Political Sociology of Iranian Cinema (Obligations of Iranian Cinema Policy-Makers in 70s and 80s)

Cinema, in the time of political confrontation between different parties, has always been the area of disputes and every party, according to its cultural viewpoint, has challenged the position of cinema at the time of its rival administration. What happens in today's political atmosphere in Iran is not the quarrel of two political parties; rather, confrontation of two ideologies or two political discourses challenging each other by defining two cultural systems; one based on guarding revolutionary, religious, and ethical values, and another supporting social and civil rights. In this paper, artistic management of Islamic Republic of Iran has been investigated through explaining cultural-artistic policies of the administrations in 1370s (1990s) and 1380s (2000s). This article is the outcome of a study conducted on political sociology of Iranian cinema in 1370s (1990s) in which the cultural-artistic policies of the government in 1370s (1990s) and 1380s (2000s) are investigated through content analysis and text analysis of movies selected by the government in Fajr movie festivals on the one hand, and the audience of Iranian cinema, on the other. In this study, the role of cultural policy makers and artistic managers in administering these policies are mentioned. The present study indicates that artistic policy makers and managers of the both discourses referred to as "traditional discourse" and "democratic discourse" in this paper, have always made cinema the stage of their discourses and resorted to "people" for justifying their policies. They, in policy making area in cinema sector,   consider their own musts and must nots as the musts and must nots of people and regard their own believes as believes of people. Also, whenever they criticize each other's policies, call people to witness their claims and attack each other's policies reasoning that they are not congruent with people believes and values. Policy makers and administrators of both political discourses have never moved toward "cultural union" and have always taken "part" of Iranian society culture into consideration in their artistic-cultural planning. They have been far from "previous experiences", "society expedience" and "prudence", whereas the audiences of Iranian cinema have always welcomed a combination of religious values together with social – political values in the movies.