The reason for the lengthiness of "Gildokht" was

According to the Tasnim News Agency, a press conference for the series "Gildokht" directed by Majid Esmaeili and produced by Mohammad Reza Shafiei was held today.

The producer of the series emphasized in this session that the most popular TV series can have around four or five million viewers, but the statistics provided by the organization indicate that this very series has had approximately 35 to 40 million viewers. The audience for the type of series we create is important to us; sometimes, we compromise our artistic desires for the sake of the public. Years ago, I had the series "Distances," and perhaps I didn't like some of the main characters, but I saw that people loved those characters.

He also spoke about the weekly airing of the series: The first time I heard about Mr. Jabali's idea of a weekly format, I had concerns. My request was that it wouldn't be limited to Fridays alone, and I wanted it to have two time slots, which they agreed to. After "Mokhtarnameh" and "Yusuf Prophet," it had been years since this series airing format had been used, but my concerns were alleviated after a few weeks. People find and watch good series, whether on television or through other media channels.

Majid Asodegan, the writer of the series, responded to criticisms of "Gildokht" as follows: I myself have some criticisms of the work, even though I was involved in the project, but I have seen it with different people and have some criticisms. I agree that it may be long-winded, and in some places, the pace dropped, but this happens naturally in all long series. Some issues come back to me, and some problems are related to the execution. Now, after sixty episodes, when we want to analyze it, there are no major gaps. The figure of 35 million that Mr. Shafiei mentioned is very high, and in my opinion, it's a good achievement.

Majid Esmaili, the director, also said: I don't accept that there were major flaws in the story. We had a screenplay for 46 episodes, which was expanded to 60 episodes during airing; that, on the other hand, turned into a drawback. Truly, if there has been any weakness, it is due to the challenges and difficulties we faced. Even in the 500 sessions we had, if there has been a weak point in any scene, it emerges. The actor playing Esmaili's role fell off a horse once and injured his spine. We lost one of the actors for a while after falling off the horse, which may have caused some changes in the story as well.

He added: I'm not saying Gilda is without fault, but I'm saying no one was left behind for the series. We were working during the COVID period. Maybe we only stopped working for 45 days. We had a terrible fire that caused us to lose part of our location. We are aware of the criticisms, but we put all our efforts into it. We used very few stunt doubles. Golnar herself rides a horse.

Reza Akbarpour, an actor in the series, said in a short statement: Being in this series was like an acting university for me.

Mitra Rafiei, the lead actress of the series, described this collection by saying: The creators of "Gilda" trusted young and unknown actors. We were evaluated, and we did not deny it by these dear people. It's good not to deny the youth. It takes courage to take risks and trust.

• Tasnimnews