TEHRAN-The cinematheque of the Iranian Artists Forum (IAF) in Tehran will screen the 2011 documentary “It May Be That Beauty Has Strengthened Our Resolve: Masao Adachi” directed by Philippe Grandrieux on Sunday.

This is the 36th film shown in the documentary program of the IAF cinematheque. It will be screened at 5 p.m. at Nasseri Hall, IRNA reported.

The screening will be followed by a review session with the presence of the cinema researcher Avesta Mahmoudvand.

In the movie, French filmmaker Grandrieux pays homage to Masao Adachi, a Japanese filmmaker with a turbulent past and now a recluse in his homeland, creating a portrait of this man always faithful in its very own way.

This tribute to the radical Japanese writer-director Adachi is the first in a series of documentaries that Grandrieux wants to dedicate to deeply political filmmakers. For decades, the eccentric Adachi was a member of the extremist Japanese Red Army.

Adachi is one of the most radically political, uncompromising and headstrong filmmakers of his generation.

Best known for his writing collaborations with directors Kōji Wakamatsu and Nagisa Oshima, often under the pseudonyms “Izuru Deguchi” or “De Deguchi”, he also directed a number of his own films, usually dealing with left-wing political themes. Adachi was a prominent director in the Japanese New Wave film movement, producing feature films alongside documentaries. He stopped making films in the early 1970s and joined the Japanese Red Army.

He resided in Lebanon for 28 years, lending assistance to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine until he was arrested and extradited back to Japan in 2000 due to his connections to the JRA. After being held for a year and a half, he was convicted and released based on the time he had already served. Since his release, he has resumed making films.

Grandrieux's typically pitch-black and atmospheric pictorial universe transforms the cinema into a psychological 'dark room' that overcomes the limitations of the medium to expand the spectator's range of experience.

The Iranian Artists Forum is situated at Artists Park on North Mousavi Street, Taleqani Street.

SS/SAB