Navid khonsari biography of abraham

I also came during the US hostage crisis, so Iranians were not necessarily looked upon favorably. Because of my love and appreciation for Star Wars movies and video games, and comic books, I was able to communicate with my classmates. How do games influence the perception of history nowadays? Khonsari : I think games have an advantage over other disciplines that try to convey, portray or tell the historical stories of the past.

And that is because we have the ability through the immersion of interactivity to put people in the shoes of those, who were directly involved within those historical moments. That perspective allows us to have a little bit more humanity, a little bit more compassion and a little bit more understanding. Rather than just taking a look at what took place, looking at it intellectually and coming to some conclusions, you make it personal.

Navid khonsari biography of abraham: Navid Khonsari, director of

Once we have that personal connection, then there is more understanding on behalf of your audience and I think a greater opportunity for dialogue. Khonsari : For me it was very important to tell the the story of what took place. I felt that there were already documentaries, films, books and other material that had covered the events of the revolution quite well, but there was nothing in the interactive world.

So for me, it was about making a game in a medium that rarely takes on history. I was excited by those challenges and the pursuit to taking on a whole new way of telling this well-known history. That sounds serious. What impact did the game have in general? Khonsari : We wanted to make sure that the material was authentic. So we worked with multiple colleagues who are Iranian — as actors, as artists, as programmers, as researchers.

All of them were concerned about the repercussions of how this material would be misinterpreted by the Islamic Republic of Iran and the implications it could have for them to travel back, or for their families. The game was banned in the country within two weeks and access was blocked.

Navid khonsari biography of abraham: For their new work-in-progress

We also had multiple challenges on the digital front with attacks on our servers, my own personal information, my bank accounts and so forth, It was very difficult. Khonsari : I knew what I was stepping into. I felt that we had a fair and balanced approach. We have characters in the game that represent the Islamic side, the intellectual side, the communist side, all of these people are in there to speak their mind, because all of these people were quite essential to bringing about the revolution.

However, anything that comes from the West, regardless of who it is, the Islamic government of Iran is quick to dismiss it.

Navid khonsari biography of abraham: Navid. Khonsari, lives in

As I am also not one to give up, we immediately translated the game into Farsi and put it on the iOS stores in Malaysia and in Turkey, and put it up for free so that Iranians within the country could then get access to via a VPN. Interesting enough, once that happened and people heard about it, we had people in Ukraine, Turkey, Egypt and other parts of the world taking the game, translating it into their own language and then providing us with the translation so that we could update the game.

It was amazing to see how people recognized the plight of their own revolutions in what took place in Iranian We had multiple challenges with distribution outlets and their concerns about the political elements of the game. We won the Grand Jury award at the gaming festival Indiecade and were specifically left off of editorial lists that celebrated all the other winners.

When it comes to video games — political content is something that most vendors purposely avoid — which is tragic. Khonsari : Absolutely. Manhunt 8. State of Emergency 5. Max Payne 9. My Dog Vincent 5. Visual Effects. Previous 9. Red Dead Revolver 7. Related news. Contribute to this page Suggest an edit or add missing content. Learn more about contributing.

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