The event, held on Sunday 12 Mordad (August 3) at Ferdows Hall in the Cinema Museum of Iran, was part of the Iranian Youth Cinema Society’s initiative to promote adapted works. It coincided with the 7th Tehran Short Film Studies Conference on adaptation and the “Book and Cinema” section of the 42nd Tehran International Short Film Festival. Filmmaker and researcher Seyed Javad Mir-Hashemi joined Moradi for a screening and discussion of four of his adapted short films.
Mir-Hashemi opened the session by saying:
“Any occasion to gather and talk about books—especially adapted films—is a valuable opportunity. Today, I’m honoured to discuss four adaptations by Mr. Moradi with the film crews and cinema and literature enthusiasts present.”
From “Jungle” to “Rangarang”
Moradi’s short Jungle was adapted from Night Hunt by author Samad Taheri. “He is an extraordinary figure in the field of short fiction,” Moradi said. “We spoke, and he agreed to let me adapt his story. After watching the film, however, he felt I shouldn’t have included the character of Mirza.”
Doal-Pa was inspired by the Sindbad the Sailor tales from One Thousand and One Nights. Moradi explained: “The term Doal-Pa means ‘tick-like’ in Persian. I had heard the word but never connected with it until I read One Thousand and One Nights and discovered Sindbad encounters a mythical creature by that name. One day, while home alone, a small incident sparked the idea for the film.”
Rangarang—a loose take on the story of Aladdin—was, according to Moradi, “a tribute to my father.” He elaborated: “There’s a huge rift between me and my father caused by a major mistake I made. To me, fatherhood has three stages: first, the father is a hero; then he is denied; and finally, his heroic life is rediscovered. I thought if I had a genie, I’d ask for my father’s voice back. This fantasy film was a personal confession, almost like speaking to a priest. After showing it to my father, a weight was lifted off my shoulders.”
Merging Two Myths
The screenplay for The Legend of Kouh-e Nanouk blended the Japanese tale Obasute—about abandoning the elderly during famine—with the Iranian legend of Damahi. “The idea emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Moradi said. “With my wife Golsa, we merged the two myths, and this was the result.”
Moradi concluded by revealing he plans to move on from short films: “We’ve defined several new feature-length projects in different genres. I believe stories themselves dictate what should be told, and I want to make films across all genres.”
From Stone to Text
Mir-Hashemi closed the session with an analogy drawn from Linda Seger’s The Art of Adaptation. She cites Michelangelo’s famous remark when asked how he sculpted an angel from marble: “The angel was already inside; I just removed the excess stone.”
He also recounted a story from historian Bastani Parizi about the late sculptor Abolhussein Sedighi, who created the statue of Persian poet Ferdowsi. Sedighi spent weeks simply looking at a large stone from Mount Damavand before starting work. When asked why, he replied: “Until then, the stone had power over me. Once I felt I could master it, I began—and released Ferdowsi from within.”
“In the same way,” Mir-Hashemi said, “a filmmaker approaching an adapted story must first master the text. Only when the filmmaker has full command over the narrative can they extract its dramatic and storytelling elements and bring them to the screen.”