CHESS OF THE WIND screening at FOMO Cinema Tbilisi

Mohammad Reza Aslani | 1976 | Iran | 1h39m | Presented in the original Persian audio with English subtitles

CHESS OF THE WIND is a miraculous recovery of a missing piece of cinema history. Mohammad Reza Aslani’s film is set inside an ornate old mansion where a family fortune becomes the centre of a struggle between a disabled heiress, predatory relatives and servants moving between loyalty and betrayal. But what makes it unforgettable for me isn’t just the intrigue. It’s the atmosphere. Every room seems to hold suspicion, every corridor feels charged. Criterion calls it a work that blends European modernism, gothic horror and classical Persian art, which gets very close to why the film feels so singular.

The lore around CHESS OF THE WIND is part of what makes showing it so exciting. It screened in 1976, then effectively vanished for decades after being condemned and disappearing from circulation. This masterpiece has since been resurrected through Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with Aslani and his family. That history matters because the film doesn’t feel like a curiosity. It feels major. It’s one of those rediscoveries that makes the map of world cinema look incomplete without it.

WHY I’VE INCLUDED IT IN THIS WEEK’S PROGRAM; I wanted one film in the week that carries the thrill of true rediscovery. CHESS OF THE WIND belongs here because it’s visually ravishing, politically charged and full of the kind of menace that creeps rather than announces itself. It also deepens the Iranian side of the program beautifully. Next to KILLING MAD DOGS, it shows a very different register of Iranian cinema, colder, more formal, more gothic, but just as rich in tension and intelligence. For me, this is exactly the kind of title FOMO should champion: a film with real mystery around it, real style, and a second life it absolutely deserve

LOCATION: FOMO Secret Cinema, Bazari Orbeliani, Tbilisi. A five minute walk from Liberty Square metro.

HOW TO FIND FOMO: Enter Bazari Orbeliani via Atoneli St above Carrefour and take the stairs on your left to the first floor. You can also check our Instagram story highlights for a video showing exactly how to find us:
https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17933106294029235/