Treasures from the Golestan Film Studio
For the first-time ever on home video, this collection presents the complete output of the iconoclastic independent Iranian film studio founded in the late 1950s by a towering figure of Iranian culture, Ebrahim Golestan. The studio’s earliest productions were documentaries that helped bring Iranian cinema to international attention, including The House Is Black, directed by the poet Forough Farrokhzad. From 1961, the studio turned to fiction. Two feature films were completed, including the pivotal Brick and Mirror – both of which are presented here. After years of circulation in compromised versions, sometimes altered by censorship, these classics, which map the origins of the Iranian New Wave, are now presented in restored and definitive versions. The nine films in this set move fluidly from prose poetry to political allegory, achieving remarkable results that have inspired generations of filmmakers from Abbas Kiarostami to Jonathan Glazer.
BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION SPECIAL FEATURES
- New 4K restoration of Brick and Mirror from the original camera negative by Cineteca di Bologna and Ecran Noir Productions / Fereydoun Firouz under the supervision of Ebrahim Golestan
- Outtake from Brick and Mirror (3 mins)
- Introduction by curator and the Golestan restoration project collaborator Ehsan Khoshbakht (2026)
- Visual essay on Ebrahim Golestan by Khoshbakht (2026)
- A restored programme of three short documentaries combining the talents of master director Golestan and Iran’s greatest female modernist poet, Forough Farrokzhad: A Fire (1961, 25 mins); Courtship (1961, 11 mins); The House is Black (1962, 22 mins)
- A restored programme of Golestan’s documentaries following his recurrent theme of the land and its people: The Crown Jewels of Iran (1965, 14 mins), Wave, Coral and Rock (1961, 41 mins); The Hills of Marlik (1963, 15 mins), Harvest and Seed (1965, 29 mins)
- Introductions to each programme by Ehsan Khoshbakht (2026)
- New 4K restoration of Secrets of the Jinn Valley Treasure from the original camera negative by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory with funding provided by the Iran Heritage Foundation and Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna
- Introduction by Ehsan Khoshbakht (2026)
- See You Friday, Robinson - Mitra Farahani’s award-winning documentary chronicles an exchange of ideas between two giants of cinema - Golestan and Jean-Luc Godard - on the meaning of creativity in the twilight of life (2022, 96 mins)
- Newly translated optional English subtitles
- Reversible sleeve featuring newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista
- Booklet featuring archival writing by Ehsan Khoshbakht
- Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
