Aref Mohammadi

A discussion with the famous Iranian director Nasser Taghvai about cinema and censorship.

When an Iranian-Canadian filmmaker hears the story of Master Ghadamyar- a Kurdish 120-year-old Tanbur player, he takes off on a mission to discover more about this spiritual master's musical and enchanting life. The film follows his journey to Western Iran, where he unearths the ancient traditions and teachings of Ghadamyar's faith known as Yarsanism, and its relationship to the mysterious Tanbur as a meditative instrument. The film takes audiences on a musical and visual quest among rugged landscapes of Western Iran to experience undiscovered voices and spiritual awakening. We witness the collective prayer of Yarsani Tanburists, as a practice to maintain their spiritual identity and search for inner beauty.

The documentary tells the story of how a young British-Canadian archaeologist went to Iran in 1962, largely on an adventure. There, he became fascinated by Iranian culture, and began to study the country’s history in earnest, specialising in the pre-Islamic Sasanian era. In 1964, Edward Keall explored the ruins of the so-called Yazdegerd’s Castle, which local legends attributed to the last of the Sasanian king of kings. After he had secured a job in 1972 as a curator at the Royal Ontario Museum (Canada), Keall’s proposal to re-activate his old exploration of the castle of King Yazdegerd was endorsed by the Iranian archaeological authorities. The first Canadian expedition was mounted in 1965; the last one was terminated abruptly in February 1979 when the Shah of Iran was toppled by the supporters of the Ayatollah Khomeini. The film documents the events of these times.

The true story of an Iranian survivor from Stalin's death camps.