Walkthrough of Iran’s top-grossers post-revolution

The Islamic Revolution, having been a turning point in the fate of the Iranian nation, coincided with a major shift in arts production, including cinema. ifilm reviews best sellers at the box office, in a series of articles.

1- ‘The Stone's Trip’: 1978

The movie hit the box office sales, in the Iranian calendar year 1978-1979 (ending in March); a year that ended with cinemas closing down, as the revolution picked up. It’s noteworthy that people wouldn’t set cinemas showing this particular movie ablaze, while others were.

Here’s what the director has shared with widely-circulated local papers, so far.

I’d been told by the ex-regime that I was banned from making films within the vicinity of the city. They told me to go to the northern green belt, and shoot one there, besides the sea and in the pristine nature. To make a long story short, I had a difficult time back then. But this movie’s screenplay was written by Behzad Farahani, the now well-known actor. I talked to him, and of my proposal to make the plan into a movie, and he okayed my free adaptation, which eventually turned into ‘The Stone's Trip’.

At that time, the political pressures by the regime were of a suppressing nature, and our society was politically and socially so dynamic. We could sense what was going on, and so, I depicted it in my movie. After all, if there hadn’t been a revolution, I would have faced bitter consequences for my production, given its frank and outspoken nature.

Read more on this in the upcoming part.

Stay with ifilm in the article series, in which you’ll read more about the highest-grossing flicks produced after the Islamic revolution in Iran.

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