Amir Houshang Kavoosi (June 22, 1922 – April 1, 1993) was a film director, writer, and critic.

Kavousi is considered the founder of analytical film criticism in Iran.

Life

Houshang Kavoosi was born in 1922 to a military family in Tehran. His interest in cinema began when he was eight or nine years old, when films were silent and there was no radio or television. He remembers the screening of the first talkie in Iranian cinema, Dokhtar Lor, in 1933.

Kavousi completed elementary school and half of high school at the Military School, and then went to France in 1946 to study law and political science. In France, he abandoned law due to his interest in cinema and, with the guidance of a friend, entered the field of filmmaking and resumed his studies at the Idak Higher School of Cinematography. After three years of study, he graduated in production and filmmaking. He then entered the Sorbonne's Faculty of Literature and studied for a doctorate in filmology. A field that, according to Kavoosi, had nothing to do with cinema technique but rather with the sociology of cinema. While studying in France, he founded a Persian language program on Radio Paris. After returning to Iran, he began his film career by directing the unfinished film The Story of Life in 1955.

Beginning of writing film Criticism

With the problems and obstacles that arose in the way of Houshang Kavoosi's film activity in Iran, he realized that cooperation with the existing film apparatus was not practical. Because the audience of local films was also made up of people who had been brought up or trained conditional by filmmakers.. In other words, in a closed and defective cycle, a cinematic transaction had been formed in which the filmmaker fed the audience worthless melodramas fragrant with love and sacrifice, deception and regret along with useless songs, and the audience, who had become accustomed to it, demanded this type of film. To correct the existing situation and raise awareness among the cinema audience, Kavoosi turned to the press and for the first time in Iran raised the issue of analytical criticism and for the first time used the term Film-Farsi to describe the overall situation of Iranian cinema.

Kavoosi began to work as a film critic for Roshanfekr, a magazine owned by Rahmat Mostafavi and edited by Naser Khodayar. Houshang Kavoosi's first review was written on the film The Stumble / Laghzesh (1953). The director of this film had previously made a film called Stray / Velgard (1953), and the film's advertising stated: "The Stumble; the second film of the director of Stray." Houshang Kavoosi's review of this film was titled: "The second stumle of the director of Stray." This review was well received by readers, and it was said that an analytical and technical discussion of cinema, combined with humor, was in the making. This review was not continued for a while because he began directing Majeraye zendegi (1955).

After the 1979 revolution and until the end of his life, numerous reviews of him were published in the Film Monthly magazine.

From that time on, and given the experiences and observations he had gained from the conventional cinema of that period in Iran, he no longer had much interest in filmmaking and spent most of his energy on writing reviews, teaching, and making documentaries. The producers' unfamiliarity with the basic principles of cinema was one of the biggest obstacles to his continuing career as a director. The only feature film he directed and produced in the 1960s was The House by the Sea.

Kavoosi believed that making a good film in Iranian cinema needed the Iranian audience be first introduced to the culture of cinema and their tastes changed. To achieve this goal, in addition to writing critical and interpretive articles, he founded the first Iranian cinema club (Cine Club). There, the best films available in the cinema warehouses were screened every Sunday. Before the film was shown, a commentary on the film was presented, and after the screening, there was a discussion about the film. Cinema Club meetings were held regularly with commentary and discussion, and among the teenagers who regularly attended these meetings and later became big names, we can mention Bahram Beizaei, Hezhir Dariush, Bahram Reipour, Parviz Davayi, and Parviz Nouri.

In November 1959, the Cinema Club held the first international film festival in Iran. The festival, held at the Niagara Cinema (now the Republic Cinema), paved the way for subsequent film festivals, including the Tehran International Film Festival, which was organized by the Ministry of Culture and Arts. After the first film festival, the Cinema Club was closed due to repeated interference by SAVAK (National Intelligence and Security Organization).

Documentary Works

Houshang Kavoosi has also been active as a documentary filmmaker. In the 1960s, two of Kavoosi's documentary films brought him awards. His "Sookht-giri-e havapeima / Airplane Refueling" won an honorary diploma, and his second documentary film "Standard-e san'ati va tahghighat-e elmi / Industrial Standards and Scientific Research" received second place and an honorary diploma from the Moscow Standards Congress. "Industrial Standards and Scientific Research" was a short documentary lasting 10 minutes, in color, 35 mm, which was commissioned by the Iranian Industrial Standards Organization.

Kavoosi also wrote and directed the long documentary "Fire and Stone" for the National Iranian Radio and Television Organization in the mid-1960s. This 35 mm, color documentary film was about the implementation of the gas pipeline project from Khuzestan to Astara and the lives of people around this pipeline.

Writing and directing "Palayeshgah-e Tehran / Tehran Refinery" is among Kavoosi's other documentary works. Most of his documentary films, which were commissioned by the National Iranian Oil Company, were shot by Naghi Masoumi.

Filmography

Director

Raghs-e Torkaman (1970, Short)
Atash va sang (1970)
Khaneye kenare darya (1969)
Palayeshgah-e Tehran (1967)
Standard-e san'ati va tahghighat-e elmi (1965, Short)
Sookht-giri-e havapeima (1964, Short)
Vaghti ke aftab ghoroob mikonad (1961)
Hefdah ruz be edam (1956)
Dozde bandar (1955)
Majeraye zendegi (1955)

Writer

Atash va sang (1970)
Khaneye kenare darya (1969)
Palayeshgah-e Tehran (1967)
Standard-e san'ati va tahghighat-e elmi (1965, Short)
Sookht-giri-e havapeima (1964, Short)
Vaghti ke aftab ghoroob mikonad (1961)
Hefdah ruz be edam (1956)


Actor

Bita (1972)
Tare ankabout (1963)