Ciné-martyrographies. Media techniques of witnessing in Iranian cinema

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article explores the ‘making of martyrs’ at the intersection of media (especially cinema), propaganda, and body politics in Iran. Martyrs are not only highly contested bodies, but also surrounded by diverse media techniques which compete for the right to re-make these bodies and organize the visual economy of witnessing. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, the cultural industry called Cinema of Sacred Defence sought to monopolize the right to make martyrs after the 1979 Revolution, pursuing a strategy of ascribing different qualities of witnessing to different media. Along films such as Ebrahim Hatamikia’s Damascus Time (2018) and Mohammad Hossein Mahdavian’s Standing in the Dust (2016), the article examines the new ciné-martyrographies of the Sacred Defence and demonstrates how the Islamic Republic's visual propaganda machinery uses old and new digital media as 'messages’ – in terms of boundary building as well as the ability to generate genuine Islamic witnessing. In contrast, counter-martyrographies – such as Shahram Mokri’s Fish and Cat (2013) and Careless Crime (2020)— are explored that challenge the state’s iconology of the martyr and its monopoly on (blood) testimony by depicting media techniques of witnessing that remember those who have no right to be remembered as martyrs by the state.