Mirza Ebrahim Khan Sahaf Bashi (also referred to as Ebrahim Khan Sahhafbashi-e Tehrani), an antiques dealer, was one of the fortunate few with links to the Shah. Nasser al-Din Shah had sent Bashi’s father overseas to study, and it was with the Shah’s permission that he gave cinema screenings in the back of his antiques store in Cheragh Gaz Avenue in Tehran sometime during November-December 1904.

There were no chairs in the makeshift cinema so audiences would sit on the carpeted floor. Bashi had first seen films at the Palace Theatre in London in 1897, and it was films that he had purchased from Europe that he screen in the back room of his store.

Unfortunately for Bashi, the opening of his cinema coincided with the holy month of Ramadan, invoking the wrath of the powerful cleric Shaikh Fazlolah Nuri, and the cinema was closed down within one month of opening. Other possible reasons for the cinema’s closure are because of a public outcry raised when rumours circulated that films showing unveiled women were being shown, and because of the Shah’s displeasure at Bashi’s political activism as a constitutionalist in favour of a parliamentary monarchy instead of the Qajar monarchy. Whatever the reason, Sahaf Bashi was arrested and then exiled with his family, while his projector and other related equipment was confiscated.

Sources

Iranian Cinema: Before the Revolution by Shahin Parhami

Companion Encyclopedia of Middle Eastern and North African Film. Contributors: Oliver Leaman - editor. Publisher: Routledge. Place of Publication: London. Publication Year: 2001. Page Number: 132.

Iranian Cinema: A Political History by Hamid Riza Sadr published by I.B. Taurus, 2006, page 9.

Cinemas of the World by James Chapman, published by Reaktion books, 2003, page 388.