Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00BBC and on You are like me. fooled? There is
00:00:02online nothing that has faith. Then I became very interested in music. My father also had a very large santour. He was the first person who encouraged me to play the santour, and from the age of 10, I had become a santour player. I worked from them and I was very interested in classical music. Then I got into the phase of wanting to become an orchestra conductor and so on. I imagined myself as a symphony orchestra conductor.
00:00:10platforms and now on BBC Persian television
00:00:29the murder. Dariush Mehrjui and his wife Vahideh
00:00:32Mohammadifar was only a few months.
00:00:35When does an artist's death happen?
00:00:38Hadn't they killed him at least
00:00:426 times in all these years?
00:01:11Hello, welcome to this week's Aparat program. I am
00:01:15Hassan Soalju. This week's program was supposed to be the
00:01:18start of a review of the films of a brilliant,
00:01:22pioneering, and unique filmmaker in the history
00:01:25of Iranian cinema. But on the evening of the twenty-second,
00:01:33someone or some people attacked the personal
00:01:36home of this artist, filmmaker, writer,
00:01:40painter, translator, and murdered him and his
00:01:43wife. At that time, many rumors and
00:01:47speculations were raised about the murder of this artistic
00:01:51couple. And despite the fact that the Iranian government has attributed
00:01:55the murder to two or three teenagers
00:01:59and raised the issue of financial dispute between the
00:02:01killer and the victims, there are still many
00:02:05speculations about the political nature of this crime,
00:02:08especially since the main suspect, who has been
00:02:11arrested, still denies involvement in this murder,
00:02:15and the lawyers of the Mehrjui family
00:02:19speak of many ambiguities and unanswered
00:02:22questions remaining in this case.
00:02:25But what series of events
00:02:29turned the prayer-loving, santur-playing Tehranite
00:02:33boy into the great Dariush Mehrjui we
00:02:35know? By making the film "The Diamond in the L minor scale",
00:02:39I tried to find an answer to this
00:02:42question. Dariush Mehrjui was a filmmaker who, in the
00:02:46clear sense of the word, was considered a social
00:02:49filmmaker. Someone who in his works was concerned with
00:02:53social issues and was not just a craftsman
00:02:56mastering the tools of cinema. He was a very good storyteller,
00:03:00but his films, from "The Cow"
00:03:03to "L Minor", rather than being storytelling
00:03:07and entertaining, were a reflection of
00:03:10the social conditions and prevalent issues
00:03:13of society in his time. Therefore, his most
00:03:17important films, both before and after the revolution,
00:03:20were often banned for a long time and
00:03:24caused him many problems. His
00:03:27philosophical knowledge of the world as
00:03:31a filmmaker was an addition that distinguished
00:03:34Dariush Mehrjui from many other filmmakers.
00:03:38His innovations in storytelling brought new depth and richness
00:03:42to Iranian cinema and also influenced subsequent
00:03:45generations of filmmakers in Iran. Mr.
00:03:48Mehrjui is also considered one of the
00:03:51recognized pioneers of the New Wave of Iranian
00:03:55cinema internationally. But the murder of an artist
00:03:58does not happen only physically. Every time an
00:04:02idea is censored, a thought is actually
00:04:05murdered. Dariush Mehrjui,
00:04:08before his physical murder at the age of 83,
00:04:12had been censored many, many
00:04:15times. Watch the film "The Diamond in the L minor scale".
00:07:39Around 12 past midnight, news reached the news agency. censorship.
00:09:26Both before and after the revolution, nothing has changed. This
00:09:29mentality, this elite-killing
00:10:39From childhood, I
00:10:41was raised with two important elements:
00:10:45one was religion and the other was music.
00:10:48I was influenced by my mother and
00:10:52grandmother, and so on.
00:10:55My grandmother loved this Husayniya.
00:10:59She often went there. Sometimes she would take me
00:11:01there too. Allahu Ahad, Allahu
00:11:04al-Samad, Allahu al-Samad, lam yalid,
00:11:16I started praying like
00:11:19them and learned to pray and
00:11:22fasted, and until the age of fourteen or fifteen,
00:11:26I continued in these fields.
00:12:09This element of the so-called sacred
00:12:12and theology and such was in my blood. That's why I
00:12:16went towards philosophy, to
00:12:43شدم. پدرمم یه سنتور خیلی بزرگی داشت.
00:12:46اولین کسی بود که منو تشویق کرد که بیام سنتور بزنم و
00:12:50من از ۱۰ سالگی دیگه سنتور زن شده
00:12:53بودم. دیگه نوتا رو می گرفت. من از رو اونا کار می کردم و خیلی
00:12:57علاقه مند بودم به موسیقی کلاسیک دیگه رفتم
00:13:01تو فاز اینکه رهبر ارکستر بشم و فلان خودمو تو
00:13:04خیال می دیدم تو خیال می دیدم شدم رهبر ارکسر سمفونیک.
00:13:37It was in this mood and basis that I became acquainted
00:13:40with cinema for the first time. I watched
00:13:44a variety of films that great artists
00:13:47had made, and later I realized what cinema
00:13:51actually is.
00:13:55I was looking for a university where
00:13:58I could study cinema. I discovered
00:14:02that in America, especially in California,
00:14:05there are two universities that teach cinema.
00:14:55I was in America when all the films
00:14:58came to Los Angeles. Anyway, it was Hollywood,
00:15:02so they showed them in different cinemas, and I was more
00:15:06captivated by European
00:15:08cinema.
00:15:12For example, I had invited him there where he was teaching,
00:15:16and I attended one of his classes. I learned
00:15:19a lot from him. Since I was very
00:15:23interested in philosophy on the other hand,
00:15:27I decided to major in philosophy. My
00:15:30biggest love was being a modernist. That
00:15:33is, I was very influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre
00:15:36and Camus and existentialism. And the best
00:15:40so-called courses that I took and really
00:15:43loved were these classes. Well, this book,
00:15:46Mr.
00:15:47Human
00:15:50and
00:15:52Jung.
00:15:57These are
00:15:59the plays, the lesson of
00:16:02the singer, the singer
00:16:05of fate, this important book.
00:16:15He predicted that all these people would later become Lenin,
00:16:18Khrushchev, Stalin. Kill this one,
00:16:21kill that one, kill that one, massacre this one, move
00:16:25this one from here to there because you want to give
00:16:28human happiness. This is human
00:16:32happiness by killing them, by shedding
00:16:35blood. Read Camus, read Sartre.
00:16:38We came wanting to save the world, we are killing everyone.
00:16:42What everyone is doing is making mistakes.
00:16:45Sir, what do you want to do with these bombs? Drop
00:16:49them on their heads, drop four on your
00:16:52head. You want to destroy the world. This is
00:16:56human loyalty to that primary cell
00:16:59that divided and brought life
00:17:03into existence. It is a sacred thing that
00:17:07wants life to continue, to exist and remain,
00:17:11not to be destroyed. Destroying is
00:17:13easy. I'm
00:17:15very angry.
00:17:18Where is that holographic book I had here?
00:17:21These things I'm saying that I can't say, let
00:17:24them be in it too. The Holographic
00:17:28Universe has been published 65 times. I am
00:17:31amazed by the intelligence, by the
00:17:35cleverness, by the insight of the Iranian people. They are so
00:17:38eager for philosophy and thought and contemplation
00:17:42and ideas, not for
00:17:45bombs. What do
00:18:01you want a bomb for?
00:18:18After 34 years, we came back to Iran, and that's
00:18:22how I entered the field of cinema.
00:18:35"The Diamond 33", my first film.
00:18:40Which I made in 1967 at the age of 27.
00:18:43And the interesting thing was that before that,
00:18:47I had never made any film, not even
00:18:50a short film. And I was never an assistant
00:18:54to anyone. I learned cinema
00:18:57by watching films and reading and so on.
00:19:01We were all beginners and were just starting
00:19:04for the first time. I experienced
00:19:08all of that, and from that perspective, it was very
00:19:32I had in "Political Diamond", I just realized how
00:19:36much the issue and the
00:19:39screenplay are important in cinema. The
00:19:43main thing is always that initial five or six-line synopsis.
00:19:56The start of my banned films began with "The Cow".
00:20:00شد
00:20:06The last year I was at university,
00:20:09I published a literary magazine called
00:20:12"Pars Review". And they sent it
00:20:16to Iran for this writer, and it
00:20:19led to me being in contact with Sa'edi. We also corresponded
00:20:23with each other.
00:20:25When I came to Iran, when we met, it was
00:20:29as if we had known
00:20:30each other before.
00:20:41He actually told me, "Why don't you
00:20:44come and make this film 'The Cow'?" We worked
00:20:47on the screenplay together and...
00:20:50And then we presented it to the Ministry
00:20:53of Culture and Arts. Of course, they
00:20:56also had some issues with the script and
00:21:11When the officials of the Ministry of Culture
00:21:15saw this film, none of them understood what was going on. They had never seen such a film before.
00:21:18Iranian cinema was something
00:21:32film was
00:21:35banned for two
00:21:41years until I had a friend who was
00:21:45French. He had come to Iran and wanted to make
00:21:48a film here. He had made it and wanted to go back to France. I told him, "Please
00:21:52take this 'Cow' with you, because they won't
00:21:56search you here to find out what it is and what it isn't." He
00:21:59agreed and said, "Okay, give it to me." We
00:22:02went to the airport to see him off, and
00:22:05our hearts were pounding, fearing that they might open his
00:22:09suitcase
00:22:12and discover this film, and then they
00:22:15would take care
00:22:19of us right
00:22:23there. He received his suitcase, didn't look
00:22:26at it, left, and went. He sent
00:22:30this film to the Venice Film Festival, and they
00:22:33snatched
00:22:35it up.
00:22:45The articles that were written about
00:22:48this in foreign newspapers, I
00:22:52remember that one of the members of the Ministry
00:22:56of Foreign Affairs told me that your
00:22:58film is much more effective than the propaganda
00:23:02the Shah is currently doing. We were on
00:23:05the verge of entering a new civilization. It
00:23:08was very important for the government to show the world
00:23:12that we had progressed.
00:23:14In short, this caused them all to object.
00:23:23Now, in Venice, when it won the award,
00:23:27they started writing and so on. They then realized
00:23:30what we had
00:23:44down a bit and allowed
00:24:16They did something, they found a new momentum, and it can be said that historically...
00:24:34It was very free from a play called "White Dog" where
00:24:37I changed all the characters, I changed the dialogues,
00:24:40I completely changed its atmosphere, and we turned all of this
00:24:44into "The Postman" and the troubles the postman
00:24:47has with his wife, with his master in that
00:25:04was one of my very important films
00:25:07which again was stamped with the
00:25:10mark of triviality.
00:25:20It was banned for two years until we fought again
00:25:24and were able to release it.
00:25:28It went to various festivals and this was
00:25:32one of those films that
00:25:33brought me many awards.
00:26:28"The Circle of Mina" was one of those
00:26:32films that caused me a lot of pain. I spent
00:26:35six whole months trying to get its script approved
00:26:39just because of this issue of the blood-selling
00:26:42mafia and these drug addicts
00:26:45who supplied blood to hospitals, and
00:26:49it was often contaminated, and this really caught
00:26:52my attention. Then I moved on to making
00:26:56a documentary film, something to make people a little aware,
00:27:22written, called "The Dump", I saw that I could also
00:27:25use that, and we designed it as a feature
00:27:29film for its screenplay. However, when I started...
00:27:49This film was so famous that the Shah himself came
00:27:53to see it in his palace with all these
00:27:56doctors and other people who were there, and
00:28:00then they told me that after seeing it,
00:28:03the Shah had stood up and very angrily
00:28:07told everyone that if what he showed
00:28:09is a lie and not true,
00:28:13you should hand him over to Savak to prosecute
00:28:16him and so on. But if it's true
00:28:20and correct, then go and fix yourselves. What kind
00:28:43for 3 or 4 years, its fame spread a lot
00:28:47abroad first, and then in Iran too, it reached
00:28:51the time when many things were freed. "The Circle" was also
00:28:54freed at that time, and it came out on screen
00:28:58in the last year of the Shah's reign, and
00:29:01the revolution had started and so on.
00:29:22et donc l'autre premier prix execo est de minor
00:29:25cycle de Darius Meroui
00:29:28avec scénario egalement de Darius Meroui je rappelle que le
00:29:31premier. At that time, Khomeini was in
00:29:35Neauphle-le-Château. I was also in Paris
00:29:38because of "The Circle". They showed "The Circle" and
00:29:42gave us an award, and so on.
00:29:58We went twice and
00:30:02interviewed Mr. Khomeini. He
00:30:05was saying very good things.
00:30:08It was completely different from what
00:30:12happened later, very much so. We
00:30:15are coming to bring democracy and
00:30:18freedom and to make everything
00:30:22available to the people for free. And
00:30:26he was saying very sweet
00:30:26and good things.
00:30:37Then they would interview me and I would say,
00:30:41yes, this person is, after
00:30:44all, bringing about a fundamental transformation in our
00:30:47country. and
00:30:51this revolution.