Film
MP4Travel to Yazd in 1974 23 MBVGA resolution
Travel to Yazd in the summer of 1974, a short film by Gunter Weiland.
Gunter Weiland

1- Preface

This film is made by Günter Weiland in the summer of 1974, and is about a trip he took with his friends from Shiraz to Yazd for seeing Zoroastrian dakhmas (1). It is filmed with a Super8 camera and it is approximately four and a half minutes long. It has three santur rhythmic musical pieces by Master Faramarz Payvar and Master Hossein Tehrani (2) and also a kamancha solo by Master Ali Asqar Bahari that selected artistically.

Weiland is a German teacher, world traveler and documentary film-maker. He visited 30 countries in continents of Europe, Asia and Africa between 1967 and 1983 with proper planning on low budget trips with his own car, and made many photos, videos and reports about his trips. He was in journey about 1400 days and traveled more than 200000 kilometers. He and his girlfriend were like a couple of migratory birds who left their nest for the summer and returned after a couple of months.

He did a great job in the field of regional geography in 70s and has published the stories of his trips in the form of travel writing, photos and movies in his website in German. His works has artistic, dramatic, historic, geographic and humanistic value.

His great project in travels, was film-making. He published a small and selective part of his films from his trips in the form of 80 short spectacular movies, eight of them are about Iran; including the films of Qom, Isfahan 1, Persepolis, Shiraz, Bushehr, Yazd, Mashhad and Isfahan 2. All of these films can be watched on his YouTube channel.

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A view of Abarkooh friday mosque.
Gunter Weiland

2- Movie’s story

The film starts with scenes in a road restaurant in Surmaq three-way. Gunter and his girlfriend are with another German couple. They have decided in Shiraz to come to Yazd and visit Zoroastrian dakhmas. They set off after lunch. Despite hearing that the road was not in a good condition, they find it acceptable, and driving with 80 km/h in salt desert.

They arrive in Abarkooh in the afternoon after passing yakhchal (3). They leave there after a short stop and hit the road again. The sun sets and they camp by the road and sleep in their cars under the desert starry sky after having their dinner.

The next morning, they have their breakfast and set off again. They arrive in Farashah (4) with much trouble. People and children welcome them with kindness and curiosity. They hit the road again after a short stop, having some lemonade and purchasing a can of Indian tea.

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A view of Mojassame, Mojahedin or Shahid Beheshti square in Yazd.
Gunter Weiland

When they finally reach Yazd, the first thing they do is to find a restaurant and eat chelow kebab. They have their cars repaired, spent some time in the city and around Mojassame square (5), buy some snacks and then leave the city for Yazd’s dakhmas in the afternoon.

The final third of the film is about their time in dakhmas. They climb the hill of Golestan dakhma mountain all the way to the closed iron door of the dakhma. The scene with the parts of human skeleton spread all around scares them upon descend.

At the time of leaving, a man riding a donkey arrives and shows up and directs them to the ab-anbar (6). They take the stairs down to its tap and surprise to find the water cool and fresh, and drinking some water refresh them. They fill all of their water containers with that water and leave there for Naein.

3- Final word

Read the first part of Yazd travelogue in this page with more details and pictures. You can also read the second and interesting part, which is not in the film, and is about their stop for the night by a deserted and sanded village -probably Jafarabad Rostaq- in this page.

Continue to read the interview with Gunter Weiland who kindly and affably accepted to do the interview and answer the questions. We thank Gunter and Connie for recording historic frames of our land and we wish them the best.