The Persian carpet, as a cultural and identity symbol, embodies semantic, historical, and mythological layers, enabling its multifaceted representation in artistic texts. However, its intersection with cinema and its meaning‑making processes have rarely been examined methodologically. Bahram Beyzai's short film The Speaking Carpet (Qali-ye Sokhan-gu) exemplifies this synthesis, transcending the carpet's decorative status to transform it into a platform for re‑creating meaning, myth, and cultural identity.
This study asks: how does the film, through the cultural sign of the carpet, produce and reconstruct cultural, historical, and gendered discourses, and how is this signification articulated via social semiotics—specifically representation, interaction, and composition? The objective is to decipher the discourses formed through visual and auditory signs and to re‑examine the filmmaker's worldview regarding the carpet's role in meaning‑generation, cultural memory, and symbolic power.
Using a qualitative descriptive‑analytical method, the analysis focuses on nine key sequences, with one indicative frame per sequence (coded S1F1–S9F1). Data were gathered through repeated viewings and analyzed based on Kress and van Leeuwen's tripartite model. Cinematic elements—mise‑en‑scène, framing, lighting, sound, camera movement, and color—were also treated as meaning resources.
Findings show that Beyzai employs semiotic motifs such as the "sun with a feminine visage," the "Waq‑Waq tree," the "female weaver," the "carpet behind the window," and the "tanbur" to reproduce discourses of knowledge, historical memory, tradition, cultural resistance, revival, mediation, and continuity. The carpet thus becomes a medium for reflecting thought and revitalizing cultural heritage. The female weaver appears as an active agent and custodian of meaning who, through weaving, culturally reproduces history and resists gender stereotypes. The interplay of light and shadow across sequences serves as the primary mechanism shaping these discourses.