From Black Comedies to Social Realism: Rakhshan Banietemad’s Early Feature Films

This chapter offers an analytical study of Banietemad’s first films, none of which has previously been addressed in detail. Zahedi contextualizes the historical, political, and social factors that led to the birth of a social genre in Iran, and examines the ways in which Banietemad, as an auteur, negotiated the systematic constraints and censorship she faced in her early career with efficient strategies in selecting and staging apparently non-problematic narratives.