This volume is the first English-language book on this remarkable but neglected Iranian–German filmmaker (1944–98). Shahid Saless's work belongs to no single place or canon; it is a continent of its own – a central massif of cinema, as one critic notes. The director's slow-paced films tell simple stories almost without words, in meditative but searing images that register the smallest of details. His close attention to the routines and repetitions of everyday life is mirrored in the rhythmic flow of his films and in the clockwork-precision play of sound and silence. In addition to cinema, he engaged in other mediums such as television and literature. Moving across cultures, from prerevolutionary Iran to post-war West Germany and the former Czechoslovakia, he observes the world with an unflinching eye, alert to cruelty and injustice, but never judging.

Shahid Saless led a fascinating, if at times sad and lonely, life. Fleeing from his native Iran in 1974 and making Germany his new home, he did enjoy some success there but eventually had to leave in 1992, due to the difficulty of securing funds for his projects and finding it hard to support himself generally. He died just a few years later, alone in a rental flat in Chicago. This book provides an overview and analysis of Shahid Saless's lifetime work, produced in Iran, Germany and the USA, through a set of comprehensive contributions from leading scholars in the field.

The book is divided into three major parts. The first covers Shahid Saless’s time in Iran, including the inspiration he took from the great Chekhov, and his minimalist mise-en-scène and use of non-professional actors in A Simple Event (1974) and Still Life (1974).