ReFocus: The Films of Rakhshan Banietemad

Maryam Ghorbankarimi is Associate Professor of Film Studies at Lancaster University. Her research focuses on women’s representation in Iranian cinema, transnational feminist aesthetics, and the intersections of film, politics and cultural memory. She is the author of A Colourful Presence: The Evolution of Women’s Representation in Iranian Cinema (2015) and editor of ReFocus: The Works of Rakhshan Banietemad (2021). She also co-edited The I.B. Tauris Handbook of Iranian Cinema (2024).

• AcknowledgementsList of FiguresNotes on ContributorsA Note on Transliteration and StylePart I: IntroductionAn Overview of Banietemad’s Career and Films - Maryam GhorbankarimiA Conversation with the Director - Maryam GhorbankarimiPart II: Aesthetics, Politics and Narrative Structure1. From Black Comedies to Social Realism: Rakhshan Banietemad’s Early Feature Films - Farshad Zahedi2. Under the Skin of Society: Rakhshan Banietemad’s Social History of Post-Revolutionary Iran - Matthias Wittmann3. Tales and the Cinematic Divan of Rakhshan Banietemad - Michelle Langford4. The Artistic and Political Implications of the Meta-Cinematic in Rakhshan Banietemad’s Films - Zahra KhosroshahiPart III: Gender, Love and Sexuality5. Modes of Expression not Subject to the Law of Male Desire: Considering the Role of Voice-Over and Enunciation in the work of Rakhshan Banietemad - Rosa Holman6. Affective Listering, Sonic Intimacy and the Power of Quiet Voices in Rakhshan Banietemad’s the May Lady: Towards a Cinema of Empathy - Laudan Nooshin7. The Blue-Veiled: A semiological Analysis of a Social Love Story - Asal Bagheri8. Masculinitties in Banietemad’s Tales: Reshuffling Gender Dynamics Under Socioeconomic Pressures - Nina Khamsy9. Representing Sexuality on Screen in Walled Societies: A Comparative Analysis of Iranian Film (The May Lady) and Chinese Film (Army Nurse) - Yunzi HanPart IV: Fact, Fiction and Society10. Rakhshan Banietemad’s Art of Social Realism: Bridging Realism and Fiction - Maryam Ghorbankarimi11. Embracing All My Trees: an Ecocritical Reading - Fatemeh-Mehr Khansalar12. Hidden Transcripts of Subordinates and the Art of Resistance in Our Times - Bahar AbdiFilmographyBibliography

Aspects of Iranian cinema—race, gender, class, social and artistic history—have been blessed with generations of groundbreaking scholarship. Maryam Ghorbankarimi’s edited volume brings together a collection of insightful essays on a seminal figure in Iranian cinema. With impeccable attention to details, full command of archival material, and inquisitive prose, these essays push the boundaries of the whole discipline of cinema studies to unprecedented levels. This book is a model of scholarship for the new generation of cinema studies.