TEHRAN – Iranian filmmaker Farshad Fereshteh-Hekmat has recently completed a docufiction that sheds light on great German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s inspiration from the Persian poet Hafez.

Veteran stage and screen actor Nasser Aqai portrays Goethe in the film titled “Hafez and Goethe”, Iran’s Documentary and Experimental Film Center (DEFC) that sponsored the project announced on Tuesday.

The film has been shot on location in Hafez’s hometown Shiraz, which also houses his tomb, and Tehran. Last spring, Fereshteh-Hekmat and his crew also traveled to Frankfurt, where Goethe was born, and several other German cities such as Weimar, Berlin, Heidelberg and Leipzig to shoot scenes of the film. 

“Hafez and Goethe” will have its premiere in Tehran during the Cinema Verite, Iran’s major international documentary festival that the DEFC organizes every year in December.

Goethe wrote “West-East Divan”, which contains his poems, notes and essays, under the influence of Hafez’s poetry.

He was familiar with Hafez and his works through his friendship with Austrian Orientalist Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall (1774-1856) who provided the first ever complete translation of the Divan of Hafez into a Western language.

“In fact, Hammer-Purgstall built a bridge between Goethe and Hafez,” Iranian scholar Kurosh Kamali Sarvestani once said.

Photo: Iranian actor Nasser Aqai portrays German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in the docufiction “Hafez and Goethe” by Farshad Fereshteh-Hekmat. (DEFC )

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