EVENT DETAILS

An Afterlife for Junk Prints: Serial Films and other Classics in Late 1920s Tehran By Kaveh Askari

From the standpoint of the 1920s American film export business, the markets in the Middle East were largely seen as inaccessible or as failed opportunities. American firms failed to establish profitable infrastructures in the cities there, and these failures were all the more apparent to the industry as Hollywood assumed a dominant presence in most other film markets. The films that did show in many cities in the Middle East arrived much later and by paths far more convoluted than their producers would have wished.

This talk takes the convoluted circulation of films seriously, as a positive attribute of the medium rather than as a lack. It offers a case history of the promotion and exhibition of serial adventure films in Tehran from the mid 1920s until the beginning of the sound era, when local film production was minimal and the geopolitical stakes of imported films were high. Using exhibition records from the regular advertisements printed in Ettela’at, it is possible to infer a range of information about what types of films showed, about how complete and how old the exhibition prints were, and about the distributors who supplied them. The records show how Tehran theaters were supplied almost entirely by “junk prints,” almost all serials, amortized in other markets often a full decade before arriving in Tehran. Compared with other markets in Asia and Latin America, where the chronology of reception followed the chronology of production more closely, the lag in Tehran stands out. Because cinemas in Tehran and other cities in the Middle East were shaped by such a significant fact of distribution, a material history of serial film prints can reveal how the junk-print phenomenon helped to shape a distinct film culture and a unique awareness of films as historical objects.

Kaveh Askari is an associate professor in the English department at Western Washington University. He has published articles on the magic lantern, on early 16mm color, and on media historiography. In 2008, he edited a special issue of Early Popular Visual Culture on the Middle East and North Africa. His book on early American cinema and art education is under contract with BFI Publishing.

***Event is free and open to the public.***

***For driving directions and parking information please visit: http://www.uci.edu/visit/maps/