The House is Black

Story

SHORT FILM: Life and suffering in an Iranian leper colony in the early 1960s. In grainy black and white pictures, the film looks soberly at the misshapen faces and bodies of the inhabitants. The initial shock gives way to joy: the director, speaking off camera, reads excerpts from the Old Testament, the Koran and her own poetry and we watch as the deformities are outshone by the magic of humanity. Dignity is stronger than misery. The House is Black was a prototypical essay film in Iran and the influence of its blend of poetry and pictures is still tangible in Iranian cinema today. Precedes The Traveller.

Director