Representation of religion in the Iranian Cinema: A Comparative Study of the First and the 10th Royesh Religious Short Film Festival (2005-2016)

The question of the nature of religious cinema has had many answers, such as the Spiritual, Transcendental and Conceptual cinema and efforts have been made to study religious cinema such as style, genre, and type. Rather than presenting structural definitions of religious cinema, this article try to an inductive approach to determine the social and cultural perceptions of religious cinema in the context of films.Therefore, by studying films in “Rooyesh film: the festival of religious cinema” and examining 369 films based on the methodology of content analysis, the question has been answered: how is the representation of religion in the films of this festival? What aspects and feature of religion are depicted in the Rooyesh festival Movies?Also cultural and social developments in religious cinema have been studied by comparing study of the first festival (2005) with the 10th Rooyesh festival Movies (2016) and has been try to answer to this question: How has the representation of the results show that admirable depict of religion was replaced by questionable confrontation of religion. Also, the representation of rituals and ceremonies of religion has declined dramatically and non-traditional religious cinema has increased in Iranian cinema. Traditional and nostalgic depiction of religious cinema that emphasizes the inherent innocence (childishness, rural simplicity, pure naturalism) or restoration and preservation of traditions (traditional rituals, traditional occupations, traditional monuments, traditional arts). These narratives were replaced by critical and traumatic cinema.