TEHRAN – The Iranian Artists Forum (IAF) in Tehran will screen “Distant Voices, Still Lives,” a 1988 British period drama film written and directed by Terence Davies, on Friday.

The 84-minute movie will be shown at the Nasseri Hall of the IAF at 6 p.m., with Persian subtitles, IRNA reported.

“Distant Voices, Still Lives” evokes working-class family life in Liverpool during the 1940s and early 1950s, paying particular attention to the role of popular music, Hollywood cinema, light entertainment, and the public house within this tight-knit community.

It is made up of two separate films, shot two years apart, but with the same cast and crew. The first section, “Distant Voices,” chronicles the early life of a working-class Catholic family living under a thoroughly psychotic, abusive, violent, and mostly hateful father. 

The second section, “Still Lives,” sees the children grown up and emerging into a brighter 1950s Britain, only a few years from rock and roll and the Beatles, yet somehow still a lifetime away.

The cast includes Pete Postlethwaite, Freda Dowie, Lorraine Ashbourne, Jean Boht, Michael Starke, Andrew Schofield, Debi Jones, and Pauline Quirke, among others.

The film won the Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association. In 1988, the film won the Golden Leopard of the Locarno Film Festival. In 2007, the British Film Institute reprinted and distributed the film across some of Britain's most high-profile independent cinemas, prompting The Guardian newspaper to describe it as “Britain's forgotten cinematic masterpiece”.

In a 2011 poll, carried out by Time Out of the 100 greatest British films of all time, “Distant Voices, Still Lives” was ranked third. The film is now sometimes seen as one of the best films ever made.

The Iranian Artists Forum is located at Artists Park on North Mousavi Street, Taleqani Street.

SS/SAB