Nasser Aqaee appears in Iranian doc on Hafez, Goethe

Iranian veteran actor Nasser Aqaee has appeared as Goethe in a documentary-fiction about the influence of the Persian poet Hafez on the German poet.

Iranian filmmaker Farshad Fereshteh-Hekmat recently completed the film which is about the role of Hafez on inspirations of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

The film titled 'Hafez and Goethe' is sponsored by Iran’s Documentary and Experimental Film Center (DEFC).

The film has been shot on location in Hafez’s hometown Shiraz, which also houses his tomb, as well as in Tehran.

Last spring, Fereshteh-Hekmat and his crew also traveled to Frankfurt, where Goethe was born, and several other German cities such as Weimar, Berlin, Heidelberg and Leipzig to shoot scenes of the film.

'Hafez and Goethe' will have its premiere in Tehran in December during the Cinema Verite, Iran’s major international documentary festival that the DEFC organizes every year in December.

Goethe wrote 'West-East Divan', which contains his poems, notes and essays, under the influence of Hafez’s poetry.

He was familiar with Hafez and his works through his friendship with Austrian Orientalist Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall (1774-1856) who provided the first ever complete translation of the Divan of Hafez into a Western language.

Born in 1946, Aqaee received his Masters from the University of Florida and his PhD from Warwick University in the UK.

He has appeared in movies such as ‘The Last Picture’, ‘Like a Nightmare’, ‘Bear’ and ‘360 Degree’. He has acted in some series as well.

Aqaee has also written several books on cinema and scriptwriting in addition to teaching at a university, and has tried his hand at writing, translation and radio shows.

MG/MF