Bankruptcy of State Cinema

The official and ideological art of the Islamic Republic, or 'Islamic propaganda in the form of art,' narrates the concentration of resources in the public sector, privilege, and rent-seeking while simultaneously demanding recognition from the entire world. Islamist propagandists, despite having access to capital and resources without any competition in the market, want the entire world to elevate them. A film with a cost of forty million dollars (equivalent to 120 billion tomans at the time of production) was produced, which is as much as the annual budget of the country's cinema, utilizing all the resources of the Islamic Republic (the exact monetary equivalent is unclear). All official media promoted it, yet it sold only one-tenth of its declared budget, and the film's producers still demand more privileges and rents for its screening from the world. The lack of appeal of the film and the resulting lack of audience reception is justified by the supposed conspiracies of the enemies of the Islamic Republic. Majid Majidi, regarding the screening of this film, states: 'It is surprising why they fear a film that depicts the childhood of the Prophet; Saudi Arabia and Islamic countries block the way, and the Western world does the same, and even more strangely, this film has been neglected and marginalized in our country during its production and screening stages.' The average production cost of a film in Iran in 1393 was about two billion tomans. Thus, for the government’s promotional film about the Prophet of Islam, 60 times the officially declared cost was spent. Besides the unprecedented generous budget that will not be repeated in Iranian cinema for decades, the screening of the film 'Mohammad' received special and unprecedented support, such as equipping one hundred cinema halls for its screening, while the most popular films are screened in less than thirty halls. After a week of screening, other cinemas began to show the film, and the number of screening halls dedicated to this film reached 150, which is more than half of Iran's cinema halls. Essentially, there was no specific screening capacity in the country that was not made available for this film during its screening. The advertising costs for this film, considering the amount of urban and television advertising, were even higher than the production costs of the film. The expectation of the Islamic Republic officials was that tens of millions of Iranians would go to see this film, which did not materialize. The film was even shown at half price on certain days, but the audience did not respond. The filmmakers wanted both domestic and international audience reception, general audiences, and international festivals. The media of the Islamic Republic referred to this film as the greatest cinematic project of the Islamic world to attract more viewers. However, this film did not have a successful presence in international festivals. Of course, any failure is attributed to the delusion of grandeur and extraordinary nature of Islamists being blamed on conspiracy. If the people of Iran did not welcome this film, it is unclear why people in India, Saudi Arabia, or Western countries should welcome it. The state cinema's version of failure (guidance; support; supervision relying on oil revenues) has led to three decades of waste of public resources and has suffered another defeat with the idea of grand projects. During the screening process, the film's stakeholders constantly justified its enormous costs with victimhood and promises to themselves: 'The screening of the film in this country [Turkey] had a series of legal problems that will be resolved in the next two days, and it will be screened in Turkey this month of Rabi, although we have many plans for screening in other countries, but they block the ways. They claim that for this, the censorship office and the scholars of their countries must give permission, so that with a fatwa announced in India, with 300 million Muslims, the way for screening the film was blocked.' (Majid Majidi, Tabnak, 1394/10/8) Four major film producers in Iran who have the necessary financial resources and equipment for filmmaking are: Farabi Foundation: This foundation annually provides financial assistance to dozens of films and provides equipment for them; the Art House, which, in addition to filmmaking facilities and resources, has 117 cinemas in the country (the head of the Art House, ISNA 1394/11/8) and is expanding in terms of the exhibition industry. It is expected that in 1395, thirty more halls will belong to this sector. With this number of cinemas, the Art House holds about one-third of film sales, amounting to 22 billion tomans out of 60 billion tomans; the NorTaban Film Institute, belonging to the Foundation of the Oppressed, which also produced the film Mohammad; the foundation has produced hundreds of films over the past four decades; the artistic and media organization Aooj, affiliated with military institutions. This organization is the propaganda arm of military institutions and campaigned against negotiations during the nuclear talks. Besides these four institutions, dozens of state and governmental organizations like the Ministry of Intelligence, Law Enforcement, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Organization, and the Center for the Development of Experimental Cinema, affiliated with the Ministry of Culture, also produce films for their intended propaganda purposes. It is highly unlikely that a cinematic or documentary film is made in Iran without direct and indirect financial and non-financial assistance from the government and governmental institutions (except for underground films with very ordinary equipment, like Jafar Panahi's Taxi). This state cinema fundamentally does not care about the market and sales and produces films just for the sake of producing films. The Islamic Republic spends hundreds of billions of tomans annually (only 120 billion tomans through the Ministry of Culture) on producing films with propaganda orientations, and their sales were only 60 billion tomans in 1394. The situation of other media is not only bankrupt in cinema but also in state radio and television. This organization can only continue to exist with the injection of oil dollars. The public relations manager of the Central Bank states: 'The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting is a bankrupt economic enterprise that we are providing 400/500 billion tomans annually to.' (Tabnak 1394/10/12) This organization, with 38,500 employees (with claimed salaries of 1,400 billion tomans), cannot compete with satellite networks, each of which has between 10 to 40 employees. The concern of state media after broadcasting television series in Iran (like the Kimia series) is whether this series can compete with the programs of satellite networks or not.