TEHRAN – A book on the career of the German-based Iranian playwright and stage and screen director Arbi Avanesian was unveiled Thursday during a ceremony at the Film Museum of Iran in Tehran.
“Theater and Cinema of Arbi Avanesian” compiled by Majid Lashgari has recently been published by Rozaneh Publications, the Persian service of ISNA reported on Friday.
A large number of veteran cineastes including Farideh Sepah-Mansur, Mehdi Hashemi, Dariush Farhang, Hushang Tavakkoli and Jamshid Mashayekhi attended the unveiling ceremony of the book, which also contains an extensive archive of Iran’s history of theater.
“While I was studying works by playwright Abbas Nalbandian (1947-1987), I noticed a big difference in their structure so I was interested to find out the director who had worked on his plays and from there I connected with Avanesain,” Lashgari said in his short speech.
The German-based Iranian film and theater director Avanesian also made a short speech, saying, “I believe the (good) characteristic of theater is its live performance, that is why I never gathered an archive of my works, but Lashgari collected them in his 10-year long research work, which is of great importance for me”.
The two-volume book is a valuable source for theater researchers and carries an important part of the history of the theater of Iran, researcher Farindokht Zahedi said, adding that it contains a collection of scattered documents which was about to be destroyed.
Several cineastes also gave brief speeches about Avanesian at the ceremony.
Avanesian had directed several plays and films before the Islamic Revolution (1979) including the movie “Spring” (1969) and the play “The Cherry Orchard” (1972).
RM/YAW
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