Iran and Iranians in the World Film Festival

هنر و سرگرمی — 02 ژانویه 2013

Feature Films

HATRED (BOGHZ)

۲۰۱۲ / Colour / 84 min

Country: Iran

Section: First Films World Competition

Writer and Director: Reza Dormishian

Cast: Baran Kosari, Babak Hamdain, Mehran Ahmadi

Director’s Note: Zhaleh and Hamed are two young people from the third generation of Iranian immigrants who have settled in another country against their will — families who could not endure Iran’s living conditions, and have taken refuge in Turkey in order to live their lives in peace. HATRED includes two parallel stories from two periods of Zhaleh and Hamed’s lives. The first one is the story of the better days, when they meet each other. The second one is the story of the eight crucial hours when they commit a robbery in order to fund a happier life somewhere else. But things don’t quite work out as planned… “I was asked to set the story in the years before the Islamic revolution, but I was born after it and I have no clear image of that period. I preferred telling it as an emigration story and shooting the film out of the country. I just wanted to tell a story, not to convey messages.” — Reza Dormishian

A SIMPLE LOVE STORY (YE ASHEGHANE-YE SADEH)

۲۰۱۲ / Colour / 105 min

Country: Iran

Section: Focus on World Cinema

Director: Saman Moghadam

Writer: Samam Moghadam, Zamyad Saadvandian

Cast: Mahnaz Afshar, Mostafa Zamani, Homayoun Ershadi, Farhad Aeesh, Ali Ghorban Zadeh, Attila Pesyani

Note: Gandom, a simple village girl, has been secretly in love with Ali for a while, but no one in the village knows about it. In this rural environment tradition demands that all matches are made by parents and village elders, not by the young people themselves. But Ali and Gandom are determined to keep their love alive regardless of consequences.

MODEST RECEPTION (PAZIRAIE SADEH)

۲۰۱۲ / Colour / 100 min

Country: Iran

Section: Focus on World Cinema

Director: Mani Haghighi

Writer: Mani Haghighi, Amir-Reza Koohestani

Cast: Taraneh Alidoosti, Mani Haghighi, Saeed Changizian, Esmail Khalaj, Saber Abar, Mohammad Aghebati

Note: A man and a woman drive along a war-torn mountain road in their SUV. The vehicle is stuffed with plastic bags full of cash. The man and the woman are giving the money away to the poor souls they encounter on the road. Is this a goodwill mission? A test of honour and temptation? A psychotic gamble? As the car ploughs through the icy terrain, answers become increasingly elusive and tension builds to an unbearable pitch.

SOMEONE WANNA TALK TO YOU (YEKI MIKHAD BAHAT HARF BEZANE)

۲۰۱۲ / Colour / 90 min

Country: Iran

Section: Focus on World Cinema

Director: Manouchehr Hadi

Writer: Manouchehr Hadi, Saeed Dolatkhani

Cast: Shahab Hoseini, Anahita Nemati, Hamidreza Pegah, Yekta Naser

Director’s Note: Yasaman has been living with her mother Leila since birth. Leila has never let her see her father. When Yasaman becomes brain dead as result of an accident, Leila has one week to get consent from her ex-husband for a vital issue. “I’ve made one feature film and a score of TV films, but I regard SOMEONE WANTS TO TALK TO YOU as a new beginning in my career.” — Manouchehr Hadi

WAITING FOR A MIRACLE (DAR ENTEZAR-E MOJEZEH)

۲۰۱۱ / Colour / 82 min

Country: Iran

Section: Focus on World Cinema

Director: Rasoul Sadr-Ameli

Writer: Rasoul Sadr-Ameli, Kiarash Asadi-zadeh

Cast: Hamid Farrokhnezhad, Parivash Nazariyeh, Bita Farahi, Mahtab Giti-forouz

Note: The train heading from Tehran to Mashhad is filled with pilgrims. Among them are Amir and Mehraneh, a couple with a handicapped daughter. They’ve been married for three years and now realize that their union has been a bad mistake. The have now come to detest each other. But the pilgrimage forces them to co-exist for at least one more day. At their arrival, however, the doors to the site close before some pilgrims can get in…

AMBROSIA

۲۰۱۲ / Colour / 79 min

Country: Canada

Section: Focus on World Cinema

Writer and Director: Baharak Saeid Monir

Cast: Sahar Biniaz, Camyar Chai, Heather Doerksen, John Emmet Tracy, Paulin Egan, Veenu Sandhu, Tina Milo Milvojevic

Director’s Note: Ali and Leila, an Iranian immigrant couple in Vancouver, are working hard to make a better life for themselves. Ali is a pizza shop owner who hopes to expand his business. Leila is a talented seamstress who wants to become a fashion designer. When Sarah, who is in the fashion business, offers Leila a job, she jumps at the chance. But Ali’s pizzeria is struggling and Leila has to rush there every day from her own job to help out at night. And the pressure on Leila increases when Sarah’s relationship with her becomes less than professional. Leila is faced with some hard decisions.

WELCOME HOME

۲۰۱۲ / Colour / 73 min

Country: Belgium

Section: First Films World Competition

Writer and Director: Tom Heene

Cast: Manah Depauw, Kurt Vandendriessche, Nader Farman, Felipe Mafasoli

Note: Coming home from a long trip, Lila encounters Bilal, an I ranian returning to Brussels for the first time in forty years. She is fascinated by the old man and how he’s bewildered by the way the city has changed, with its new array of office blocks for the European institutes. Lila decides to accompany him through his search for the Brussels house he once lived in. In another sequence, Lila comes home and breaks up with her boyfriend Benjamin. We discover a modern woman. On the one hand she is liberated and determined not to be dependent on a man. On the other, she craves security and intimacy. We discover how the physical relation between her and Benjamin can be raw and unsettling. In a third sequence, Lila gets involved with a group of young Eurocrats out on the town. After what seems an innocent pursuit, the group becomes involuntarily responsible for an accident in which Lila is the victim.

Short Movies

Blames & Flames (Falgoosh)

۲۰۱۱ / Colour / 28 min

Country: Iran

Section: Documentaries of the World (short film)

Director: Mohammadreza Farzad

Note: In 1978, on the verge of the Islamic revolution, more than 130 cinemas burned down across Iran, including 28 in Tehran. Great strikes, signs of the onset of the revolution, affected cinema at large.

Revolutionary Memories of Bhaman Who Loved Leila

۲۰۱۲ / Colour / 15 min

Country: Iran

Section: Focus on World Cinema (short film)

Director: Farahnaz Sharifi

Writer: Farahnaz Sharifi, Mohammadreza Farzad

Note: 1978. Tehran is a battleground. Young Bahman falls in love woth Leila, the sister of his killed friend. Turmoil in the streets, turmoil in people’s hearts.

I Am Neda

۲۰۱۱ / Colour / 20 min

Country: USA

Section: Focus on World Cinema (short film)

Directors: Nader Sadighi, Nicole Kian Sadighi

Writer: Nicole Kian Sadighi

Note: The true story of an Iranian woman who fearlessly pursued the cause of freedom in defiance of tyranny and oppression.

All of Us

۲۰۱۲ / Colur / 6 min

Country: Canada

Section: Student Film Festival

Writer and Director: Hesam Hanafi

Note: FICTION. There is a very long lineup in my country, Iran. People join it when they are born. Some get frustrated. Some give up. Some fight for their turn. They compete with other people in order to reach where society is taking them.