The Last Colony
Interview with filmmaker Parvin Ansary

December 15, 2003


I have known Professor Parvin Ansary since I was in 6th grade in Rome all the way back to 1961 when I was 11 years old. In 1975 and '76, I acted in two of the films she made in Iran. We have remained and continue to be friends all these years and in fact we consider each other family. There are few people on this planet male or female whose intellect I admire and respect as much as hers. My own father, who went to Harvard College when he was 15, came close but then he was a philosopher and never made a movie in his life. Parvin is not just an academician but is very much of this world too....For me personally I have always considered Parvin to be my very own "Auntie Mame!" (Rosalind Russell, 1958.)

This interview was made in a series of 2 to 3 hour phone conversations from California over a 6 week period in September and October 2003, every Saturday morning with Parvin in her villa in the woods outside Rome. It became such a routine that I am already missing it. See photos

Q: Where were you born and where did you go to grammar school?
A: I was born in Tehran and I went to the French School there.

Q: What do you remember from the Tehran of your childhood?
A: I remember beautiful gardens, snow on the mountains, flowers and trees especially at dawn. Now the views of the mountains and the skyline are ruined by all the sky scrapers... I remember the water flowing in the jubes at the sides of the kuches. I remember how people were very kind and generous in those days. I remember the smell of chicken khoresh; and the music in the alleys. When I hear it now, it makes me homesick. It was not so overpopulated then. People were much more generous.

Today people in general, everywhere are overeducated, there is too much information most of which is irrelevant and selecting what is important is not done. There is too much information and a need for self censorship. I prefer my memories of old movies than to seeing them again. There are too many books published these days. I particularly enjoy rereading great books every 10 years or so as I mature to see how the impression they make on me has changed as I have changed. When I read history it seems like politics never changes.

Q: When did you leave Iran?
A: I lived in Iran until I was 18 years old and completed grades K through 12 there. Then I went to Switzerland and eventually Rome to continue my higher education. I was always alone. My marriages went bad. I continued my studies while I was a single mom. I love people but I need lots of time by myself to think and be creative. After spending time with people I need some time to be cloistered. I never get bored by myself; I never need company. Let's face it; no one really cares about our personal problems anyway.

Q: How did you first become interested in cinema?
A: I loved movies ever since I was a little child. I went twice a week. In those days there were lots of movie theatres on Avenue Lalezar. People were very elegantly dressed to go out to the movies in those days. The films were in French and English and not dubbed. Every so often there was a translation block. Movies were my main form of entertainment as a child.

Q: So when you started out in the film industry in Rome how did you make a living?
A: In Rome, I started a dubbing company translating all of Vittorio De Sica's films ("The Bicycle Thief" and "The Garden of The Finzi Contini") and Carlo Ponte's films into Persian. I had a good friend, who was a baritone opera singer named Hossein Sarshar, who did a lot of the voices.

to be cont.

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