For many, movies can be a distraction. But film can offer more than mere entertainment value. Movies can challenge a viewer’s assumptions and morals, provoke critical thought and introduce novel ideas.
For these reasons, movies are invaluable instructive devices, capable of presenting complex concepts in an accessible way. It is this versatility that brings Duke University literature and women’s studies professor Negar Mottahedeh to campus tonight for a lecture titled “Crude Extractions: the Quest for Oil and the Construction of an Imaginary Modernity in Iranian Cinema.”
“Film has the capacity to change our minds,” said Mottahedeh, cultural critic and film theorist who focuses on Iranian film. “For me, that’s the most important part of my job — to question hardened perceptions.”
Mottahedeh’s lecture — which will be held at the FedEx Global Education Center — focuses on the development of Iranian film throughout the twentieth century, and how the film industry complements and critiques aspects of life not associated with film.
“I tell a different history of Iranian cinema, and emphasize an old film industry in a country in which many wouldn’t think there was one,” Mottahedeh said. “Also, few think of political, economic and industrial processes in relation to film. In fact, even when we’re entertained, there is a lot more at work.”
Mottahedeh returns to UNC after lecturing on Persian film last fall; both tonight’s lecture and the lecture from last fall are part of a loose series sponsored by UNC Friends of the Library, the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations, UNC Persian Studies and the Iranian Cultural Society of North Carolina. The series is going to continue into next fall, when sponsors plan to screen three Persian films for the public.
According to Peggy Myers, director of library development at UNC, tonight’s lecture and the ensuing film series offer insight into Iranian culture, an opportunity that many UNC students have likely not been afforded.
“I hope that it’s an opportunity to see a film students may not have had exposure to,” Myers said. “Independent and foreign films often do not get much publicity, and so it’s a chance to expose our local community, students, and faculty to something they’ve never experienced before.”
Myers said exposure to new ideas and cultures through film is important as well as convenient, as students may not seek out the information on their own. She said the series is about more than just movies — the real goal of the program is to encourage understanding.
“People are people everywhere, and seeing stories set in different cultures increases our understanding of those cultures,” Myers said.
Because of the transcendental nature of films and their ability to entertain and inform, Mottahdeh's lecture is aimed to cater to a diverse audience, regardless of ethnicity, age or religion.
According to Mottahedeh, Iranian films gained popularity fairly recently.
“Iranian film truly became known in the 1990s in the International film festival circuit,” Mottahedeh said. “Critics talked about it as a beautiful, humanist and poetic cinema.”
arts@dailytarheel.com
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