Producer’s response from Karkheh to Rhine to delete some scenes: It was a technical problem, no one is to blame

According to the Fars News Agency cinema correspondent, Manouchehr Mohammadi, the producer of the movie “From Karkheh to the Rhine”, shared his explanations with Fars News Agency as follows:

Imam Hussein (AS) says “If you do not have a religion, at least be free”
First of all, I would like to emphasize that I would like to choose the title of this report myself. Imam Hussein (AS) says, “If you do not have a religion, at least be free.”

* The main problem of converting analog to digital occurred!
Let me give you a brief explanation of the story that began yesterday afternoon (Sunday, April 21, 1401). In Iran, the field of filmmaking is divided into two periods in terms of technical developments. The analog era, which was 35mm movies, and the digital movies that are popular today. Naturally, the films and works produced in the analog cinema period do not have the necessary quality, so it is common all over the world that analog films and the negative or positive version of the project are cut and converted into a digital version by a device. That is, they modify and improve the quality of all aspects of the film, including light, sound, and colors, in order to be ready for distribution and use in “HD” form.

* Hatamikia and I had no involvement in the film digitization process
A few years ago, one of my loved ones who is in contact with me and Mr. Hatamikia, who was working for the Radio and Television and iFilm at that time, decided to replay some of our films, which were also made by the Radio and Television Organization, in the national media. Broadcast, they will take the films from us and take them to the digital version on the radio and television. The tradition of this work to this day is that the producer writes a letter to the “National Cinema of Iran” because an original copy of all the films produced by the cinema is kept there and the representative of the Radio and Television takes the letter and takes it there and the copy to Takes over the cinema on loan and takes it to the radio and television with that device, performs the process of digitizing the film. As a result, Mr. Hatamikia and I have not been involved in this process so far.

* About six years ago, the process of digitization “from Karkheh to Rhine” was done
This hard drive that you are looking at now is the same hard drive that includes several movies, including “From Karkheh to the Rhine”. This dear dear friend has taken these copies and worked hard and taken them for digital, and it is customary that after digitizing the films, they also give a digital copy to the producer and director of the film. This process of digitalization took place about five or six years ago. As you can see, this is naturally stored on a digital hard drive and is not objectively visible.

* We handed over the film to Hozeh and Hozeh gave it to Filimo and Namava
In 1399, friends from the art field called to show a number of my films on a new platform called “Film Tour”. Naturally, we handed over this hard drive, which contains all the films, to friends in the art field. From then until last night, there was no news that any part of the film had been deleted or that any other problems had been reported. Apparently, on one occasion, the film institute handed over the film to the Filimo and Namava Institute, and when it was published, they said that the version given to Filimo and Namava was not part of the original film in this version.

* Do not turn this issue into a crisis!
This was very surprising to me because we had no involvement in the process. Yesterday, I told some of my journalist friends who contacted me from various media outlets and news agencies to explain this to them, and told them not to turn this into a critical issue because it is a technical problem and I will pursue it. What technical problems have caused this issue? Then today, I dedicated the whole Monday to follow up on this case, and from 7 o’clock in the morning, I brought some technicians to find out where the work problem was. Because when it’s a technical issue, it is impossible to address and justify it without a technical investigation, and to accuse some people and put them in the counter-revolutionary category!

* The Filimo Institute and Filmmaking are innocent in this case!
I declare here that both the Film Institute and the Filimo Institute are innocent in this matter. In short, we checked the mentioned version at 7 am today and found out that the version received from the radio and television had a problem. What has happened so far, we still do not understand, and when converting from analog to digital, the operator Doing so may have been caused by human error or negligence, as it is technical and specialized and may have left a mark.

As you know, such things are not unexpected in technical works. Finally, we found out about this issue and immediately asked the loved one who had given the original version to check his version as well. The strange thing is that “From Karkheh to the Rhine” is one of the few films that has been aired more than a few hundred times on the radio and television, and if there is going to be an incident, mischief or a deliberate act, the radio and television will find out. And this is one of the wonders of the times!

Therefore, the film “From Karkheh to the Rhine”, which was broadcast several hundred times on various occasions on radio and television, and naturally Mr. Hatamikia and I, as the filmmakers, should have realized that such a defect had occurred in the film. I asked this dear friend to check his version, then we found out that his version is also a very low quality version and does not have Persian subtitles. Because this film was shot in Germany and was part of the dialogue in German, the film had subtitles from the beginning, but unfortunately this version has a problem, it does not even have this subtitle, and it seems that it was given an incomplete version or during the conversion. Analog to digital has happened and technically that part has been removed.

* Mr. Hatamikia and I checked both of our original versions together
After that case, I immediately called Mr. Hatamikia because he also has a copy of this hard drive so that he can check his own copy. Mr. Hatamikia, like me, had not seen this version for about six years, and he, like me, assumed that this was the original version without any shortcomings! And Mr. Hatamikia also checked and said, “Sir, this version of mine is also incomplete.”

* Mr. Hatamikia’s work is the most valuable work of sacred defense
As you know, “From Karkheh to the Rhine” is a film that is thirty years old and won the award for best film at the Fajr Festival. It was the best-selling film and the most significant film of the year of its production. The title is the most valuable work in the field of sacred defense. And our oppression in the sacred defense and the chemical crime and the imposed war are portrayed in the most beautiful way possible by this film. Therefore, no sane person would try to manipulate the film version. I do not understand where this immorality comes from. Is it going to be said or presented in another way? The elimination of any malice towards this well-known director is so obvious that no one can do it because no one can make a mistake at this level with a work at this level of fame and popularity.

* We gave the full version of 93 minutes, Filimo and Namava replaced the previous version* Today we found the original hard drive where all the sequences are in place!
Summary This morning, after examining this issue, we found another hard drive, which is the original version of the film, which has both full sequences and subtitles. The same gentleman who was in iFilm published a series of works by Mr. Hatamikia by the Institute of Visual Media, all of which were re-digitized and upgraded in terms of quality. We released “Filimo” to show this new version, which is the original and complete version of “From Karkheh to the Rhine”.

Before you came here, I was talking to Mr. Khoshbakhti in the field of art, and I made sure that the new version had reached them, and it was supposed to reach the Filimo and Namava systems at the same time. I also talked to the CEO of Filimo and the original version had reached him.

It is noteworthy that there are always technical problems in such works and turning this into a social crisis and the fact that they have torn the Holy Defense film to pieces and removed the most valuable part of the film, I do not understand why I am desperate to deal with this issue so aggressively, and as a citizen of this country, I have a collection of works that I have made, not in my opinion but in the opinion of cinema experts, at least ten outstanding films such as “Survivor” and “Meem Like Mother”. Gold and copper “under the moonlight” and … in his record, let him do such a thing? Because it does not fit with reason or logic.

My point with Fars News Agency is that you should be careful in publishing news. If you notice a problem, it is advisable to contact the owner of the work first and discuss the problem with them and ask what the problem is and let us know. Then we should go and fix the problem, not to blow the horn on the resident from the beginning and create an atmosphere. Because finally there is a technical problem and now take care of it. From 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon until now at 3 o’clock today, the problem was solved only during these few hours. My only suggestion is that this is a technical incident that happened due to a mistake or negligence of the operators who have done the process of digitizing this analog film, which I do not know at all. He told us that we had reviewed this version of the film and that this version had these problems, and that in 1399 we solved the problem.

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