18 Facts About Morteza Avini

Morteza Avini was killed by a landmine explosion in 1993, while filming.

Morteza Avini was described as a Shahid after his death, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared him "the master of martyred literati".

Morteza Avini was born in 1947 in the city of Rey, south of Tehran, to a middle-class Muslim family that was not particularly religious.

Morteza Avini attended elementary and secondary school in Zanjan, Kerman, and Tehran.

Morteza Avini entered university in 1965, earning a master's degree in architecture from Tehran University.

Morteza Avini grew his hair long and started wearing jeans, bracelets.

Morteza Avini was described as a follower, but not a close disciple, of Khomeini.

Morteza Avini's film-making has been described as having an ideological goal.

Morteza Avini was the head of Jihad Television Unit, a documentary film unit co-sponsored both by IRIB channel 1 and Construction Jihad.

Morteza Avini overlaid these with Shia mystic philosophy, and invited the viewer to develop a personal place within the event.

Morteza Avini worked with a crew of young amateur volunteers.

Morteza Avini has stated that his film crews tried to avoid the "sloppy fakery" of most TV News reports.

Morteza Avini rarely filmed major victories and was hardly interested in strategy or military issues; his documentaries were almost exclusively devoted to how volunteers viewed the conflict and their participation in it.

Morteza Avini wrote a series of articles in Sureh magazine critiquing Western civilization, a subject which was later the focus of his film Sarab.

Morteza Avini's work had similarities to that of 19th century thinkers in the Muslim world who felt it was necessary to employ Western political, economic, or cultural techniques in the service of spiritual art.

However, Morteza Avini said that artists needed to be able to subdue what he described as the profane nature of modern techniques to use them in spiritual revolutionary art.

Morteza Avini was killed by shrapnel from a landmine explosion in Fakkeh, in northwest Khuzestan Province, on 9 April 1993, while producing a documentary.

Morteza Avini was dubbed a shahid, or "martyr," after his death.