The wider landscape of persian cinema over the last 100 years or more has been a varied topography of extraordinary cinematic events through which these major film-makers have risen to global attention.By and large, the critics who were consulted to create BBC Culture’s list likely know of persian or any other world cinema through the major international film festivals, chiefly Cannes, Venice, Berlin, and Locarno, which overshadow other festivals in the US, Japan, Korea, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.