books @ cc.

by Marjane Satrapi (2001)

An autobiographical comic/graphic novel/bande dessinée, Persepolis tells the story of Marjane Satrapi as a girl growing up in Iran around the revolution & wartime, then abroad by herself. Chronologically told, with each chapter focusing loosely on specific events, the memoir tells us more about everyday occurrences in the life of a daughter of a (relatively) priviliged, “liberal” Iranian family than about general Iranian life (the family lives comfortably even during troubled times, and Satrapi spent a good deal of her youth abroad in Vienna) or history. The illustrations are simple, basic figures, and Satrapi effectively and stylistically uses stark black and white with no greytones.

A Political History
by Hamid Reza Sadr (2006)

From the infamous introduction of cinema to Iran through the Iranian monarchy in the early twentieth century to the worldwide acclaimed post-revolutionary era, Sadr presents us with a highly readable history of Iranian cinema with its embedded and reflected social, political, cultural and economic contexts, lucidly written in a comprehensive book.