“Wooden Pistols” Iranian director dies

TEHRAN,June 7(MNA) -- Shapur Qarib, director of “Wooden Pistols”, a drama about the advent of television in a remote region in northern Iran, passed away at the age of 80 on Tuesday evening. He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease over the past few years. He began his art career when he was young with the Jame-eye Barbad Theater on Tehran’s Lalezar Street, which was Iran’s Broadway during 1950s and 1960s. After 12 years, he was then introduced to a number of veteran cineastes including Nosrat Karimi, Abbas Shabaviz, Behruz Vosuqi and Rubik Mansuri and they jointly established Aryana Films, one of the major Iranian film studios before the victory of the Islamic Revolution. He worked as an assistant director in “Three Crazies”, which was directed by Jalal Moqaddam in 1968. Shortly afterward, he made his directorial debut in “The Daughter of the King of Fairies”, which was a box office hit. After making some mediocre films, he came to artistic maturity in “Wooden Pistols”, a children’s film which was produced by the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults in 1975. The film was about children living in a remote area near a railway station in the north of Iran. They spent days going to school and playing with their hand-made wooden pistols. They went to bed with their grandmothers’ stories, but all these good habits began to change after the advent of television in the area. “I spoke of important issues in ‘Wooden Pistols’. People did not expect a children’s film to do so,” Qarib once told. His romantic comedy “Mamal Amricaii” (1975), starring Behruz Vosuqi, a box office draw of the Iranian cinema during the 1970s, was warmly received by filmgoers. There was a long hiatus in his career due to the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and finally he retuned with the family drama “Let Me Live” in 1986. Afterwards, he made six other films including “Shadow of Sorrow”, “Return of the Hero”, “Our Small Family”, “Tear and Smile”, and “The Sneaking Shoes”. One part of the episodic film “The Meeting” was Qarib’s swansong in 2010. Once, he talked of his plan to make “Fadoqi”, a film which he said would be comparable to the atmosphere of “Wooden Pistols”. He also made the TV series “The Youthful Days”. Oscar-winning Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi collaborated with him in writing the screenplay for the serial. “I still live with memories of his film,” Farhadi said a few months ago when he visited Qarib at his home. “I have not forgotten the pleasure I took from watching ‘Wooden Pistols’. We became interested in cinema by watching such films,” he stated. Qarib’s funeral ceremony is scheduled to begin at Tehran’s Vahdat Hall today and he will be buried in Behesht Zahra Cemetery.