The director of ‘Kharabat’ announced that the production of his documentary on Sufism has concluded and said, “vast research was undertaken for the project in 10 provinces of Iran as well as in Japan and India.”
‘Kharabat’ is a documentary on Sufi dynasties. “To portray an authentic, objective, and comprehensive image, we traveled to different cities and countries where the mystic Sufis had the most influence and activity,” Arash Es’haqi told Mehr News agency. “The documentary took three years to complete, from research to final editing of the work.”
He pointed to various Sufi works that were studied for the project and said the genre of the documentary calls for a visual view towards facts and realities. To obtain such a view a number of works of the Sufis including ‘Schemes of the Satan’ by Ibn al-Jawzi, ‘The History of Sufism’ by Ghassem Ghani, and ‘Persian Sufism in its Historical Background’ by Abdolhossein Zarinkoob were studied.
Research Must
Es’haqi emphasized the need for research in all art works especially documentaries. “Though the method may be different, research for any works of art is inevitable”, he said.
Sufism, considering its strong influence on Iranian culture and literature and numerous dynasties and sects, can be a subject of several documentaries. It undoubtedly has been institutionalized in Persian literature, influencing culture and literary works. Its impact can be clearly seen in the pop culture and subcultures when examining people’s social behavior and attitude.
The director of ‘The Axe’ documentary also noted the creation and prevalence of new mystic traditions and said most of the new practices “are some sort of therapy so I found it necessary to address part of modern mysticism in my work as well.”
As Es’haqi believes the so-called critical works in this area are unfortunately cliché because they lack proper research and background knowledge.
