The Judaic-Christian Perception of Purgatory in the Iranian Cinema

«Purgatory» or the interim state in afterlife is a well-known concept which has ocuupied a place in both the world''s conventional cinema، and what is known as the Iranian meaning-oriented movies. The dominant approach to the issue، as a trasitional phase in afterlife، is thought to have originated in the Judaistic Chirstianity or the Judaic-Christian view. This article first offers a genealogy of the approach and a definition of the concept in Judaic-Christian and Islamic doctrine، and then it surveys its impact on some of the prominent Iranian films containing the above theme in the recent decade. The inconsistency of the approach with Shia view is then discussed and the cinema potential for depicting the latter is explained.