Once Upon a Time, Cinema

Written and directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the 1992 Iranian fantasy comedy Once Upon a Time, Cinema follows the country's first filmmaker, a Chaplinesque figure, and Nasser al-Din Shah, who falls in love with a woman in a film he is shown, tracing a surprising journey through the history of Iranian cinema. Shot mainly in black and white with a brief colour sequence, the film incorporates clips from old Iranian films dating back to the silent era and parodies the conventions of silent slapstick comedy and early fantasy pictures.

The roughly 92-minute production stars Ezzatolah Entezami, Dariush Arjmand, Fatemeh Motamed-Arya, Mehdi Hashemi, Mohammad-Ali Keshavarz, Akbar Abdi and Morteza Ahmadi, with music by Majid Entezami. It was nominated for best film and best director at the tenth Fajr Film Festival and was voted one of the finest films in Iranian cinema history in a critics' poll conducted by Film magazine.