The Iranian filmmaker and author Ebrahim Golestan passed away in the United Kingdom at the age of 100. Wednesday, his daughter Lili verified his passing in a brief Instagram post: “Father has passed away. Good-bye.”
Golestan leaves an enduring legacy and has influenced a great number of Iranian artists. He was born in Shiraz, southern Iran, in 1922, when the country was just beginning to open up to the outside world.
Political and cultural curiosity spawned a cohort of intellectuals who helped define Iran in the 20th century. In the early 1950s, the young Golestan observed attentively the growing movement to nationalize Iran’s energy industry.
Soon after joining the communist Tudeh Party, he became disillusioned and turned to documentary filmmaking and creative writing.
The 1953 revolution supported by the United Kingdom and the United States, which toppled the anti-colonial government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq, likely contributed to this decision.
Early in the 1960s, Golestan’s documentaries received international acclaim. At the Venice Film Festival, A Fire, an extremely visual depiction of a massive oil well fire in southwestern Iran, garnered two awards.
Golestan went on to direct The Brick and the Mirror (1965), a groundbreaking drama about a taxi driver who discovers an abandoned infant in the back seat of his vehicle and spends the night attempting to get rid of it.
It was one of the earliest examples of the Iranian New Wave and influenced the subsequent generation of Iranian filmmakers.
In his numerous collections of short stories and lengthier works, Golestan paid special attention to narrative language that was rhythmic and well-crafted. His profound familiarity with classical Persian poetry and prose, which was reflected in his forceful voice, was to his advantage.
During the 1960s, Golestan assisted a number of Iranian artists who expressed growing discontent with the monarchy of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, but he chose to abstain from overt political activity.
During this period, he also began an intimate relationship with the renowned female poet Forough Farrokhzad.
Before she perished in an automobile accident in 1967 at the age of 32, Farrokhzad became the literary voice of Iranian women.
According to numerous Iranian critics, her relationship with Golestan significantly influenced her literary output.
Golestan resolved to depart Iran for England in 1975, four years prior to the Islamic Revolution that overthrew the Shah. He ultimately purchased a Victorian mansion in Bolney, West Sussex, where he eventually resided.
Although he never returned to Iran over the subsequent fifty years, Golestan maintained contact with Iranian cultural figures, many of whom he inspired.
However, those who visited him during these extended years frequently lamented the fact that he refrained from artistic production and instead gave infrequent interviews about his legacy.
In 2003, his son Kaveh Golestan, a BBC cameraman, perished after stumbling on a landmine in northern Iraq.
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