Description
The welfare State and The Revolt Of The Marginalized
Glimpses of Individual Cinema Against the Swedish System
With Maham Meiqany
November 2024
Sweden is usually considered one of the most orderly, fair, and safest places to live in the world. However, despite these characteristics, which are not exaggerated, a percentage of Sweden’s organized society is unconsciously, inevitably, or voluntarily pushed to the margins, and in some cases, even eliminated from this modern utopia. Swedish cinema, even from the earliest years of the cinematograph’s arrival in the country and since the silent film era, has shown sensitivity to acts of rebellion. In this three-week series of sessions, we will critically analyze three Swedish films concerning the issue of social disobedience, whether in the form of individual rebellion or group law-breaking, with a comparative study of the country’s political/social history and art history. First, the films will be screened, and then Maham Meighani will analyze and comparatively study these works for about an hour, utilizing the new historicist tradition. Furthermore, the so-called ‘individual against the system’ cinema will be introduced and reviewed on a global scale to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the discussions in these sessions; and a connection will be established with the history of this cinema in Iranian cinema history to clarify the starting point and necessity of further discussions, so we don’t forget what it means to study cinema whose origin is thousands of kilometers away from us.