CHANGE OF VENUE: Pouring Water on Troubled Oil + A Fire

Please note the venue of this event:

During the CCA’s closure, we are partnering with GMAC Film
Map: 5th Floor, 103 Trongate, Glasgow G1 5HD
Website: https://www.gmacfilm.com/

We are proud to welcome director Nariman Massoumi IRL for the Glasgow premiere of his new film, together with a screening of a newly restored copy of Ibrahim Golestan’s ‘A Fire’. Massoumi will introduce the films and participate in a Q&A exploring issues around extractivism and Iranian history.

Pouring Water on Troubled Oil
Dir. Nariman Massoumi
(2023, 26 min)

In 1951, the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas travelled Iran on an assignment to write a propaganda film for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Thomas's job, he would later remark, was to ‘pour water on troubled oil’. Combining colonial archival photographs with Thomas's lyrical account, this documentary film follows the poet's journey through the country, capturing his haunting vision of oil and modernity, as a political upheaval for oil nationalisation unfolds.

Yek Atash (A Fire)
Dir. Ibrahim Golestan
(1961, 25 min)

Ebrahim Golestan’s lifelong cinematic fascination with earth, water and fire found its earliest expression in the simply titled A Fire, which became his first major international success. In April 1958, an oil well located in southwest Iran caught fire. Golestan, who also worked as a producer, sent director Abolghassem Rezaie to make a documentary about the disaster. When Golestan saw the black-and-white footage, he saw that the story held even greater potential and decided to produce his own version of the events – this time in colour.

Golestan’s brother Shahrokh filmed the process of putting out the conflagration, while the poet Forough Farrokhzad (soon to direct her debut The House Is Black) edited the film – which combined her poetic sensibilities with Golestan’s more symbolic approach. The result stands in sharp contrast with other notable films that treat the same subject matter; for instance, Werner Herzog’s Lessons of Darkness. Instead of an operatic tale of individualism, Golestan develops a folkloric narrative; a celebration of collective work by ordinary people. He offers an anecdotal, poetic depiction of the lives interwoven with the disaster. As powerfully as the film shows the destructive side of fire, the element also has a sacred place in Persian culture. After all, when Abraham [Ebrahim] was thrown into the fire, it was God who said “O fire! Be coolness and safety for Ebrahim.” The blaze transformed into a garden, which in Persian is known as golestan.

Ehsan Khoshbakht
(Il Cinema Ritrovato)

Inclinations

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