Hossein taghipour

Most of the passengers who are traveling to the North of country by using the Chalous road, probably have seen the wreckage of a helicopter was hanging on wires of the back yard of the Karaj river dam

This helicopter is remnant of an air crash happened 46 years ago and doomed to die all film and reportage crew members of Albert La Maurice

The film was nominated as “Baad Saba”. 1969 or Zephyr. This wind in Persian supposed to use by lovers to communicate and being in contact

This film was one of the preliminary and the very first attempts in this field to introduce and present the Iran,s tourist attractions to foreigners. The than Iranian cultural and guidance ministry invited Albert La Maurice (French distinguished film director and script writer) to produce the film

In his resume there are a lot of successful short and long time films, even he won the golden palm trophy of Cannes festival, but for we, as Iranian his film “Red Balloon” is very familiar

Although the Baad Saba film was produced for introduction of Iran tourist attractions including Natural, Rural and Urban sectors Iran vast land, but La Maurice by using his especial approach and film making techniques made it very different of just mere propaganda.

He exerted sociological criteria in the film and caused it lasts for long times. other important point that makes it very distinguished and different from other documentary films is its very wide and holistic vision to different parts of Iran. By watching the film, the spectators can see the whole iran from North to South and East to West, including modern parts of Tehran plus the most poor and undeveloped parts of the country. La Maurice by using his strong imagination by riding the fictional horse shows a lot of tales regarding Ancient Iran civilization, Folklor stories and fables, beautiful nature, victories, failures, capabilities… and other interesting aspects of Iranian everyday life

Zephyr or Baad Saba film is a master piece in admiring of Iran home land, a country full of beauties and

Glory, that its director (La Maurice) lost his for that

It has been known that the original copy of the film was not well received by that time Iranian government, supposed there are no sign of Iran progress in industrial and modernity. For this reason La Maurice was asked to insert the signs of modern Iran including Hugh dams and factories

For fulfilling the goal La Maurice travelled to Tehran and with his camera crew started the filming of new scenes and fields

One of new destination film shooting was Karaj dam complex. La Maurice did not finish his job by crash of his helicopter and lost his life in this field

Later on, his assistance and son edited and assembled the filming scenes, by adding those to the original one and the Present copy was made ready to air

This film was nominated as the best documentary film for the Oscar trophy in the year 1978

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*Zephyr stands for “Baad Saba” in Persian. There is belief in Iranian literature that this wind is used by lovers to communicated and exchange romantic messages