Long thought lost after the Iranian Revolution at the end of the 1970s, Mohammad Reza Aslani’s debut narrative feature has been restored in breathtaking 4K by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation and Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata.
Screening publicly only once at the Tehran International Film Festival in 1976, Chess of the Wind vanished for decades until Aslani’s son miraculously found the original film negative in an antique shop, beginning the process to get it back before the eyes of audiences worldwide.
The film began playing at several film festivals last year, including the New York Film Festival and BFI London Film Festival, and now it will make its debut to the public at the Film Forum in New York City on October 29, 2021 for a two-week run through November 11th.
Chess of the Wind tells the story of a noble family who dramatically descend into chaos when its matriarch passes away during the rule of the Qajar dynasty. Letterboxd member WraithApe notes the film’s resemblance in some ways to the Henri-Georges Clouzot classic Diabolique while praising it as “a stately and formally immaculate piece of work”. lola, upon witnessing the film at the London Film Festival, declares, “Gothic Iranian cinema is where it’s at”.
For all of its formal wonder, the film also features tremendous performances, including the debut appearance of Iranian legend Shohreh Aghdashloo, who would later be Oscar nominated for her work in House of Sand and Fog. Reflecting on the film’s reemergence after being gone for so long, Diako states how Aghdashloo “compared rewatching it to seeing her child after 45 years again”.
You can watch the trailer for this incredible film’s 4K restoration over at The Playlist now.
—Mitchell Beaupre, East Coast Editor