Filming of a documentary on the lives of Persian poet Hafez and German writer and statesman Goethe has been completed by Farshad Fereshteh-Hekmat.
According to public relations office of the Documentary and Experimental Film Center that has ordered the production of the documentary, the film is to be released in autumn.
Some of the scenes of the film were shot last year in German cities namely Weimar, Berlin, Heidelberg, Leipzig, Schwetzingen and Gena, ISNA reported on its Persian website.
The scenes related to Hafez were partly captured in Shiraz while others were recorded in Ghazali Cinematic Town in Tehran.
Established in 1971 by the late director Ali Hatami over 10 hectares, Ghazali Cinematic Town is in west Tehran built with extant images to resemble Iranian cities of older times used as film locations.
Khwaja Shams al-Din Mohammad Hafez-e Shirazi (1325–1389) was born and grew up in Shiraz. He memorized the Qur’an at an early age which earned him the nickname “Hafez” (meaning memorizer).
Divan-e Hafez, the collection of his poems, is regarded as a pinnacle of Persian literature. His influence in the lives of Persian speakers can be found in the frequent use of his poems in Persian traditional music, visual arts and Persian calligraphy and many of his poems are used as proverbs or sayings. His numerous ghazals are mostly about love and spirituality.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1828-1749) is mostly known among Iranians for his book “West-östlicher Divan” (West-Eastern Diwan) which is a collection of lyrical poems Goethe wrote, influenced by Divan-e Hafez.
Goethe’s other works include four novels, epic and lyric poetry, prose and verse dramas, memoirs, an autobiography, literary and aesthetic criticism, and treatises on botany, anatomy and color. There also are numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters, and nearly 3,000 drawings.
