NWO Productions presents
Mishkín-Qalam Documentary Film
An award-winning documentary on the life and art of the master calligrapher.
The true story of the calligrapher who traded a palace for exile
The Mishkín-Qalam documentary tells the true story of Mishkín-Qalam, the leading calligrapher of nineteenth-century Persia. Tutor to the Crown Prince and celebrated across Asia Minor, he gave up a life of royal privilege for his beliefs and spent decades in exile and imprisonment — nineteen of those years in Cyprus, where this film was shot. Told through dramatic re-enactments, original “Miniature”-style animation, and interviews with scholars and his own descendants, it is a story of art, conviction and resilience that still speaks to a divided world.
Storyline
Born Mírzá Ḥusayn-i-Isfahání in Shiraz, Persia, he rose from obscurity to the royal court after a single fingernail sketch caught the eye of King Naser al-Din Shah, who gave him the honorific “Mishkín-Qalam” and made him tutor to the Crown Prince. At the height of his fame, he advocated for the unity of humankind, a choice that cost him everything worldly: decades in exile and as a prisoner of the Ottoman Empire, including nineteen years in Cyprus. Yet he never lost his creative fire, producing works of outstanding beauty now held in the Harvard Art Museums, the British Museum, and the Bahá’í World Centre in Haifa. This documentary retraces that journey across three continents. Read more about his life on the Official Biography page.
Mishkin Qalam Documentary Film
A documentary entitled Mishkin-Qalam has been filmed and produced in Cyprus, the country to which the great artist was exiled for 19 years. This documentary tells the life story of Mishkin-Qalam through historical dramatic re-enactments, animations produced in the Middle Eastern “Miniature” style, as well as interviews in the Persian, Greek and Turkish languages with scholars and descendants of the artist based in Italy, the USA, Israel and Australia. Non-English interviews are accompanied by English subtitles.
PRODUCERS
New World Order Productions
Executive Producer
New World Order Productions is a one-stop film production company established for the creation of world-class, original, beautiful and meaningful documentaries, music videos and feature films promoting international peace, prosperity, compassion and justice.