National Cinema Day: What Kind of Cinema Does Iran Want?

TEHRAN -- Iran mark National Cinema Day on September 12, or 21 Shahrivar, a date designated in 2000 during the fourth Iran Cinema Celebration to commemorate a century of cinema in the country.
More than a ceremonial occasion, the day offers a chance to consider what Iranian cinema has become, what audiences now expect from it and what kind of future its increasingly commercial exhibition model can sustain.
Cinema entered Iran as a new technology at the beginning of the 20th century and gradually became a language through which Iranian society could see itself.
The first cinematograph was introduced during the reign of Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar in 1900. Over the decades, film evolved from novelty and entertainment into a record of social life, cultural memory and national experience.
That role is increasingly being tested by the dominance of comedy at the box office.
Iranian cinema has experienced a substantial recovery in attendance since the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the Persian year 1403, which ended in March 2025, cinemas sold 34,937,000 tickets, according to figures reported by the Iranian Cinema News Agency. A total of 891,338 screenings were held during the year. Seventy Thirty was the year’s highest-grossing film, selling 5,747,000 tickets.
The trend is not new. In 2023, Fossil became one of the biggest theatrical successes in the history of Iranian cinema, attracting about 7.5 million moviegoers. Hotel also drew more than 6.2 million viewers.
Data compiled by the European Audiovisual Observatory put Iranian cinema admissions at about 28.2 million in 2023, while Fossil led the country’s annual ranking with 7,487,352 admissions.
The success of comedy has helped bring audiences back to theaters, yet it raises a broader question: does the box office reflect what audiences genuinely want, or increasingly what the industry makes easiest to see?
Comedy has several economic advantages. It promises relatively immediate entertainment, works well for group viewing and can be marketed through recognizable actors and familiar formulas.
For investors facing rising production, labor, advertising and distribution costs, a successful comedy offers a comparatively visible commercial model.
Once a genre begins to dominate, the cycle can reinforce itself: more comedies attract more investment, receive stronger promotion and secure more screenings, which in turn creates stronger box-office figures.

The danger is that ticket sales alone can become a misleading measure of audience preference. A film given fewer screenings, weaker advertising or less favorable showtimes has fewer opportunities to find an audience. The absence of a large box office therefore does not necessarily prove that audiences have rejected its genre.

This matters because Iranian cinema has historically drawn strength from its diversity. Social dramas, historical films, war movies, children’s cinema, documentaries, romances and formally unconventional works have all contributed to the country’s cinematic identity. A market increasingly organized around one commercially reliable formula risks narrowing that range.

The audience itself is also changing. Iranians now consume stories through smartphones, streaming services, social media and digital games alongside traditional cinema. The theatrical experience therefore has to offer something that other screens cannot easily reproduce: collective viewing, a compelling story and the sense of an event shared with others.

That does not mean Iranian cinema needs less comedy. It needs more choice.

A healthier system would allow commercially successful comedies to thrive while giving other genres a realistic chance to reach audiences through fair advertising, varied screening schedules, flexible exhibition strategies and longer runs where audience demand develops gradually. Stronger screenplays and new writers are equally important, as is wider access to cinemas beyond the largest cities.

National Cinema Day also points to a larger responsibility. Cinema is not simply an industry that sells tickets; it is part of the country’s cultural memory. The preservation and restoration of older films, the creation of new stories and the ability to connect local experiences with an international cinematic language all determine what future generations will inherit.

Iranian cinema has spent more than a century recording the country’s changing image of itself. Its next challenge is to make sure that the screen remains large enough for all of those images — including the ones that do not make audiences laugh.

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National Cinema Day: What Kind of Cinema Does Iran Want?