Happy 98th Birthday, Ebrahim Golestan (also spelt Ibrahim Golestan)! Born today in 1922, as Ebrahim Taghavi Shirazi, this Iranian literary figure, producer and director has a career spanning over half of a century.
Born in Shiraz, Iran, Golestan, years later, was married to his cousin, Fakhri Golestan in 1942. During this time, Golestan was also a member of Tudeh Party of Iran. This was an Iranian communist party. However, he broke away six years later in January 1948.
Golestan was closely associated with the controversial, eminent and influential Iranian poet and film director Forough Farrokhzad ('The House Is Black') until her unfortunate death.
He had met Farrokhzad at his studio in 1958. Prior to this, she had spent nine months in Europe.
After returning to Iran in search of a job, she met Golestan. He then reinforced her own inclinations to express herself and live independently. She had begun a love affair with Golestan as well.
During the 1960s, Golestan became partners with Farrokhzad. Two years later, she travelled to Tabriz, the most populated city in northwestern Iran.
She had gone there to make a film about Iranians affected by leprosy. The film features footage from the Bababaghi Hospice leper colony
This twenty-two-minute 1963 Iranian black and white documentary/short film 'Khaneh siah ast' ('The House is Black') is considered to be an essential part of the Iranian New Wave.
During the twelve days of shooting, Farrokhzad became attached to Hossein Mansouri, the child of two lepers. She adopted the boy and brought him to live at her mother's house. 'The House Is Black' was produced and also co-narrated by Golestan.
The film is set in a leper colony in the north of Iran, 'The House is Black' juxtaposes the evils of the world with religion and gratitude.
Although the film attracted little attention outside Iran when released, it has since been recognized as a landmark in Iranian film.
Two years later, Golestan wrote, produced and directed the two-hour plus 1964 Iranian-Persian black and white genre drama film 'Khesht va Ayeneh' ('Brick and Mirror').
Set in 1960s Teheran, where the modern glare of nocturnal neon signs vies with the fears induced by a divested and deprived society, the film follows Hashem (Zakariya Hashemi), a cab driver who carries a woman passenger to an address on the edge of the town where she disembarks.
As soon as she is gone away into the darkness, Hashem hears and finds a baby in the back seat of his taxi. He gets out and tries to alert and find the woman, but to no avail.
His long and useless search goes on through many and different episodes, soon in the company of Taji (Taji Ahmadi), a restaurant worker with whom he has an affair.
She eventually sees in the lost baby a sign of deliverance from her insecurities; a means as a way out towards a purpose in life.
'Brick and Mirror' was later nominated for a Venezia Classici Award for Best Restored Film. This occurred at the 25th Venice Film Festival of that same year.
Three years later, Farrokhzad passed in a car accident in Tehran, Iran on February 13, 1967. She was 32.
Although the exact circumstances of her demise have been the subject of much debate, the official story is that she swerved her jeep to avoid an oncoming school bus and was thrown out of her car, hitting her head against the curb. It was believed she died before reaching the hospital.
In Iranian-American scholar and author Dr. Farzaneh Milani's 2016 book Forugh Farrokhzad: A Literary Biography With Unpublished Letters, an interview is cited with Golestan, of whom speaks about Farrokhzad's final moments where she died in his arms.
After Farrokhzad's death, Golestan became protective of her privacy and memory.
For example, Golestan published a lengthy attack against American professor of Persian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin Michael Craig Hillmann in a Tehran literary magazine.
This was due to Hillman's May 1987 biographical book "A Lonely Woman: Forugh Farrokhzad and Her Poetry".
To this, Hillmann responded to the attack at length in an article, part of which was also published in the same Tehran literary magazine and which is available online.
The article is located at Academia.edu/MichaelHillmann, under the title "Az Shâ'eri-ye Nâder Nâderpur to Fârsi'khâni dar Qalb-e Tekzâs, Javâbiyeh'i be Ebrâhim Golestân."
In February 2017, on the occasion of fifty years after Farrokhzad's death, the then-ninety-four-year-old Golestan broke his silence about his relationship with Forough, speaking to Iranian-British journalist Saeed Kamali Dehghan for The Guardian.
Golestan said: "I rue all the years she isn't here, of course, that's obvious," he said. "We were very close, but I can't measure how much I had feelings for her. How can I? In kilos? In meters?"
According to Golestan's personal life, he currently resides in Sussex, England, United Kingdom. He has lived there since 1975.
Golestan is the father of Iranian photojournalist and artist Kaveh Golestan, and Iranian translator and owner and artistic director of the Golestan Gallery in Tehran, Lili Golestan.
His grandson, Mani Haghighi, is also a screenwriter, actor and film director. His other grandson Mehrak, is a British musician and rapper of Iranian descent.
American author for Slant Magazine Eric Henderson described the film as "one of the prototypal essay films, The House Is Black paved the way for the Iranian New Wave."
Golestan has been a pioneer in filmmaking and literature for more than half a century, with far-reaching influence on generations of Iranians in various fields of art.
Golestan had been active from 1957–1974.
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