Masoud Kimiai is one of the founders of New Wave Cinema, which gave rise to the production of a number of intellectual artistic movies in last four decades. He began his career in 1966 as the Assistant-Director in the movie “Goodbye Tehran” (Khodahafez Tehran) by Samoel Khachikian. His first work as a movie director was “Come Here Stranger” (Biganeh bia), produced in 1966, one year before his most influential work, “Gheisar.” With “Gheisar” Kimiai glorified individual rebellion against social and gender injustice. While rebellion remains the back bone of Kimiai’s work, its individualistic content gradually changes to collective and social substance. “Khak” is one of his first efforts in showing the social roots of individual problems, and investigating their communal solution. It demonstrates a dialectical relationship between society and the individual in Iran during the critical period after the Shah’s Land Reform of 1963, in the process of the capitalist transformation of rural society.
