Virginia Film Festival: Accented Cinema masterclass: Arriaga, Guillermo, 2008

The Hamid Naficy Papers are organized into six series: biographical files, professional and teaching files, writings and publications, research files, audiovisual materials, and oversize materials.

• Biographical files include early pre-professional research, writings and work, including Naficy’s early professional activity in production. Very few personal items are included here; the majority of materials represent Naficy’s work prior to his 1973 return to Iran and research and writings produced while in school.
• The professional and teaching files include sub-series on Naficy’s work at UCLA, Rice, and Northwestern as well as files on professional appearances, festivals, screenings, fellowships, and other activities. Files on the long-running Iranian film festivals that Naficy organized in Los Angeles and Houston can be found in the conferences, talks, and festivals sub-series.
• The writings and publications series includes seven sub-series, one for each published book or anthology, in order of publication, followed by a sub-series on other writings and publications, such as copies of articles and book chapters, notes, and potential projects.
• The research files series is composed of files related to Naficy’s research interests, including two sub-series of collected writings by others: “accented filmmakers” and others’ writings. The “accented filmmakers” designation represents Naficy’s original labeling on boxes of materials. For all files of collected writings, the folder title indicates when other materials are also present, such as Naficy’s notes or related correspondence. Otherwise collected writings files are primarily photocopies of publications with annotations. The remaining research and subject files sub-series includes a large amount of Persian-language newspapers and newspaper clippings, from the late 1970s through 1990s, providing primary documentary information on political and cultural events in Iran during those decades. Research on Grass, the 1925 ethnographic documentary film on the Bakhtiari tribe directed by Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack, is represented here. Handwritten notes on various films and research subjects are often found in these files in both English and Persian. Photographs in this series include black and white images of directors, stills from films, contact sheets and negatives. Some photographs are also interspersed within research files when originally found with corresponding research topics. Folders marked as “[unidentified Persian-language material]” contain untranslated non-English materials.
• Audiovisual materials includes a born-digital spreadsheet file which inventories DVDs and VHS films; the series is organized into 5 sub-series: DVD, audiocassettes, VHS tapes: Naficy talks/films, VHS tapes: Other, and film. The DVD subseries includes 10 DVDs, primarily of Naficy’s digitized film work. The audiocassettes include interviews and research materials on Grass and many interviews with filmmakers and Persian-language television producers and hosts. A number of tapes are also dubbed from radio or television broadcasts around the time of the Iranian Revolution in 1979 through to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in the 1990s. The VHS tapes are represented by two sub-series, the first being tapes of Naficy’s films (dubbed from film), talks (recorded from television or from a live event), and home movies. The home movies are restricted at this time. The second VHS sub-series, VHS tapes: other, is composed of the remaining tapes in the collection, many of which are of television shows recorded during their original airing in the 1980s and 1990s, such as various Persian and other non-English language television shows and English-language news broadcasts about the Middle East. Other tapes in this series include various films, both commercial recordings and recordings dubbed from television or other tapes. The film and videotape series includes Naficy’s experimental and educational work from the 1960s-1980s as well as home movies, which are restricted.
• Oversize materials comprise one box of posters advertising Naficy’s classes or talks.