TEACHING
Cinema and Revolution in Cuba and Iran
Since the victory of the Cuban revolution in 1959, Cuba has created one of the most distinctive and influential national cinemas in the world. Some two decades later, and half a globe away, the Iranian Revolution of 1979 initiated an equally successful national cinema with a global presence and widespread influence. The development of these two national cinemas were by no means untroubled: Debates over revolutionary form vs. revolutionary content, popular vs. national cinema, new technologies, global reception, the politics and economics of production and distribution, among a host of related issues have profoundly influenced the constitution of these two national cinemas. This course will look at the role of cultural production in post-1959 Cuba and post-1979 Iran, focusing on their respective cinemas but with complementary explorations of other cultural products.