TEHRAN-The acclaimed Iranian documentary “The House Is Black” directed by Forugh Farrokhzad will be screened at the Cinema Museum of Iran on Monday.

The film screening, set for 5 p.m., is from the Documentary Nights program of the Cinema Museum, Mehr reported.

It will be followed by a review session in the presence of veteran documentary filmmaker Pirooz Kalantari and film critic Parviz Jahed.

The film is a look at life and suffering in a leper colony and focuses on the human condition and the beauty of creation. 

“The House Is Black” finds unexpected grace where few would think to look: a leper colony whose inhabitants live, worship, learn, play, and celebrate in a self-contained community cut off from the rest of the world. Meanwhile, the children go to school. Some of them are visibly affected by the disease, while others look healthy—for now, at least.

Through ruminative voiceover narration drawn from the Old Testament, the Quran, and the filmmaker’s own poetry and unflinching images that refuse to look away from physical difference, Farrokhzad creates a profoundly empathetic portrait of those cast off by society—a face-to-face encounter with the humanity behind the disease. 

A succession of attentive black-and-white shots endows the deformities with their own beauty and melds together daily moments of pain, despair, warmth, and joy into a profoundly human document.

The film features footage from the Bababaghi Hospice leper colony. It was the only film she directed before her death in 1967. After shooting this film, she adopted a child from the colony, her son Hossein.

In 2019, a restored print of the film debuted at the Venice International Film Festival.

After a stay in Europe in 1958, Forugh Farrokhzad, most well-known as a poet, returned to Iran and met filmmaker Ebrahim Golestan. She worked at his film studio, where she gained an opportunity to work as an editor on his documentaries, before directing “The House Is Black” in collaboration with a leprosy charity.

Although the film attracted little attention outside Iran when released, it has since been recognized as a landmark in Iranian film. In 1963, the film was awarded the grand prize for the category documentary at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in West Germany. 

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

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