TEHRAN -- Iranian director Mohammadreza Aslani plans to make a film on Molana Jalal ad-Din Rumi.

Aslani wants to find a producer before beginning to write the screenplay about the Sufi mystic and poet who always wrote in Persian.
“The producer is essential for shaping the screenplay of this project,” he told ISNA on Saturday.
Sima Film, a studio affiliated to IRIB, was to produce the project but the negotiations between Aslani and the studio broke down.
According to Aslani, Qatar and some other countries are planning to make films on Rumi.
“There are many claims to this poet (in the world), thus the project needs to be supported by Iran,” Aslani noted.
“However, this is not so,” he lamented.
The film, which will highlight spiritual slices of Rumi’s life, will be set in Rumi’s birthplace Balkh in modern Afghanistan as well as in Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and the eastern part of Iran, he explained.
“We also need some shots of Rumi’s manuscripts, which will be taken at some Turkish museums,” he added.
Aslani always makes low-budget films and says that he will not break with that tradition in the Rumi project.
“The project does not require much money. Thus, I hope the conditions will be created for the production of the film,” he said.
Aslani’s previous film, “The Green Fire”, was inspired by Rumi.
His other credits include “Hassanlu Cup”, “Chess with the Wind”, “Abu Rayhan Biruni”, “Child and Exploitation”, “Our Cultural Heritage”, “Mash Esmaeil”, “Conference of the Birds” and “Memoirs of a 25-Year-Old Person”.