Remixing Vulgarity: Reinterpreting the Legacy of Popular Iranian Cinema

After the 1979 Revolution, the Islamic Republic established laws prohibiting the sale and exhibition of many of the pre-1979 popular films, derogatorily referred to by critics as fīlmfārsī. Fīlmfārsī, however, weathered the political storm, morphing as its status changed from commercial national cinema to orphan cinema. Through remixing, collectors and distributors continued providing the films through new viewing platforms and have thus extended the history of a cinema once destined for the grave. This article examines the shifting history of fīlmfārsī from a maligned bad object of national cinema production to a nostalgia-inducing reinterpretation of the past. I argue that the recent reuses of fīlmfārsī redistribute the films through deliberate acts of remixing. These remixes articulate a productive form of nostalgia extracting fīlmfārsī from its lowbrow reputation and softening the sharp definitions between perceptions of highbrow and lowbrow cultural distinctions. In remixing these films for new audiences, collectors and distributors reshape fīlmfārsī as a distribution method rather than merely a film tradition.