TEHRAN-The Cinema Museum of Iran, in north of Tehran, will screen the restored version of the famous 1987 Iranian feature film “Captain Khorshid” written and directed by Nasser Taghvai on Wednesday.

The film screening will be followed by a session in the presence of the producer of the film Haroon Yashayayi and movie critic Saeid Ghotbizadeh, where they talk about Taghvai’s works, and specifically “Captain Khorshid”.

Considered one of the greatest Iranian movies by critics, the film won the Bronze Leopard for Taghvai at the 48th Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland in 1988, and two awards for the best lead actor and supporting actor at the 5th Fajr Film Festival in Tehran, ILNA reported.

The movie is a free adaptation of the American writer Ernest Hemingway’s 1937 novel “To Have and Have Not”. While the original story happens in Cuba, Taghvai has localized the events, and thus the setting has been moved to the south of Iran, in a village on the shores of the Persian Gulf.

Restored by the National Film Archives of Iran, the film follows Captain Khorshid as he accepts, due to the hardships of life and financial worries, to illegally take some dangerous exiled criminals out of the country on his boat.

Apart from the shift of location from Cuba to Iran, the main difference lies in the fact that the female character is overshadowed in Taghvai's adaptation and has a smaller role. The Chinese immigrants of the novel are excluded - the four Cubans become Iranian criminals in exile, who are much more evil and uncontrolled.

The main character, Harry Morgan, in the original story is first pictured as a cold-blooded murderer but later we find out that he is a good man, Khorshid has our sympathy from the beginning. The ending is also different, as Khorshid dies in his boat.

The most important similarity between this film adaptation and the novel is the fact that Khorshid, as Morgan, is driven to crime by economic worries.

The cast includes Dariush Arjmand, Saeed Poursamimi, Ali Nasirian, Parvaneh Masoumi, Jafar Vali and Fat’hali Oveissi among others.

Born in Abadan, southwestern Khuzestan Province, the veteran director Taghvai, 82, is a well-known filmmaker whose works have gained critical acclaim. As his father was a customs official, he traveled to the southern border regions of Iran in Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan Province. Therefore, in many of his movies, Taghvai has depicted the ethnography and atmosphere of southern Iran, where he grew up.

Taghvai is also interested in literature. So similar to “Captain Khorshid,” most of his other works have also been based on stories by Iranian or foreign authors.

The Cinema Museum of Iran is located in Tehran’s upscale Bagh-e-Ferdows neighborhood, Valiasr St., near Tajrish Square.

SS/