Released in 1979, this symbolic tale of villagers terrorised by a scarecrow they themselves have planted is based on a story by co-screenwriter Houshang Golshiri.

Tall Shadows of the Wind was banned for different reasons both before and after the revolution. The Shah’s censors, increasingly nervous during the volatile late 1970s, saw the film as an attack on Mohammad Reza Pahlavi himself. The ayatollah’s censors, setting down strict regulations after 1979, pulled the film from theatres after just three days because of its purported leftist sympathies, owing to a scene of a popular uprising involving red flags.

———

Iranian New Wave: 1962–79 and the original film program it is based on are curated by Ehsan Khoshbakht, Codirector, Il Cinema Ritrovato, with Joshua Siegel, Curator, and La Frances Hui, Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.