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The House Is Black
Khaneh siah ast
In 1962, beloved and controversial poetess Forugh Farrokhzad went to Azerbaijan and made her only short film: a portrait of a leper colony. Soberly documenting the village of lost ones, she freely orchestrates scenes and simply captures others. On the soundtrack, Farrokhzad reads her own poetry in a plaintive murmur.
The House is Black is an empathetic portrait that illuminates a world burdened by tragedy, yet sustained by community. Farrokhzad presents the suffering and horror with a certain distance, empathetic but without taking pity too easily.
Five years after the making of this film, having already attained near legendary status in Iran for her writing, she was killed in a car crash at the age of 32. This guaranteed her posthumous fame as a feminist touchstone for generations of Persian women. Her work in both film and poetry has influenced many, from Iranian New Wave master Abbas Kiarostami to French essay-film pioneer Chris Marker.
Bio Forugh Farrokzhad
Poet, painter, and filmmaker Forugh Farrokhzad (1934-1967) was born in Mazandaran, north of Tehran, and is one of Iran’s preeminent mid-20th-century writers. Her strong, feminine voice was met with much negative attention and open disapproval, both during her lifetime and in the posthumous reception of her work. Following the 1979 revolution that overthrew Iran’s secular monarchy, Farrokhzad’s work was banned. Her untimely death in a car crash at the age of 32 was seen as a national tragedy and made the front pages of Tehran’s newspapers. She is seen as a symbol of artistic, personal, and sexual freedom because of her unprecedented work in articulating the emotional and physical intimacies of women. The House is Black (1963), her only film, is one of her most internationally acclaimed works.
Perhaps because no woman before me took steps toward breaking the shackles binding women’s hands and feet, and because I am the first to do so, they have made such a controversy out of me.
The film’s sonic landscape intertwines with [the] emotional tension. The cawing of ravens and the hooting of owls—creatures of the night—do not aim for realism; instead, they amplify the somber tone of the poem. It becomes clear that the layers of the film are not intended to be direct translations of one another. Paired with an editing style that moves between repetition, stillness, and moments of rapid, jarring cuts, the film avoids settling into a single rhythm or a fixed meaning. Instead, it offers a constantly evolving perspective that mirrors the complexity of the lives depicted on screen.
Constructed as a collage of Farrokzhad’s poetry, verses from the Quran, and factual interjections delivered by a second speaker, the voice-over develops its own rhythm, shaped by the interplay of voices and shifting emotional tones. In one particularly poignant moment, the poetic narrator (the filmmaker herself) reflects that if she “were a dove”, she would seek refuge in the desert, having “seen misery and wickedness on earth”. The metaphorical desert is already established in the film as the colony’s setting, creating a link between the spoken word and the visual landscape. Through this connection, the residents become associated with the dove, a symbol of peace and freedom.
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- This film was #3 in the “Greatest” Short Films of All Time 2025voted by Gerard-Jan Claes, Emily Wright, Hadi Alipanah, Flavia Dima, José Emilio González, Julian Ross, Nicky Ni, Yun-hua Chen, Ruun Nuur, Mariana Hristova, Radu Jude, Salome Lamas, Nina de Vroome, David Bakum, Wiwat Lertwiwatwongsa, Manuel Mateo, Veton Nurkollari, Rubén Corral Giménez, Xavier García Bardón, Jason Tan Liwag, Ivan Ramljak, Farid Rodriguez Rivero, Ngọc Duy Lê, Matti Ullrich, Ben Nicholson, Delphine Jeanneret, Andreea Patru, Clara Helbig, Jukka-Pekka Laakso, Ryan Swen, Patrick Gamble, Courtney Stephens, Sven Pötting, Nel Dahl, Lucía Salas, Eroll Bilibani, Thomas Logoreci, Koen de Rooij, lau persijn, Christoffer Ode, Boris Hadžija, Cátia Rodrigues, Hoda Taheri, Eve Heller, Blanca Garcia, Deborah Stratman, Eneos Çarka, Azin Feizabadi, Dane Komljen, Adam Piron