| Summary: | This thesis examines the history of Iranian cinema in its wider social and political context and establishes the link between gender, nationalist political and cultural processes in contemporary Iran. It argues that women's representation was central to the politics of state-formation and that the unveiled and veiled woman came to signify two conflicting political ideologies: modernisation and Islamisation. This volume maintains that in both the monarchy and the Islamic Republic, women and cinema were transformed into cultural symbols, representing the nation and national identity. The cooption of the women's question by nationalist politics and the regulation of cinema through censorship and propaganda was intended to consolidate the power of the successive regimes and construct a particular national identity, based on the constituent elements of a pre-Islamic past, and of Shi'i Islam, respectively. Because of the official cooption of the women's question and cinema, in monarchical times, as in the Islamic Republic, a counter discourse and culture developed, which became manifest in the work of an increasing number of filmmakers. If in the pre-revo lutionary period, the opposition coopted the symbol of the veiled woman, in the post-revolutionary period, the symbol of the unveiled woman is increasingly making inroads. More and more filmmakers reveal and unveil the "veiling" methods and practices of power upon which the Islamic Republic depends. However, despite the defiance, in both the Islamic Republic and the monarchy, the cinematic discourse remains dependent on the political and ideological constructions of power, which it can never fully defy.
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