Tahqiqāt-e Tārikh-e Ejtemā’I (Social History Studies), VOL:8, NO:1, Spring & Summer 2018 Dawn of Cinema in Iran: Socio-political Challenges Seyedmohsen Alavipour * abstract Despite its obvious backwardness in comparison to the westerners, the late 18 th century Iranian society confrontation with the new-born industry of motion picture happened very early. Thanks to Mozaffaredin Shah’s travel to Europe, it took only 5 years for Iranians to import the new technology and begin their primitive style of film-making. However, the first director, cameraman, and actor of this regional cinema was the Shah, so different layers of social structure could not play their proper role in the rebirth and maturation of cinema in the local cultural atmosphere. Thus, it took a long way for the industry to become a normal part of the popular culture. Indeed, due to the cultural and religious differences between the religious-traditional society in Iran and the much more conformable culture of the European societies, it was totally unimaginable for Iranians to adopt * Assistance professor of political science, at the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran, alavipour@ihcs.ac.ir Received: 05/05/2018 Accepted:16/08/2018 Copyright © 2010, IHCS (Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies). This is an Open Access article. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA