” in 2006 at the sixteenth Farabi, has explored the progress of Iranian animation from the 1990s to the present, including the establishment of animation courses in universities, holding festivals, and the activities of both public and private sectors in the field of animation production.

Reflective Approach
When the analysis of an artwork focuses on its context, meaning that the message is primarily a product, and subsequently dependent on the historical context in which it emerged, the reflective approach is introduced. “The discussion of the context of the artistic message immediately raises the issue of the relationship between artistic creation and reality, which is not a new point in the beautiful speech of aesthetics and its background goes back to the discussion of imitation in the works of Plato and Aristotle.

Since the Renaissance, a central point in the philosophy of art has always been the relationship between a second reality or the world of an artwork and the reality of the outside world. Many thinkers and philosophers have shared the proposition that art is a re-creation of reality.

“The reflective approach is based on the idea that art always tells us something about society. This approach in the sociology of art includes diverse and extensive research where the common belief is that art is a mirror of society or is conditioned by society.

Research focuses on artistic works to enhance our knowledge and understanding of society. The reflective approach has a long and respected history in sociology. This should not be surprising, as the main focus of this approach is sociological, in other words, aimed at understanding society.

According to this approach, artistic works reflect their contemporary society like a mirror. However, just as a mirror reflects only a selected part of the reality within its frame, artistic works also display only a part of society. Additionally, just as not all mirrors are flat that show the external object exactly as it is, artistic works, depending on the abilities, values, and standards of the artist, may represent reality to varying degrees or deviate from it.

In the reflective approach, it is believed that art contains information about the society that produced it, although this issue is much more complex than drawing a single direct line between art and society. If someone is interested in studying the status of ethnic minorities in society, they will learn about the representation of minority groups by watching television films. This approach focuses on a sociological view of art, studying and learning about society.

Often, the evidence of what we are searching for is not directly available, as the evidence may have vanished over time, or there may not be a direct way to access it. For example, there is no machine that can take a person back to the seventeenth century, but Dutch artists of that era painted scenes of everyday life. Assuming that the paintings accurately reflect Dutch society, one can infer what life was like in that era through details such as how homes were furnished or how social groups interacted.

Research Strategies in Reflective Approach
Researchers engaging in reflective studies can start from different theoretical assumptions and employ diverse research techniques. These strategies include the following:

A- Interpretive Analysis:
In this method, the researcher selects several works of art and examines their details to extract their meanings, thereby demonstrating how the elements in the artworks reflect specific aspects of society.

For example, one can refer to Helsingør, which addresses how engravings created by the great landscape painter J.M.W. Turner in the 1820s and 1830s reflected aspects of English national identity.

These books depict beautiful scenes of England, scenes that a true traveler might encounter during their journey, and also allow “visual travelers” of the middle class to symbolically claim the country through them. Helsinger’s work is an interpretive study, in that it correlates the stylistic elements of Turner’s work with aspects of the political and economic context of England in his era.

B- Content Analysis:
Researchers using a reflective approach may trace social changes over time, as Lowenthal did in his study of popular characters in America. He examined magazines published between 1901 and 1941 to document how the subject of personal letters has changed.

In content analysis, the researcher selects a sample of items and then codes them for various variables. Leventhal coded the professions of individuals mentioned in the obituaries of two popular magazines from the specified years based on categories of politics, business, expertise, and entertainment. Coding the documents allows the researcher to derive changes that have occurred in practice from the information and also serves as a confirmation of the theory he has arrived at.

C- Structural semiotics:
Using structural semiotics, changes over time can also be examined. In this method, one can refer to Wright’s research, which analyzed changes over time.

He examined a genre of American films and focused on those that were financially successful between 1930 and 1972. Unlike Lowenthal, who believes the meaning of art is at the surface level, Wright believes that meaning is hidden (latent content), and can be discovered through the application of structural analysis techniques.

In Wright’s method, the meaning of the story can be read by focusing on the internal conflicts in the narrative. The analyst’s task is to uncover the codes of these conflicts and thus discover the structure of the story. Wright identifies four distinct types of Western myth, which are: the classic type, the transitional theme type, the revenge type, and the professional type, each corresponding to a specific historical period. Such a richness is observed in the study of Entman and Rojecki regarding the representation of race in American society. They conducted a content analysis of various forms of popular art, such as television advertisements, television shows, and blockbuster films, to extract representations. The findings of the content analysis were supported and supplemented by qualitative analysis of television programs, films, and film critiques, as well as interviews conducted with media audiences.

Ultimately, in all these strategies, in addition to the question of what in art reflects norms, values, needs, imaginations or dreams, myths, elites, rising classes, the entire society, or subcultures, the question can also be raised about how society is reflected.

The Helsinger study implicitly rests on the assumption that artists are in contact with the spirit of their time, and thus, while having their finger on the pulse of society, they will honestly understand and depict the greatest truths of society in their works. In contrast, Wright and Lowenthal argue that the mechanism of reflection is embedded in the popular appeal of art. This latter view assumes that the audience significantly indicates that the artwork is a reflection of the voice of society.

Every art implies a specific value, and every artwork, whether realistic, expressionistic, or formalistic, can answer these two questions: What is this art about? What does it oppose? Art serves values greater than aesthetics and issues beyond art itself. The consequential and instrumental values of art have been a subject of discussion in Western philosophical circles since ancient Greece.

In general, it can be said that studying various social characteristics in artistic works created during a specific time period or by a particular group of artists, or by a singular author artist throughout their lifetime, can help us better understand their contemporary society. What we can derive from artistic works for understanding society relates to a macro, average, or micro understanding of all manifestations and features of society, and depends on what our question is when we refer to the work.

Of course, an artistic work cannot be critically analyzed sociologically on its own, unless a series of social processes and changes have also been examined. In this case, two parallel structures can be compared, and the impacts of each on the other can be studied. On the other hand, by studying artistic works as cultural manifestations of different social groups, one can gain insight into the viewpoints and attitudes of that group toward society.

The artist themselves is a member of a social group, and the perspective and viewpoint of the social group influence their outlook. In fact, the artist represents a social group and displays its perspectives and values in their works.

Animation
Animation, or the art of animation, is the rapid and continuous display of images from a two-dimensional artwork or situations of real models to create the illusion of movement. The oldest examples of attempts to achieve the illusion of motion can be seen in the designs and paintings of the Neolithic cave era, where animals are represented with several overlapping footprints, clearly an effort to convey a sense of movement. On the other hand, animation is a mixed media and artistic form that uses expressive elements from other arts; this characteristic, in addition to creating a fantasy world, possesses special attractions that can appeal to audiences of all ages.

Animated cinema emerged in Europe in the early 20th century and then spread to America, quickly captivating many people and expanding in various societies. Many individuals were simultaneously working on multiple projects in the field of animation.

In 1908, an artist named Emile Cole, by drawing images frame by frame on drawing paper and then taking photos of each frame, created a two-minute work with about 700 frames, which is known as the first animated work. Animation has developed several schools in its long history to this day in terms of using different techniques due to the different ideas of the creators of the work. Each of these schools has its own characteristics in terms of content and design style.

This art has been in line with the growth of technology and has made many advances, in this process, animation production techniques have also grown significantly, the most important of which was formed by the use of computer technology. This growth path, over time, caused many companies and capitalists to start working and creating works in the field of animation.

Currently, animation has various applications, such as use in advertising teasers, scientific and educational programs, entertainment for children and adolescents, modeling and standardization, etc.

Animation in Iran
More than 40 years have passed since the first animation was made in Iran, and it has taken a long time for this art to reach a high level of development and have something to say in the world. This process of growth and development can be reviewed in four periods. In practice, the cycle of production of early Iranian animations was a multiple invention because, given the lack of an educational system for studying this field, in each period the artists of this field have created a development towards advancing animation.

Animation in Iran was first started in 1957 by Esfandiar Ahmadieh, with the work of Molla Nasreddin. Later, with the establishment of Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents, animation entered its specialized stage. The establishment of a university degree in animation and the holding of domestic festivals by this institution led to the further growth of this art in Iran. This period, or the first period, continued until 1979.

The second period began simultaneously with the Islamic Revolution of Iran and continued during the eight years of the imposed war. In the shadow of these events, there was no noticeable or significant change in the field of animation due to the war situation in the country.

The third period coincided with the end of the war and the beginning of the phase of modernization and reconstruction within the country. The 1970s was when animation in Iran began to grow rapidly, with the number of television networks increasing, and small animation companies emerging.

The fourth period, during this period, was the peak of the development of animation in Iran in terms of technique, structure, and content, which included the 2010s. A period in which the private sector gained strength and some of the animations produced succeeded in participating in international festivals and winning awards from these festivals.

Social Damage in Iran Today
In defining social damage, it can be said that it is the result of a kind of conflict and disruption in the cultural values ​​and beliefs of a group, in relation to the prevailing values. In fact, the lack of integration between the people and the cultural system gradually forms a conflict in society that causes damage. The expansion of the scope of needs and deprivations resulting from the failure to meet demands leads to a sharp spread of corruption, crime, wandering, and deviations that constitute social harm.

In other words, social harm is a set of cultural challenges and threats that have crossed the level of the problem and reached the level of harm. In the case of Iranian society, it can be said that it is currently experiencing a new form of modernity that many sociologists call the “software dimension of modernity.” The software dimensions of modernity are expanding rapidly in Iranian society through new media, and from this perspective, a part of Iranian society has become extremely modern. The weakening of kinship ties, the decrease in childbearing, single-childhood, the increase in the age of marriage, and official and emotional divorces all indicate the modernization of Iranian society in the software field. On the other hand, Iranian society is a religious society that faces a type of religiosity that looks at issues in a disaggregated way; On the one hand, it respects the devotional aspect of religion and considers itself obligated to it, and on the other hand, it does not pay much attention to its social aspect. In fact, a new kind of mentality and rationality has come into play and created these boundaries.

Finally, official statistics show an increasing trend of social harms in the country. The study of these harms shows the intertwining of social harms on the one hand and their pervasiveness on the other. In fact, all social harms in Iran are somehow intertwined and related because they produce and reproduce each other. Meanwhile, the social tendencies of artists are consciously or unconsciously involved in the selection of the subject and content of works of art, and all forms of art, including animation, reflect in a way the social conditions and the problems and harms of the day in society. “As a result of the changes in the content of society, a series of new topics, new forms of expression and new styles emerge. Even the forms of individual experience that are subordinate to sight or words do not arise independently of social evolution.

New ways of seeing and hearing are not simply the result of improving or evolving sensory perceptions, but rather new social realities are also effective in their emergence.”

Center for the Development of Documentary and Experimental Cinema
This center was initially established as a custodian of semi-professional filmmaking in 1984 and later added documentary cinema to its collection. With the expansion of the center’s scope of work in 2013, the group’s approach changed and its scope of activity was divided into two areas: documentary and animation cinema.

In the field of animation, the center’s activities have contributed significantly to the development of this art in Iran, including the publication of the quarterly magazine “Cinema Animation” and holding weekly meetings to screen and critique animated works. In recent years, the center has supported student projects in the field of animation production, as well as investing in the production of animation, especially short animations, resulting in the creation of works that have been presented at domestic, foreign, and international festivals and have won titles and awards in many cases.

Statistical Population
Given that the aim of this research is to study the reflection of social harms in Iranian short animations presented at international festivals, in the first stage, international festivals that are more famous in the field of animation and have more prominent activities were selected as the target group. In the next stage, the identification of short animations that succeeded in participating in these festivals as representatives of Iran during the period 2015 to 2019 was carried out and they were examined.

Most of the animations that met the two conditions above and were targeted in this group were produced by two centers: the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents and the Center for the Development of Documentary and Experimental Cinema. Finally, the statistical population in this study includes: short animations that are produced by the Center for the Development of Documentary and Experimental Cinema.

After reviewing the news archive of this series and numerous visits to this center, we arrived at 15 animations that met the aforementioned criteria. Ultimately, out of this number, 9 animations that mentioned a social problem in their story or participated in more prestigious festivals and won titles and awards were selected as the selected works of the statistical population of this study.

The titles of the animations studied are as follows:
– Adam Khanegi, directed by Marzieh Abrarpaydar;
– Ektesabat Entesabi, directed by Samaneh Shojaei;
– Badsar, directed by Amirpoya Afzali;
– Parvanegi, directed by Ali Azizi;
– Pesare Darya, directed by Abbas Jalali Yekta;
– Pishkhedmat, directed by Farnoosh Abedi;
– Sozanban, directed by Mehdi Khorramian;
– Shayeeh, directed by Leila Norouzi;
– Yek Nafar, directed by Mahboobeh Kalaei.

1- Adam Khanegi
The animation Adam Khanegi is a 2016 product written and directed by Marzieh Abrar Paydar. The duration of this work is four minutes and 25 seconds and has a short experimental structure that has participated in many domestic and foreign festivals and has been nominated for awards in many of them. Among the most important awards that this work has won are the following:

Best Animated Film Award, Third International Animation Festival of India in 2017, Best Characterization Award, Tenth International Canterbury Festival, England in 2017, Winner of Best Short Animation at the Second Sao Paulo Festival in Brazil, in 2017, Best Animation at the Fourteenth Tehran Nahal Student Short Film Festival.

This animation is the story of an upside-down world in which animals capture humans and keep them in cages like decorative creatures or tie them to collars and keep them as pets. On the other hand, everywhere from the city to the forest, etc. is full of traps and traps for animals to hunt humans.

The story is somehow related to the issue of animal rights, which has received less attention from artists and filmmakers, while cinema, especially animation, has a lot of potential in addressing environmental issues and animal rights. Abuse and illegal hunting, including illegal traps and traps in different regions, all show the injustices that humans do to animals. The fear and struggle of escaping and replacing people with animals and being in their place is perhaps the best option for judging and understanding their conditions.

The director of the work says about the idea of ​​this animation: “I took the initial part of the film from a personal experience in a pet store where some animals were sold legally or even secretly.”

The story is somehow related to the issue of animal rights, which has received less attention from artists and filmmakers, while cinema, especially animation, has a lot of potential in addressing environmental issues and animal rights. Abuse and illegal hunting, including illegal traps and traps in different regions, all show the injustices that humans do to animals. The fear and struggle of escaping and replacing people with animals and being in their place is perhaps the best option for judging and understanding their conditions.

The director of the work says about the idea of ​​this animation: “I took the initial part of the film from a personal experience in a pet store where some animals were sold legally or even secretly.”

What is referred to in the first sequence of The Domesticated Man is the atmosphere of a human trafficking shop with an environment full of fear and horror, with the image of a person who constantly turns his head around and sees depressed, hopeless, and tired people in small and large cages. People who do not feel any pleasure in the face of the smile of the lamb who has come there as a buyer. The helplessness of these people in the cage is a sign of the helplessness of animals who are trapped in cages as pets instead of living freely in nature. On the other hand, the taxidermied heads of people with terrified and disheveled faces that show that they were not taxidermied properly, along with the view that shows the entrance to the store when the lamb enters, with the skeleton of a human head hanging from the ceiling, all represent the inverse of the lack of respect for animal rights and the cruelty that is inflicted on them.

Most societies have their own logic, attitudes, and norms that gradually become a kind of culture, and this is how some strange and contradictory behaviors may develop among the people of that society, which are accepted by the general public and appear as normal, and only seen as unreasonable by some. One of these behaviors is the culture of keeping pets, which is becoming a luxury problem, especially in Iran, and many who keep pets think that this shows their distinction from others and consider keeping animals a sign of prosperity, good taste, and high culture.

The animation “Adam Khanegi ” well depicts this social harm in today’s society, such as the scene where a leopard walks on two legs with a tyrannical posture and a shield-shaped chest, wearing a coat and bow tie, behind a man with a very tight waist belt, a bowed head, and a depressed face.

While this social harm faces two problems: first, there is no education at all in the field of animal behavior and how to care for animals in Iran, and second, if there is even a brief education, due to the living conditions of most people living in apartments, a suitable environment for keeping these animals is often not provided, and ultimately the rights of animals are not respected.

Injustice towards animals is not necessarily in the form of violent and brutal behavior, but also includes the instrumental use of animals, such as keeping them in apartments and cages, because it is selfish and more for the pleasure of humans than for the benefit of animals that were created to live freely, especially some non-domesticated animals such as squirrels, which are illegally and secretly hunted and sold. These animals are not able to live in a human environment and are forced to endure poor living conditions in cages.

This is reflected in another scene from The Domestic Man with a picture of a woman with her head hanging from the weight of the collar around her neck and looking sad and depressed, and the chain of the collar is in the hands of a large, fat dog that walks behind the woman very proudly, selfishly and calmly. In fact, this scene is an inverted reflection of a scene that is very visible in today’s societies and can well express the animal’s suffering from its captivity and unwanted life.

The execution technique of Adam Khanegi’s animation is a cell animation, in terms of the use of visual elements, the use of expressive space, as well as exaggeration in spatialization and perspective, it is worth mentioning. An expressive and dark space with a diagonal camera angle, limited color schemes and sharp shadows, rounded edges and rough textures are used in the graphics and design of the work, which has a good effect on instilling a sense of fear and surprise in the main character, from the space and events around him. The main character’s design also uses triangular and concave forms and specific lines that are completely in harmony with the narrative line of the story and the goal of depicting a dark and nightmarish space.

2- Ektesabat Entesabi
Ektesabat Entesabi, is a 2016 film directed by Samaneh Shojaei and written by Amin Kaffashzadeh. The film is four minutes and 20 seconds long and is an experimental short animation that has participated in prestigious festivals including the 56th Annecy Film Festival in France, the 12th Animafest Festival in Athens, the Melbourne Film Festival, and more. It also won the Short Animation Award in the competition section of the Slovak Enka Festival.

The animation is a representation of the life of a man who is unhappy with his appearance due to genetic defects and ultimately decides to commit suicide. The first manifestation of these defects is revealed in the family photos of Behzad, the main character of the film, as the film begins and the photo frames, all facing the camera and arranged in a classic manner on the wall or table, are displayed. After that, Behzad’s voice is heard explaining these defects and he believes that although he is a step better than the previous generation and his neck is straight compared to the rest of the people, he has no choice but to commit suicide.

Behzad: “When I look at family photos, I realize that this process is improving very slowly and I see the first signs of improvement in myself… But this glimmer of hope will not prevent the decision I am making now.”

In fact, Behzad is an example of people who face genetic problems and the biggest symbol of it in him, which he complains about a lot, is the deformity of his body and face. He is involuntarily, hopelessly and resigned in the face of this problem.

The problems and consequences that arise as a result of a defect or disability, initially include the individual consequences that arise in the form of an individual’s life and the difficulties caused by this defect in personal affairs and meeting basic needs. But in the next stage, considering that man is originally a social being and his needs and talents can be satisfied through social interaction and communication, it leads to social consequences that should be paid more attention to.

Social anxiety is one of the social consequences of deficiencies and disabilities, which is actually the result of personal evaluation in various social situations. As a result of this social anxiety, the person has no desire to establish contact with others and is evasive from any situation where he may be exposed to judgment; because he considers all social situations and interactions as scenes of evaluation and judgment about himself. This social anxiety is intensified in situations such as fear of disapproval, fear of rejection, fear of talking and facing others, etc.

The emphasis on photo frames and the beginning of the animation with frames that are not few and all contain family photos, the excessive attention to the people in the photos who look different from ordinary people and whose genetic defects are clearly evident, is a reflection of Behzad’s excessive attention and importance to his appearance and suffering as a person with genetic problems, one of these defects, which ultimately leads to a feeling of inferiority or even seeing himself as a victim. The climax of this representation is Behzad’s words during his suicide: “Goodbye, you ugly family with a big nose, a hunchbacked belly, and a crooked neck, I have no hope of reforming this race and saving this race in…”

Another notable point in this animation is the use of a mobile phone, so that from the beginning, when the audience and the main character’s point of view are together, until Behzad’s image is seen in the mirror, it becomes clear that this angle was from the camera of his phone. After the space changes and the camera falls from the main character’s hand, it is as if the mobile phone is still narrating the story, but this time it is in the hands of other characters in the story and is passed from hand to hand. Conceptually, this is a reflection of the excessive use of mobile phones and the trend that photography and filming for souvenir purposes have undergone in these years, and occasional family photos in albums have given way to constant selfies everywhere; so that Behzad himself, in Ektesabat Entesabi, has used the same method to create his own life story and its ending.

All these images represent a problem that has become a problem today: “selfie taking”. Some people spend hours of their time taking selfies and in many cases, many people in the world have been injured or killed while taking selfies. Even in many situations, when people could have helped in incidents such as fires or accidents, they have been busy taking selfies.

In a scene from the animation that shows Behzad on a hospital bed, having just survived a suicide attempt, the people in the room are still concerned with taking a selfie with him. This scene is a sign of the constant presence of cell phones and selfies in different moments and experiences of life, which may prevent people from enjoying being together or the beauty and diversity of nature in which they are.

The last point that the animation Attributive Acquisitions refers to is the issue of fate and submission to fate in most humans, and in this case, humans with genetic problems like Behzad. “This is me in the midst of a fatalistic family…” is Behzad’s last sentence, which tells of the underlying layer of the story and is the stronger layer on which the story is based. That all the family members shown in the picture at the beginning, due to genetic problems, hated their fate and perhaps one day tried to commit suicide, and after failing, they accepted their fate.

This is where the audience realizes that the crooked neck, which Behzad considered to be a way to correct the family’s genetic problems, was also the result of an attempt at suicide. At the end of the story, although he has become uglier, his task is now clear to him, he has somehow accepted what he is and is now more comfortable with his own body in the photos, he has also gone through suicide and has nothing to lose. In representing this acceptance and surrender to Behzad’s fate, he even tilts the frames on the wall to match his angle of view due to his crooked neck.

Form and Visual Space
Despite the bitterness in the story, the Ektesabat Entesabi animation has a happy and colorful visual space that keeps the story on the border between humor and seriousness. Although the cold and dark design could have aligned the graphics of this animation with the bitter and desperate narrative of the story and added bitterness to bitterness, on the other hand it would have made the audience less patient and tired. Also, perhaps the black and white design would have been more in line with the grotesque atmosphere of this story, but this animation has preserved the two sides of the story and, by using happy and vivid colors, has added to the appeal of the work and succeeded in establishing a greater and more effective connection with the audience. The fact that the audience does not see the main character as a gloomy and serious person, despite all his problems and his decision to end his life, has contributed greatly to the attraction and appeal of the work.

3- Badsar
The Badsar animation was made in 2016, co-written and directed by Amirpoya Afzali and Ruhollah Saadatmand, as an experimental short animation. The duration of this work is six minutes and 24 seconds and is two-dimensional computer-generated. Badsar has been selected for more than 10 international festivals, including the Magic Lantern Festival in Brazil and the Animasiros Animated Film Festival in Greece, and was also selected as a work of the 25th Anima Mandi Festival in Brazil in 2017.

The main character of this animation is a silent man who at night collects the wind in his head, which is caused by the sounds that cause people’s heads to grow during the day, into a balloon and sends it into the sky. In fact, the story reflects the effects of noise that are the result of technology and life in today’s society, and the people who are affected by unpleasant noise disturbances due to living in this era, both in their personal lives and in their work and professional lives.

By depicting people who live and work in a noisy urban environment, Badsar shows how their normal lives and social relationships are disrupted, and effects such as fatigue and psychological changes such as aggression or depression, etc. arise in them.

Noise pollution is one of the problems of urban societies, and people in these societies are always exposed to sounds caused by traffic, means of transportation such as cars, motorbikes or airplanes, demolition or construction of buildings, etc. On the one hand, these noises cause annoyance to people in various ways, and on the other hand, they cause deterioration of the quality of urban life. What happens to the young man in the story about noise pollution starts at the beginning of the day: he wakes up with the sound of his mobile phone alarm, then the sound of the kettle whistling in the kitchen and the continuation of these sounds that intensify outside the house and on the way to work. The events that the main character encounters on the way from home to work, at first glance, indicate noise pollution, and from another angle, they indicate humans who each have a role in producing these sounds and are themselves exposed to the damage caused by these noises.

Along the way, first two sewer workers are shown arguing loudly, then a woman talking loudly on her cell phone, and finally a taxi driver shouting and calling passengers. Even after getting into the taxi, the noise does not stop, and two other passengers, both asleep, are snoring loudly. All these scenes illustrate the problem of noise pollution and the problems that citizens who are exposed to this damage suffer from, such as anger, the argument between two sewer workers, sleep disturbances for taxi passengers, depression and fatigue, a woman crying during a phone call, and finally an increase in anxiety levels.

On the other hand, Amirpoya Afzali presents the idea of ​​this story as follows: “One day, while passing through Revolution Square, I witnessed a verbal argument between two people, each of whom was trying to vent their anger loudly. I thought that if we imagine this anger as a wind in their heads, each of them would vent the wind they have in their heads and transfer it to the other with their screams.” This issue is expressed in a way in the underlying layer of the problem of noise pollution and its consequences in this animation, in such a way that people, knowing that the sounds are bothering them and making their heads bigger, try to vent the sounds from their heads by screaming and venting their anger. This is while the sounds do not disappear and are only transferred from one head to the other. As a result, this is the problem that, considering the main character’s job as a petition writer, the clients, who all have come there with a complaint, scream and vent their anger while describing the incident and presenting their complaint. But in the meantime, contrary to the behavior of other citizens, the young man remains silent, keeps everything that is accumulating in his head, and does not complain.

At the end of the day, when he returns home, he puts on a mask in his sleep and the wind sends his head into the sky in the form of a balloon, so that he can clear some of the sounds from the city and not transmit them to anyone else. This young man’s action is a model for each member of society who can make a small contribution to confronting the harms of noise pollution with patience and selflessness, and at least not try to vent their emotions with aggression when facing others.

Form and Visual Space
The animation of Badsar is produced in a two-dimensional way, in a square frame and a special cut that has been used less often in other animated works. Afzali, the director of the work, says:

“The human characters in this animation have a special role, and considering that the heads of these characters are constantly changing shape, we decided to reduce the stretch of the image and consider both sides of the frame to be black. This was a personal taste and we felt it helped the work.”

4- Parvanegi
Parvanegi is a 2015 animation directed and written by Ali Azizi, and was made in the form of a short experimental animation in six minutes and 34 seconds. This work won the Ecuadorian Animated Film Festival Award in 2018.

Family, addiction, and any factor that can disrupt the foundation of the family are the main themes of this animation. By showing the destructive effects of anything that addiction creates for parents, the film refers to the importance of family and human and emotional relationships in a symbolic format. Ali Azizi, as the director and writer of the work, believes: “My film is about a child. In fact, I have a seven-year-old daughter, and based on this, I have depicted my concerns about children and the problems that may occur to them in the family, because this issue was one of my concerns and I made it the subject of the work.

Parvanegi is the story of a father and daughter whose love, closeness, and connection are evident in the opening scenes, but the relationship is disrupted by the father’s drug use. The animation begins with a few frames of photos that capture the father and daughter and moments of their happy memories. Then the two are seen in a room where, due to their shared interest, each is somehow busy with butterflies. The daughter, delighted by the transformation of cocoons into butterflies, calls her father to her side and both become lost in watching the butterfly fly.

But then the father’s addiction and his states of spontaneity, where he imagines himself in the form of a butterfly, and the girl’s loneliness are depicted; loneliness that represents one of the main complications and problems of drug use in family functioning and creates the basis for the formation of psychological and social problems for children. The image of the girl, while hugging her knees and sitting alone in the corner of the room, is a reflection of the fact that the father, as a parent, has lost the opportunities to raise his child and attach to him due to his use of addictive drugs, and without creating a healthy attachment, the child becomes vulnerable and is exposed to problems such as depression and anxiety and other mental illnesses.

Also, when the father is faced with frames in his daughter’s room that show the daughter crying and the father in an unnatural and frightening manner, it is a representation of a child who has been neglected and a father who has lost connection with the family environment and closeness to the child due to addiction.

At the end of the story, when the father throws away the opium box and hugs his daughter, they both turn into butterflies and fly into a box. The box here is an allegory of home and, in other words, a safe place for the family, here the father and daughter are the story and the return to life.

Form and Visual Space
The design of the Parvanegi animation uses the oil painting technique, and the light shining from above on the images clearly defines the texture of the oil paint. The framing does not pay attention to perspective, in fact, what is important in this animation is the narrative structure of the work, which is intended to represent the subject, which occurs in a kind of timelessness. The images change continuously from one form to another and connect the events, which ultimately connect with the audience by evoking their feelings.

The backgrounds are devoid of details and the use of colors is limited, so that the two colors purple and orange used in the design of the father and daughter are the two dominant colors of the entire work, and the rest of the colors are considered neutral. The strokes are made with a wide brush, and in general, all these features in the simple depiction of the visual elements of this work, in a way, serve to draw the audience’s attention to the main subject.

5- Pesare Darya
This work, directed and written by Abbas Jalali Yekta, was made in 2018 with the structure of an experimental short animation. The technique of the work is a combination of animation cell, animation diagram, and the combination of animated characters with live action in a computer and two-dimensional way. The duration of the work is 10 minutes and 22 seconds. This animation won a special award at the 59th Annecy International Animated Film Festival and is the first Iranian animation to win an award in this category. Also, in 2019, it qualified for the short animation competition section of the Melbourne Festival in Australia and won the cash prize for the best Asian film at the 23rd Seoul Animation and Cartoon Film Festival, which was held in the capital of South Korea from July 16 to 19, 2019.

This animation tells the story of a couple who have taken different paths in mourning their lost child. In fact, the story is a reflection of the critical and traumatic event of losing a child, which is perhaps one of the most devastating and difficult losses.

A family undergoes fundamental changes after the death of their child and is exposed to risks such as physical and mental illnesses. In many cases, the grieving parents experience a breakdown in their relationships due to their different reactions to this event.

As shown in this story, the man imagines and lives with the moving image of his child on the wall, but the woman, in a more rational reaction, accepts the absence of the child, which causes her and her husband to have disagreements.

Pesare Darya depicts the virtual existence of the son as a colorless painting on the wall, but with the mood of a lively and happy child, whose father also feels better by being with him, eating and playing with him. But in contrast, the mother tries to collect all the signs of the child that remind her of him. The view of the room where the boy’s photos and toys are being collected indicates this reality.

All these images are a reflection of behavioral changes such as avoiding everything that reminds of the child, staying away from his favorite activities, getting lost in dreams and having a fantasy life with the child, which happens to many parents in such a situation.

Relationships and emotional attachment to the lost child may continue indefinitely and sometimes cause abnormal actions in the parents and continue. Just as the father in this story goes to the point where, regardless of his wife’s warnings and her discomfort, he throws a birthday party for the boy on the wall, causing the wife to leave the house and him.

Although in the end, the father also believes that the child is not there and erases the imaginary image of the boy, this story points to an important issue that seems to need more attention. “Some bereaved parents in Iran refer to psychological centers to cope with the loss of their child, and some, for various reasons such as lack of awareness, or lack of feeling the need to talk to a psychologist, or financial issues, are reluctant to seek help from experts in this field. For this reason, and due to the lack of study or awareness of the experiences of other parents and the changes that occur in their personal and social lives after the death of a child, they are exposed to many harms such as depression, separation, neglect of other children, etc. “

Although at the end of the animation, the father ends his relationship with the painting on the wall, the presence of a real child in the man and woman’s home on the one hand, and the painting on the wall showing an imaginary boy in the arms of the man and woman walking towards the sea on the other, symbolizes the continuation of life.

Form and Visual Space
In this work, the space is designed in such a way that the audience accepts the presence of this animated character alongside the live characters in the film. The use of the camera is such that the film space does not have perspective and is close to a two-dimensional space. Also, the inner play of the actors, the static life and stillness, easily make the live part of the film visible in contrast to the passion and life of the animated boy. One of the reasons why this work shined at the prestigious Annecy Festival is its new look and the combination of real film and animation.

6- Pishkhedmat
This animation, produced in 2016, was directed by Farnoosh Abedi and written by Mohammad Reza Abedi. The animation is 9 minutes long and is a short story animation that has made its way to various countries and festivals and has been nominated for awards eight times and has received about 10 awards; including: the Best Short Animation Award at the 10th Tehran Animation Festival in 2016, the Best Short Animation Award at the London Independent Festival in 2017.

The animation Pishkhedmat tells the story of a young writer who, at the beginning of the story, intends to commit suicide, but encounters a cockroach, which changes his course and prevents him from committing suicide. The young man, whose living environment shows boring and repetitive times, now finds a new hobby with the cockroach, and when he encounters its large size, he considers a new function for it. The cockroach takes on a human appearance, wears a bow tie, and wears a dress similar to a frock coat with a long ribbon that waiters wear. In fact, the cockroach’s wings are designed to resemble the tails of these coats, and it has eyes that are much clearer than those of a cockroach or a human. He entrusts the routine household chores to him and even sometimes accompanies him to have fun, such as in the scene where they are playing table tennis.

This animation, depicting scenes of the life of a male writer and a cockroach, is a reflection of a person lost in today’s material world, whose world around him has tied his thoughts like a rope and alienated him from himself. The successive and monotonous passage of days and nights after the arrival of the cockroach, for the young writer, is a sign of routine and lack of motivation and sufficient effort in life, which has resulted in nothing but nihilism and has left him with no choice but to become another being. A being in the form of a cockroach that shows its strength and comes to his aid through the young man’s weakness.

For example, when the landlady comes looking for her overdue rent and the young man cannot convince her to give him more time, the cockroach comes to the young man’s aid by turning on the gramophone and playing music, and provides him with a way to escape.

In another place, when the young writer, unable to write, which is his main profession and source of income, is tired and helpless, and the image of his dusty library also symbolizes his unwillingness to read and make more effort, the cockroach begins to read in his place.

In fact, the story is a narrative of two characters or two identities in the young man’s being, each of whom finds a dominant personality and identity in different situations and influences and dominates his behavior. When the young writer writes, the cockroach is busy with housework in the form of a waiter, and when he is desperate to write, the cockroach takes the place of the master and the young man plays the role of the waiter. So much so that in one scene, the cockroach is even seen at the table typing on a typewriter. This change in personalities reflects one of the social harms of living in the modern era in a group of people who repeat their daily routines without any thought and as a result of their frustration with the conditions of society, they suffer from personality disorders in their work and life. Various personalities appear in them, each with unique characteristics and abilities, and as a result, they even create memories that are distinct from each other. Like the murder of the old woman who owns the house, which although initially happens by a cockroach, in the end, when it is revealed that the writer and the cockroach are one, the man remembers this memory from his perspective.

At the end of the story, the young writer, upon seeing his image in the mirror, realizes that he has gone from a nightmare of everyday life and emptiness to a greater nightmare, which is the nightmare of being involved between a human and an insect. He has become an insectoid human or an insectoid anthropomorphic, each performing the tasks of the other in certain situations and covering up his inabilities, and the suicide incident at the beginning of the story occurs in a different way at the end.

Form and Visual Space
Pishkhedmat, by using the 3D technique, is very close to the real space and in the design of the main character of the story, who is a young writer, in terms of appearance features reminiscent of Sadegh Hedayat, and in terms of space creation, it is designed in an atmosphere similar to the atmosphere of the twenties of Iran. On the other hand, in parts of the work, such as the portrayal of the old woman owner of the house, perhaps not many Iranian features are seen, but in another scene, the Baghdadi fortune teller’s painting is seen on the wall.

This animation is made in the horror genre and to some extent the noir genre, and has complex scenes full of shadows and lights. Also, its black and white is a reflection of the blackness, frustration, hopelessness and pessimism of the central character of the story. In many scenes, the isolation of the hero of the work is emphasized by using intense lighting on the writer or the cockroach, and therefore many of the sequences take place at night. The lighting is full of contrast, the compositions are off-center and unstable. The authorial element and the presence of the typewriter, which are always seen in film noir, are also present in this work.

7- Sozanban
The animation Sozanban, produced in 2015, is directed by Mehdi Khorramian and written by Ali Hazratpour. It is a 10-minute short animation. Winning an award at the 34th International Cartoon Club Festival in Italy, participating in the Seoul International Cartoon and Animation Festival in South Korea, as well as winning the Best Animation Award at the San Francisco Iranian Film Festival, etc. are among the honors of this animation.

“The train is leaving, you are leaving, the whole station is leaving, and how simple I am, that for years, I have been standing by this train, waiting for you, and still, I have leaned on the railings of the station.” (Gheisar Amin Pour)

Mehdi Khorramian, as the director of this animation, expresses the main idea of ​​the story based on this poem by Gheisar Amin Pour and considers Sozanban a story of failure and expectation. The story of a signalman who has been waiting for his young love at a train station for years. He sees the woman in different situations, but at the end of the film, the audience realizes that all these events were in the signalman’s mind. This animation is a reflection of waiting, a waiting mixed with love, patience and belief in her return, even if it is in his imagination.

The story of Sozanban takes place in a remote station in Iran in the 1940s or 1950s, and the audience learns this from the newspaper held by the old switchman. In the scene, the old switchman remembers his youth when he witnessed the girl he had a crush on, running towards the train, and as she runs after the train, he returns to the present time, which is where his simple story unfolds. All these years, he has been waiting for the return of his favorite girl at this station, and the deep and heartfelt belief of the old switchman takes the audience with him as he waits. Every time a train arrives, he imagines a woman getting off the train, but without joining her, he gets back on the train and leaves. There is always an empty cup on the old man’s small table, which speaks of his heartfelt belief in her return. He even imagines the woman behind the table, but he still lets her go.

The old man’s nightly dreams of climbing a ladder to the sky are a symbol of endless waiting, as this dream repeats itself every night and he wakes up before reaching his destination each time.

The last time the old man’s dream is repeated at the end of the animation, he falls, and this time when he goes to the train, his imaginary life at the station is destroyed, not for him, who is a real waiter, but only for the audience of the work.

Waiting is a familiar category that is observed in various forms in society, waiting for a lost love, a child far from his parents, or a greater wait for the emergence of a savior… Sometimes this waiting ends in restlessness and despair, and sometimes with patience and hope. That is why many works are made about this, but each has its own special story.

Waiting, in its various forms and in different people, has different consequences. Sometimes, in the form of a dynamic expectation with hope, it leads to greater effort and a more active life in the waiting person, and sometimes it ends in despair and restlessness, disrupting the course of life for people. In The Signalman, a waiting is depicted that, with the passage of many years, has caused the loss of the youth of the man in love, even the disappearance of the station and his profession as a signalman, but despite his separation from normal life, his steadfastness and heartfelt belief in returning have not diminished in the slightest.

In the final shot, the old man is seen standing watching the arrival of a new train. He still hopes for the return of his beloved, but the extension of his gaze this time towards the audience shows an abandoned and dilapidated station where no return is possible. This is the boundary between reality and fantasy, where the image of the train and the sound of the train are only understandable to the signalman, and he prefers to remain in this dream and fantasy.

Form and Visual Space
The Sozanban animation is made in a puppet style and therefore has a good ability to connect with the audience and make the effect more believable. When in the opening scene, the old man wakes up and a view of his shoes is seen, which are real shoes but in a smaller size, it becomes easier to believe that the owner of these shoes is in them. After that, views of the interior of the room are shown, where all the real objects are made in small sizes. Also, the face of the man, with full and knotted eyebrows that largely cover his eyes, the wrinkles around his eyes and the man’s emotionless face can perhaps be believed in a more tangible way with this puppet. The colors are cold and mostly in the gray range, which symbolizes the repetitive life and the absence of any excitement of the man during the waiting period, and the only colorful element of the image is the woman in the story, who is wearing a red dress, which is a sign of both love and warmth that will come with his arrival.

In this short animation, which is wordless, the emotional and sentimental theme of the story is strengthened by the accompaniment of romantic music that becomes more prominent in moments when the woman is present, and the use of this melody plays a significant role in the viewer’s connection with the subject.

8- Shayeeh
This work, directed and written by Leila Norouzi, was made in 2016 in the form of an experimental short animation. The duration of the work is four minutes and 50 seconds and it was made in a computer-generated 2D format.

The animation Shayeeh was screened in the short animation competition section of the Anibar Kosovo Festival in 2017 and the animation section of the Ecuador International Short Film Festival in 2018. It also managed to appear in the international competition section of the Wafi and Rafi Festival in Croatia in 2018.

This animation tells the story of a woman who, upon seeing a scene, is misunderstood and creates a rumor that others, by fueling this rumor, gradually turn it into a big monster. The subject, while simple, expresses a social harm that perhaps most of the time, people in society easily ignore.

Rumors have been called the oldest mass media that has always existed and, given the lack of transparency in most of the issues of the day, have had a negative impact on public opinion and are harmful.

Rumors have great destructive power among social harms, and this destruction is symbolically depicted in this animation. Rumors are in the form of a few drops of slimy liquid released throughout the story that slowly spread, people secretly and whisperingly pass it on to each other and it grows bigger and bigger, eventually spreading everywhere and causing the destruction of the city. In fact, pessimism among people towards each other, people’s distrust of officials, feelings of insecurity, despair and hopelessness, etc. are all destructive harms that rumors create in society.

The woman who is shown at the beginning of the work, having fun and enjoying the air on the balcony, and immediately starts spreading rumors upon seeing a man and woman in the neighbor’s house, is a symbol of a person who starts gossiping to increase her credibility with others and at the same time tries to attract the attention of others towards her as an informed person. In many cases, gossip and telling it to people has the aspect of entertainment and therefore attracts the attention of the listener. Two women who are knitting, hear the rumor and tell it to each other with excitement are examples of such people.

As a socio-psychological phenomenon, gossip is more or less prevalent in different societies and, without people being sure about it, it spreads among different population groups and affects them. The humans who were shown in pink at the beginning of the story and who emerge from the rumor monster in the same color as the monster at the end of the animation are a reflection of the influence of the rumors spread among them.

Another emphasis that this animation places on the topic of rumors is by depicting the famous example of “one crow, forty crows.” The story begins with a crow flying over power lines and then, when the rumor monster takes over the entire city, it shows a group of crows flying, symbolizing the transformation of one crow into forty crows as the rumor spreads.

In conclusion, it can be said that “no society can be found that does not occasionally witness the spread of one or more small and large rumors. On the other hand, rumors are usually in clear conflict with the flow of official news and information in the country and, in normal conditions or in times of crisis, can endanger national security to varying degrees.” Therefore, despite the simplicity of the subject of this work at first glance, it is very important to pay attention to it.

Form and Visual Space
Like many other short animations, what has a special place in this work is the subject and the transfer of meaning to the audience. For this reason, the use of imagination, like the liquid that comes out of the mouth after each rumor is told, has played a prominent role in the script. In the design of this animation, the backgrounds are very simple, devoid of details, and in black and white.

The use of color plays a major role in focusing the audience on the main subject and is used to separate the humans, who are in pink, and the rumor, who are in brown, from the entire environmental space. Audible elements, such as the sound of crows, or effects that are heard instead of the voices of people during conversations, have a significant impact on advancing the narrative line of the story.

9- Yek Nafar
The animation Yek Nafar, produced in 2018, written and directed by Mahboobeh Kalai, is created in the form of an experimental short animation and the duration of the work is three minutes and 30 seconds.

This animation has won many honors, including participation in the 47th Zagreb International Film Festival, the International Competition section of the Canterbury Festival in England, the Bosnia and Herzegovina International Animated Film Festival, and… It also won a plaque of appreciation at the Tehran International Short Film Festival in 2019.

In a bowl of roses, a world of meaning arises, a round bowl that symbolizes the earth and its outer edge is considered a forest in which a young man, while playing in it, finds love when he sees a girl who appears from between the trees. The world of this animation is an old bowl of roses that has a nostalgic feeling for most people and the characters emerge from the flowers of the bowl in the form of spots of color. In fact, One Person is a single shot that makes good use of a completely domestic element and roses that have always been a symbol of love in Iranian culture.

“I am an observant person and I unconsciously pay special attention to the elements around me. One day, when I saw the water in the bowl, Mohsen Niqabi’s poem: “Two people are better than one, one person is better than three” entered my mind and the idea for this story and the creation of this animation was formed for me. In fact, the movement of water in the bowl brought me to this poem.”

The story of this animation is the narration of a love triangle that is depicted by using limited elements and characters. A young man who is seeking to reach his beloved encounters a rival who steals his love from him. In fact, despite the three roses that have been engraved on the bowl from the beginning, it seems that the second young man was present from the beginning, but the audience did not notice his presence and now he arrives unexpectedly and steals the love of the first young man from him. Now the initiator of this love is alone, but in the face of the fact that there is no shortage of examples of it in the real and material world, what is important is the reaction of the young man in love.

The theme of the love triangle that this work represents is the origin and source of many of the problems and dilemmas of today’s world. If in such a situation, a logical and justified decision and path were taken, perhaps many of the subsequent harms and secondary problems would not occur. The young lover in a person comes to acceptance when he realizes that he cannot possess his love, an acceptance of loneliness, but a loneliness during which he also preserves love without having a lover for himself.

In fact, the third motif, by taking away the motif of the girl, takes material love with it, and this theme is well reflected in the fading and disappearance of the ink stains after the mixing of the second and third motifs in the center of the bowl. In contrast, the young lover, through his acceptance, again seeks compromise and chooses true love, and it is this connection to a world beyond the material world that makes him last, and this is well expressed by the trace of ink that he has left in the bowl.

He plays the instrument with love and a poem appears next to the bowl that confirms the choice of the young lover: “Two are better than one, one is better than three.” Solitude and preserving true love, from the young lover’s side, is the best choice compared to being in a group of three and a love triangle that would not bring him any results.

What happens is in a simple old bowl that is one of the simple and everyday objects of life and its roundness is likened to the earth and the real world. The elements used are very limited and include three motifs of roses and trees that are engraved on the circumference of this bowl. The work is very minimalist and as a result even the colors are limited and include the white color of the bowl, the red of the flowers and the blackness of the world outside the bowl. Despite the poetic atmosphere that dominates the entire work, the world inside the bowl has a more dreamlike aspect due to the engraving of the inks in it.

The use of music and its ups and downs play an important role in advancing the story. When the rival kidnaps the young lover’s love, the music peaks and, at the end, when he reaches a peaceful acceptance, it returns to its original calm state.

Conclusion
Animation, due to its visual characteristics, can have a significant impact on its audience by representing the outside world, because as a medium or socio-cultural work, it is able to portray part of the reality of humans and society and take the audience to the depths of social life.

One of the realities surrounding today’s society is the social harm caused by modern life, especially in metropolises, as well as the neglect of many human values ​​and emotions and less attention to them, which has created countless problems and consequences in the modern world.

In this research, with the aim of studying the reflection of social harms in prominent Iranian short animations at international festivals, it was concluded that some animation creators, considering the biological experience of the society in which they are creating their work, somehow reflect the problems of society and the harms caused by them, including issues related to human emotions, and in a way seek to raise these problems and sometimes seek solutions, eliminate or prevent phenomena resulting from cultural-social challenges. In many cases, these works also have the aspect of reminding emotions that have been forgotten. This research, by analyzing and interpreting the content of 9 selected animations in the statistical population, witnessed the representation of some of the current harms of society as follows:

In the animation “Adam Khanegi”, the issue of animal rights and issues such as excessive hunting, which is a serious harm to the environment, are raised. Also, keeping pets, which has become a value in many parts of Iran today and is a sign of having a high culture and being in a distinct social class, is another issue that the work refers to. The creator of the work criticizes this social harm that is increasingly accepted by the general public and brings its own problems, both in terms of the conditions of keeping animals and the people who take responsibility for keeping them.

In the animation Ektesabat Entesabi, it was seen that genetic defects and disabilities and the resulting harms are discussed, at the top of which is the lack of self-confidence in personal evaluations in collective situations and dissatisfaction with one’s own situation, which sometimes even brings a person to the verge of suicide.

In another work called Badsar, the effects and destructive consequences that noise pollution in big cities may cause to the citizens of these cities are displayed in a fantasy and imaginary format. By analyzing the signs of the work, it was discovered that there are damages such as disruptions in normal life, such as excessive anger in people and attempts to vent it by transferring it to another person.

In the analysis of the animation Parvanegi, it was seen how this work attempted to reflect the loss of attachment and healthy communication between parents and children due to addiction and consequences such as depression and mental conflict in children.

Also, addressing the traumatic issue of losing a child and the consequences and harms caused by it, in a family, was seen in the animation Pesare Darya, and how parents may suffer from physical and mental illnesses with the different reactions they adopt.

A reflection of one of the social harms of living in the modern era, which is the repetition of daily routines and frustration with social conditions, and as a result, it causes personality disorders in a group of people; was seen in the animation Pishkhedmat. Also, the discussion of waiting, which is a common cinematic subject, this time was depicted as the central theme of a short animation in Sozanban, and in the form of waiting with heartfelt belief and patience despite failure, and it had a different treatment in the form of a work. How waiting in a person can take him out of the natural process of life and cause him to live an imaginary life in longing for the past days.

In another animation discussed in this study, titled Shayeeh, it was observed that regarding gossiping as one of the social harms that has great destructive power, but is often very easily ignored, its destructive power is depicted symbolically. Because in reality, the existence of rumors among people in society can lead to their pessimism towards each other, people’s distrust of officials, feelings of insecurity, despair and hopelessness, etc.

Finally, in the animation Yek Nafar, the theme of the love triangle and the young man who, after not reaching his beloved, reaches a love beyond earthly love by accepting loneliness was represented. In this story, the lover, faced with a love rival, chooses love without the presence of the beloved for himself, thus preventing many problems and harms of this story.

In addition to the narrative line of the aforementioned works, it was clear that visual and musical elements have a decisive importance in advancing the story and the goals of the animations, and in many cases, design and music have given special credibility to the entire work. In short animations, which are mostly wordless, music sometimes covers the shortcomings of the work more than dialogue and is heard according to the needs of the story and helps convey feelings. Also, the use of different colors and techniques conveys what happened in the imagination of the creator of the work to the viewer in the real world.

In analyzing the results of the research, considering the theory of reflection and in response to the question of whether animation is useful as a tool for presenting the problems and issues of society for artists in this field? It can be said that short animation works can, as a group of works of art, on the one hand, be self-reflective and represent social harms, and on the other hand, affect the audience. Because these works, by displaying the problems and harms of society in an exaggerated manner and in some cases in a surreal way compared to their existential truth, familiarize the audience with these problems for awareness and acceptance as much as possible; so that they will prepare themselves to better face and avoid getting caught up in them, thus leaving a greater impact, which is one of the important functions of cinema and animation in the role of a mass medium.

Source: Journal of Advanced Art Studies
Azadeh Heydari Moghadam(1), Minoo Khani(2), Mohammad Shokri(3)
1. Master of Arts in Art Research, North Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University
2. Assistant Professor and Faculty, North Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University
3. Assistant Professor and Faculty, North Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University