An audience of 5 million in an incomplete cinematic ecosystem

Fars News Agency – Cinema Group: In the current situation, cinema is experiencing better days compared to its past in the last few years, the days that are being completed by moving the record sales of cinema films and also experiencing the highest amount of audience in recent years with “Fossil”. In this situation, a number of critics have spoken about the lack of equal conditions for different films at the time of release.

Screening policies for one movie only

Mustafa Mahmoudi, a cultural activist in the field of cinema, said about the sales statistics of cinemas across the country and the audience’s reception of this cultural arena: “The audience’s good reception of movies is just a joke, and according to the statistics announced by the Samfa system, generally in three In the first month of the year, 5 million and 230 thousand people have seen the films screened in cinemas across the country; That means, on average, 1 million and 700 thousand people welcomed the films on the screen every month, which is not significant at all.”

Maybe all these events show the policies that tried to introduce an audience-friendly film into the screening cycle and use all its efforts to attract the audience through it, maybe even a small part of this issue could not be taken if they were provided with the facilities of the cinema. But the fact is that cinema has provided the facilities and rights of other works to a film whose goal is to break the record.

Hossein Farahbakhsh, an old and veteran producer of Iranian cinema, who is currently screening the movie “City of Hurt”, criticized the unequal conditions of the screening in a radio interview and said: “Strange events are happening, such as in 40 I have not seen the last year of my activity and what we are witnessing is a kind of screening engineering in favor of a special film that was shown on Eid without a serious competitor and today after three months of screening and with the addition of significant films that were added since last week, it is still like It sells on the first day.”

Even if you take a look at the amount of Sansi available to each film, you will realize this, it seems that the screening schedule in the cinemas of the country is not fair for all works; Even the number of Suns available in the movies shows the same thing. For example, in the last 7 days, the movie Fossil, which has been on the screen since March of last year, with 4 thousand 975 screenings, has the longest screen time among the movies on the screen. On the other hand, the films “Night Watchman” and “Tasur” which have just arrived in cinemas have 396 and 169 screenings, respectively. Perhaps Ghorban Najafi’s “White Fish Season” is the peak of this phenomenon, a film that in the first month and week of its release is only It has been screened in 210 scenes.

Previously, Reza Mirkarimi, the director of “Night Watchman”, protested the unequal conditions of his film’s release in a message on his personal page. He said: “You know that I usually avoid marginalization. After a long time and under the pretext of my film release, I made a short post on my page and had a small complaint about the way the film was released; That is because very bad scenes have been considered for the film. For example, who will go to the cinema at 12 noon in Abadan to see my movie?! Now they started to attack with their cyber army, so instead of these protests, isn’t it better to learn about filmmaking so that maybe your films will sell?!”

Crowded screen, a new experience

Although the summer release has brought a new and diverse combination of movies to the silver screen, the shadow of one movie from the Nowruz release basket of cinemas is still weighing on its head, “Fossil”, which is the leader of the box office these days and has so far sold more than 220 billion tomans. has done; something that is not normal in the opinion of some cinematographers. Other films on the cinema screen are not in bad condition either, although comedies are still in the lead.

In another part of his interview, Mahmoudi said, referring to the body cinema: “If we look at the sale of cinematographic films, we see that the ownership of Iranian cinema is still in the discussion of the sale of cinema body films, it is necessary to mention that I have nothing to do with the quality of the works. Because this is the issue of separation; But I want to say that the body cinema still sells commercial comedy films and can take over the largest number of cinemas, which is not at all in favor of the screening; This is because if an audience’s distress moves to one side or another, it cannot be changed. After all, even if this justice is observed in the screen, the audience also observes some issues.”

“Fossil” directed by Karim Amini is the best-selling movie of Iranian cinema, currently with 220 billion tomans, it is also sitting at the top of the list of 1402 cinema works. The second movie is also made by Karim Amini. Of course, “Shahrhert” has a significant distance from the first place with 37 billion sales.

“Sekam Habs” by Salwar brothers is the third best-selling film and of course the first non-comedy film in the best-selling club of Iranian cinema. Of course, this film has a significant distance from its higher ranks with a box office of 18 billion tomans.

Maybe it was November of last year when the films on the screen remained unchanged for a long time, we criticized and said that in order for people to reconcile with the seventh art cinema, new works on the screen are needed, now after nearly a year has passed since those days, the number and variety of works The screen is up, but there is still no variety in terms of sales.

Cultural ecosystem with economic orientation

All these propositions indicate the formation of an incomplete and of course poisonous space in cinema, which, due to the lack of a comprehensive view and of course economic focus on cinematographic productions, removes the works of concern from the circulation.

The comedy work is made, the investor is informed of its success and goes back to producing the comedy work. As a result, the private sector rarely goes to produce another work.

In an interview with one of the media, Mirkarimi said: “If we think that the field of culture is the field of economic supply and demand, we have looked very crudely. Yes, there is supply and demand, but the components that affect this mechanism are more than these words.

What is happening on the screen today is the result of a one-dimensional and incomplete cultural macroview that is not only related to this government and that government. Fortunately or unfortunately, in neglecting the key role of culture in solving the major problems of the country, left or right-leaning governments are not very different from each other.

It is unfair to criticize only the screening. The defect should be looked for in the watchtower of the cultural field, which we call cultural governance. I remember predicting these days in my interviews in the mid-eighties. Not me, but many cinematographers like me had warned about the unknown future of cultural and intellectual cinema.

It seems that movie directors, aside from the excitement of the sales of “Fossil” and its audience of 5 million, should think about the state of the Iranian cinema ecosystem, an environment that today rejects many issues in the country’s cinema space, issues that happen to be the main and culture-building function of cinema.

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