Illuminationist cinema: How Islamic mysticism inspired Morteza Avini’s Sacred Defence documentaries of the Iran–Iraq War and his attempt at constructing a film theory

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dc.contributor.authorAbbasian, Kaveh
dc.contributor.editorMulvey, Jamesen
dc.date.accessioned2023-09-05T13:57:15Z
dc.date.available2023-09-05T13:57:15Z
dc.date.issued2023
dc.description.abstract‘Sacred Defence cinema’ is the official title given to Iranian pro-establishment war films concerning mainly the Iran-Iraq War [1980-1988]. The most prominent figure of this filmmaking movement who both made films and wrote about them was the documentary filmmaker, Morteza Avini [1947-1993]. In his search for a new Islamic inspired cinematic language, Avini argued that Islamic mysticism could inspire a mode of filmmaking which he called ‘illuminationist cinema’. He used this term mainly in order to reflect on the filmmaking techniques he developed and used during the making of his own documentaries, but also proposed it as a filmmaking method to be adopted by other Islamic filmmakers. Avini’s early death in 1993 put a stop to his theorisation of ‘illuminationist cinema’; however, his films and his writings continue to inspire new generations of Iranian propaganda filmmakers. In this paper, by analysing Avini’s films and writings, I lay out a definition of his ‘illuminationist cinema’ and explain what aspects of Islamic mysticism inspired which filmmaking techniques developed and theorised by him.en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationAbbasian, K. (2023) 'Illuminationist cinema: How Islamic mysticism inspired Morteza Avini’s Sacred Defence documentaries of the Iran–Iraq War and his attempt at constructing a film theory', Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 25, pp. 5-23. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.25.01en
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.25.01
dc.identifier.endpage23
dc.identifier.issn2009-4078
dc.identifier.issued25
dc.identifier.journalabbrevAlphavilleen
dc.identifier.journaltitleAlphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Mediaen
dc.identifier.startpage5
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/14923
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherFilm and Screen Media, University College Corken
dc.relation.urihttps://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue25/HTML/ArticleAbbasian.html
dc.rights© 2023, the Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.en
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
dc.subjectMorteza Avinien
dc.subjectIlluminationist cinemaen
dc.subjectChronicle of Triumphen
dc.subjectIranian Sacred Defence filmmakingen
dc.subjectWar documentariesen
dc.titleIlluminationist cinema: How Islamic mysticism inspired Morteza Avini’s Sacred Defence documentaries of the Iran–Iraq War and his attempt at constructing a film theoryen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
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Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media. Issue 25: Spotlight on Early Career Research in Film Studies