Skip to main content

Dukhtar-i Lur

Dukhtar-i Lur

print
cite
print
cite

In Brief

Translated as The Lor Girl (1933); also translated as The Iran of Yesterday and the Iran of Today, was written by ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn Sipantā and directed by Ardashīr Īrānī, starring Rūḥʹangīz Sāmīʹnijād and ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn Sipantā. It was the first Iranian sound film produced in Persian and presented abroad, attempting to showcase a positive image of the then state of Iran. Shot in Bombay in 1932, the movie depicts the story of a young girl who, after being kidnapped as a child by bandits, is forced to work as a dancer at a teahouse.

The film Dukhtar-i Lur can be considered as one of the pioneers of talking cinema because it was produced only five years after the first all-talking (talkie) feature film “Lights of New York” (1928). The movie was remade in the 1970s and titled Jaʿfar va Gulnār (Jafar and Gulnar).

The film is also notable for Rūḥʹangīz Sāmīʹnijād’s performance as the first female performer in an Iranian film for which she attained immediate, but short-lived, fame, as well as eventual infamy and harassment.

Cite this article

Cinema Iranica (March 25, 2023) Dukhtar-i Lur. Retrieved from https://cinema.iranicaonline.org/article/dukhtar-i-lur-iran-i-imruz-va-iran-i-diruz/.
Cinema Iranica July 24, 2022 Dukhtar-i Lur., viewed March 25, 2023,<https://cinema.iranicaonline.org/article/dukhtar-i-lur-iran-i-imruz-va-iran-i-diruz/>
"Dukhtar-i Lur." Cinema Iranica - Accessed March 25, 2023. https://cinema.iranicaonline.org/article/dukhtar-i-lur-iran-i-imruz-va-iran-i-diruz/
Oct 1933
Release Date
90 min
Running time
Sound Films
Genre
Director(s)

Ardeshir Irani


Writer(s)

Abdolhossein Sepanta


Actors

Sohrab Poori

Abdolhossein Sepanta

Roohangiz Saminejad


Plot

The movie is about Golnar, a young teahouse girl who was kidnapped as a child and taken to Lorestan with a clan of bandits living among the Lors. The leader of the thieves, Gholi Khan, is beginning to look at her with interest now she is a grown up woman. At the teahouse, she meets a young man called Jafar who has been sent to Lorestan by the Iranian government to deal with the problem of banditry in the area. They fall in love and plan to escape together. Gholi Khan catches on to their plans and beats up Jafar. Jafar rejects Khan’s offer to join the bandits, so he is kidnapped and imprisoned. Golnar helps him escape and the couple attempt to flee. Pursued by the bandits, Jafar and Golnar are nearly captured, but Jafar kills several bandits, including Gholi Khan himself. Fearing revenge from the remaining gang, the couple escape to India, living in Bombay to find security from the lawlessness of Iran at the time. They later return to their homeland when they learn that a new government has brought law and order back to the country.