Chess of the Wind + Q&A

Screened publicly only once on its original release, at the 1976 Tehran International Film Festival, Chess of the Wind is one of the most distinctive films of Iran's pre-revolutionary New Wave. After the Islamic Republic came to power in 1979, the film was banned, and its original negative was presumed lost. Only degraded VHS copies survived. Lost for nearly four decades until its improbable rediscovery in a Tehran antique shop in 2014, Aslani's masterwork has since been restored, regaining its place as an achievement of Iranian cinema.

Set inside an ornate, candlelit mansion, the film follows Aghdas, a wheelchair-using heiress who becomes vulnerable to her late mother's husband, a corrupt stepfather determined to seize her inheritance, while his two greedy nephews circle her wealth. Her only ally is her maidservant, with whom she develops a complicated alliance. Drawing on classical Persian art, gothic horror and European modernism, Aslani creates a claustrophobic, still-life atmosphere of avarice and isolation. The film’s eerie, atonal score was composed by Sheyda Gharachedaghi, one of the most prolific female film composers of the 1960s and 1970s, blending Persian instrumentation with her Viennese conservatoire training.

This screening will be introduced by Ali Lalfam, the season curator, followed by a short post-screening Q&A with Iranian filmmaker and actor Ali Mosaffa.

Chess of the Wind, dir. Mohammad Reza Aslani, Iran 1976, 100 min.

Ali Mosaffa is one of Iran’s most respected actors and filmmakers. He is known for his roles in Dariush Mehrjui’s Leila and Asghar Farhadi’s The Past, and for directing Absence, Portrait of a Lady Far Away and the FIPRESCI prize-winning The Last Step. This programme is curated by Ali Lalfam in partnership with the National Film and Television School and the ICA. Ali Lalfam is an MFA student in Film Curation and Programming at the National Film and Television School. His curatorial practice concerns cinema with a distinctive aesthetic, scale and psychosocial depth, exploring overlooked aspects of culture across world cinema, with a particular specialism in Iranian cinema.