Mapping Film-Farsi

Javad Zeiny

Dr. Javad Zeiny is a scholar, filmmaker, and curator specializing in film studies. He teaches at universities in France and Switzerland and holds degrees from the University of Fribourg (Switzerland), Concordia University (Canada), and Université Paris Cite (France). His research focuses on the histories, theories, and transnational trajectories of Iranian, Canadian, and U.S. cinema and media. He has a particular interest in underexplored film traditions, including pre-revolutionary Iranian popular cinema (film-farsi), as well as French-language and diasporic cinemas. He is the author of seven books, including Iranian Cinema: A National Cinema Under Influences (1900-1978: Before the Revolution), which demonstrates how a film culture shaped by external influences ultimately gave rise to a distinct national cinema, and Negotiating Screens: American Movies in Iran, the first archive-based study of the presence and role of American cinema in Iran from 1925 to the present.
In addition, he has published numerous articles and essays in academic journals and cultural magazines in Canada, France, and Iran. As a filmmaker, his works have been screened and broadcast both in France and abroad, receiving critical recognition and awards. For two decades, he has held the position of artistic director of the Uninvited Film Festival in Paris, an independent platform devoted to the exhibition of alternative and historically underrepresented cinemas. He is also affiliated with international research initiatives such as Archive/Counter-Archive (York University, Canada) and Cinema Iranica (University of Toronto, Canada).