Ebrahim Hatamikia

Ebrahim Hatamikia (born 23 September 1961) is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, cinematographer and actor.

Hatamikia is known for films depicting the Iran–Iraq War's impact on Iran.

His films are considered some of the best ever made in the Iranian war cinema and most notable for their attention to social changes brought about by the war.

Also, he is best-known for his explorations of the trauma by the war; both on returning soldiers and those who await them, unable to mourn effectively without knowing the fate of their loved ones.

He was born in 1961 in Tehran to a Persian father and Azeri mother.

He began his directing career with some short films and documentaries about the Iran–Iraq War.

His movies are considered to be the best that tackle the war and the issues surrounding it.

His works have often received admiration in national film festivals.

The Glass Agency and In the Name of the Father have won him the best screenplay and directing awards in the sixteenth and twenty-fourth Fajr International Film Festival respectively.

Hatamikia is now considered as an icon of professional religious filmmakers in Iran.

The name of Ebrahim Hatamikia was heard for the first time in the short films section of the 3rd Fajr International Film Festival.

His The Path (1985) received honors and was recognized by the jury for excellence in presenting a theme related to the war.

Hatamikia was one of the few war filmmakers with a previous background in Super 8 and animated film production who joined Jihad's Television unit and the IRGC's Audiovisual unit in 1986.

He uses the war and its extreme situations as a vehicle to negotiate camouflaged taboo topics.

In From Karkheh to Rheine a few veterans doubt about their participation in the war.

Hatamikia's early war-related features The Scout (1989) and The Immigrant (1990) explored the psychological and sociological impact of the war on the home front.

Ebrahim Hatamikia is among of the filmmakers of the new generation of the cinema of Iran after Iranian Revolution, who is internationally renowned for his role in the cinema of Iran in the 1990s.

In his subsequent glossy feature From Karkheh to Rhein (1993), he explored the psychology of a disabled veteran on a medical trip to Germany, adding to the war theme the tension of the direct contact with the West and of displacement to foreign lands.

From Karkheh to Rhein considered as an anti-war film.

Hatamikia in From Karkheh to Rhein and The Glass Agency have depicted the complex processes of re-integration and re-assimilation, particularly for veterans who were chemically injured or suffered chronic illnesses.

The two are particularly praised by Hezbollahi citizens in Iran.

Also, Hatamikia's in From Karkheh to Rhein is particularly interesting in connection with the discourse of the Iranian diaspora during the war.

The Glass Agency (1998) portrayed the feelings and life conditions of those who expunged from the public sphere and lost out from Rafsanjani's neoliberalisation.

It tells the story of two former soldiers which despite enduring sacrifices by participating in the war, did not enjoy any of the material rewards coming from post-war reconstruction, and had criticized the government's hypocrisy of turning veterans into symbolic heroes but not actually caring for them.

By the film, Hatamikia had provoked the government, which then took him to court over the film and barred its release for a while.

The Glass Agency is a metaphor for the glass house that Iran became after the war, where internal conflicts have been more salient than international ones.

As Esha Momeni noted, it seems that Hatamikia is criticizing the state for that issue, however martyrdom's glorification by him, continues to serve the state by covering up its deficiencies in the post-war era.

As Hamid Naficy notes, the film deals with the crisis of reintegrating war veterans into a society that nearly a decade after the war's end seems apathetic to their plight.

in addition to criticize the government, it critiques society, which revered the soldiers but now wants to get on with life.

As of Richard Peña, The Red Ribbon (1999) reminds a bit of some of the later absurdist dramas by Fernando Arrabal.

It is a dense and highly metaphoric drama involving three characters and set in a tank graveyard in the no-man's-land between Iran and Iraq.

He aspires to the technical sophistication of Hollywood.

His other film, Dead Wave (2001) was also prohibited from screening by the demand of military officials.

However, that both films were screened in Iranian cinemas at a later time.

Despite the IRGC's strong footprint on post-revolutionary cinema, many of Iran's most important directors such as Ebrahim Hatamikia, Rasoul Mollagholipour, Mojtaba Ra'i, and Ahmad-Reza Darvish, who were products of this system of support, have increasingly moved away from the war movies promoted by the IRGC.

The situation has reached a point where an important war movie director, Ebrahim Hatamikia publicly criticizes the interference of military personnel in cultural and artistic activities.

He talked about this in the press conference for his new film Dead Wave, which has yet to be released despite the fact that it was produced by Ravayat-e Fath Foundation.

In fact, reportedly the producer prevented the movie, which is about a military commander obsessed with attacking an American warship who also has problems with his son, from being screened.

A very high quality video of this movie was however widely and illegally distributed.

In Amethyst Color (2005) was banned from screening by the order of the Ministry of Intelligence because the film depicts the image of a security official.