According to Atabe News, Hadi Hajtemand said during the meeting that cinema should seek to explore the human world of its characters—a world that emerges from their doubts, choices, weaknesses and human qualities.

He continued: “A filmmaker’s worldview can be understood through the characters in their works. When a filmmaker’s films are viewed together, we gradually become familiar with their intellectual and philosophical outlook. The characters created across different works collectively shape the filmmaker’s identity and worldview.”

The director, who is particularly interested in making feature films about the Sacred Defense and war, added that simply including battle scenes and appealing visual effects does not amount to having a cinematic vision. A film may be produced with adequate resources and exciting action sequences, yet still lack a coherent cinematic world.

Hajtemand emphasized that, just as fictional characters in literature and novels can create a convincing and influential world, cinema can also feature an imaginary character with whom audiences can connect.

He noted that the world a filmmaker presents to audiences through a film should be credible, engaging, cinematic and dramatic. However, this does not necessarily mean that all its characters and events must have existed exactly as portrayed in historical reality.

Focusing on Well-Known Figures Can Leave No Room for Other Characters

The director said that insisting on using famous names and well-known figures can sometimes mean missing the opportunity to portray other people. He explained: “I once had an idea for a film about the life of an ordinary combatant. He is an ordinary person who loves the Imam (AS), has little formal education and does whatever he can to defend his country. He is the hero of the story, without necessarily bearing the name of a well-known martyr.”

Hajtemand stated that one of the challenges sometimes encountered in Sacred Defense cinema is the assumption that every film about war must necessarily focus on a particular martyr or historical figure.

He stressed that there is no such requirement. Moreover, cinema should not be confined to directly narrating and merely reconstructing historical events.

He further emphasized that filmmakers should be able to tell stories about what they genuinely believe in, rather than simply choosing subjects that are not necessarily their personal choices just to make a film or secure support. However, some filmmakers do precisely that because they do not consider the worldview and narrative underlying their films important; they are only concerned with producing works in quantitative terms and obtaining the approval of the relevant manager to secure a production permit.

According to the director, some administrators, despite their knowledge and academic qualifications, are unable to think cinematically. Their mindset is primarily shaped by engineering, and they lack an understanding of the cinematic environment. As a result, their thinking does not sufficiently connect with the cultural and artistic nature of cinema.

Hajtemand noted that the easiest path for a filmmaker is to choose a subject that others will approve of, secure a budget and make the film. “But I prefer to produce a work that I believe in and that comes from my own intellectual world. I do not want to make films at any cost.”