The first public screening took place in Tehran in 1904, presented by Mirza Ebrahim Khan Sahaf Bashi. He arranged the screening in the back of his antique shop. In 1905, Sahaf Bashi opened the first movie theater in Cheragh Gaz Avenue in the national capital. There were no chairs in the Saloon and audiences had to sit on the carpeted floor, as they would sit in mosques or at Ta’zieh shows. Sahaf Bashi’s cinema did not last for more than a month, because of his political activities as a nationalist and an individual who was lobbying for a constitutional monarchy. Also, religious opposition provided the Shah’s police with a sufficient excuse to arrest Sahaf Bashi, close down the cinema and confiscate his projector and related equipment. He was soon sent into exile. Perhaps this was the first instance of censorship in the history of Iranian cinema.(Omid, p.870).
