Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life (1925)

In 1925, filmmakers Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack captured an awe-inspiring journey: 50,000 members of the Persian Bakhtiari community crossed snow, mountains, and rivers to reach the lush grasslands of western Iran. The result was Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life, one of the earliest major silent documentaries.

Almost a century later, this film comes to life again at De Centrale. Internationally acclaimed Iranian composer and pianist Peyman Yazdanian, together with kamancheh virtuoso Adib Rostami, presents an entirely new live soundtrack. Not a traditional, orientalist accompaniment, but a radically different interpretation: an improvised duet between piano and kamancheh, where silence, spontaneity, and authentic Iranian tonal colors take center stage.

The music is created in the moment, in dialogue with the images and the audience. At times soft and contemplative, at times rhythmic and intense.
The result: a unique experience where image and sound merge.

According to film critic Babak Elahi, this new score offers not only artistic innovation but also a fresh perspective on a film originally told from a Western point of view. Yazdanian creates a musical context that is closer to the culture and the people of the story:
“This is an Iranian story. And we must keep telling it in new, creative ways.”