First Screening of the Documentary “Portrait of a Scholar: Djalal Khaleghi Motlagh” at the University of Hamburg, Directed by Mohammad Ali Mirzaee
The Deutsch-Iranische Gesellschaft in Norddeutschland and the Department of Iranian Studies at the University of Hamburg will host the first screening of the documentary Portrait of a Scholar: Djalal Khaleghi Motlagh in honor of Djalal Khaleghi Motlagh.
This event will take place on December 4, 2025, at 19:00 at:
Asia-Africa Institute, Edmund Siemers-Allee 1,
Flügelbau Ost, 2nd Floor, Room 221
To watch the film trailer, visit:
For more information, visit the University of Hamburg website:
Event Details on University Website
Portrait of a Scholar: Djalal Khaleghi Motlagh
Djalal Khaleghi Motlagh was born on September 10, 1937, in Tehran. After finishing high school, he migrated to Germany to continue his studies. Although he initially arrived in Germany to study economics, he soon chose a different path. At the University of Cologne, he wrote his doctoral thesis titled Women in the Shahnameh, became a Persian language lecturer at the University of Hamburg, and spent more than 35 years gathering manuscripts and editing Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. According to scholars, the study of text editing in Iran is divided into two periods—before and after Khaleghi Motlagh—due to his groundbreaking work. This documentary tells the story of Khaleghi Motlagh’s arrival in West Germany, the previously untold story of the independence of the Department of Iranian Studies at the University of Hamburg, and the motivations and methods behind the editing of the Shahnameh, which ultimately led to its publication in both the United States and Iran.
Director: Mohammad Ali Mirzaee
