Project Description

Javad by Bahman Kiarostami. Iran/UAE, 2011, Digital Video, Colour, 18 minutes. Directed, shot and edited by Bahman Kiarostami Producer: Coco Ferguson Sound: Babak Salek Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation

Javad Yassari rose to fame in the late 1970s in Lalezar, Tehran’s club strip where he sang in smoky theatres and cabarets. The 1979 revolution turned the lights out on Lalezar, Javad’s music went to dingy venues in Dubai and small European towns, and the occasional Tehrani wedding, though his music lived on through bootleg cassettes. Javad’s songs are emotional roller-coasters of love, loss and loneliness. His songs have become the voice of a very old but overlooked part of Iranian culture: that of its hard working, hard drinking, tough, rough and devout downtown men and women.

(In Farsi, with subtitles in English).

April 2011