Isfahan Documentary House will screen today a documentary on the impact of fast spreading megamalls on the old but unique bazaar in the tourist city.
“Mashd Abbas, to Be or Not to Be,” a 40-minute film, directed by documentarian Hashem Mortazavian, will go on screen at Imam Khomeini Negarestan, a cultural center, IMNA reported on its Persian website.
The documentary was first released in 2017. Mortazavian has shot the scenes himself. The film shows how chain stores and megamalls in the ancient city and a major tourist attraction have negatively affected the local bazaar and retailers. Mashd Abbas in the title is a stereotypical name representing traditional retailers and small shop-owners.
For two decades, modernism has cast a shadow over Isfahan, bringing along rapid urban growth, water deficit, traffic congestion and air pollution, says an introduction to the documentary.
Over the past several years experts have been warning that Isfahan is more polluted than Tehran as the city grows and industries expand on its periphery.
But still, people crave for more modernization and seem willing to abandon the old and the traditional. This has affected the livelihood of local businesses who are facing serious challenges from new and fast growing chain stores. As if the mall threat was not enough, now online shopping has come to make a bad situation worse for retailers many whom have downed shutters or become insolvent.
The screening event will be followed by a meeting to review and debate the film.
