Film Links and More
Film society presents young Iranian filmmakers. (Synopsis, trailers here)
A World Between is the true story of a young Iranian American raised in the US, who travels to Iran to discover his father’s homeland. Sample video
Young republic by Nooshin J. Navidi: Navidi made her first trip to Iran in Spring 2006 to explore the country for sixth months. Born in Southern California to an Iranian father and Korean mother, Nooshin graduated from Stanford University with a Masters in Sociology and Bachelor in Communications.
More videos on Iran including American life in Iran, 1975
Link via Peyman
Our Friend to Humanity gives some historical context for the current strained relations between America and Iran.
More links/events at Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute
Peace Corps Writers Blog: Iran
A Test from BBC-Science & Nature:
Can you tell genuine smile and fake ones?
(15 out of 20 for me)
Links
Life goes on in Tehran: a Photoblog, link via AA
The unapolegetic Mexican: Let’s take a walk through Iran
Vivien Feyer and Jeffrey Ritterman: Children of Iran, thanks Ann
Benedictus: An international collaboration among artists from Iran, Israel and the United States, San Francisco, till October 21st
Life and So Much More: Kiarostami at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Oct 12 to 27
Cinema’s twin orphans: Kiarostami and Victor Erice at Centre Pompidou, Paris
Chicago’s 18th Annual Festival of is currenctly screening 14 recent Iranian films.
Night Bus by Kiumars Purahmad is nominated in the Asia Pacific Screen Awards
Modern and contemporary art in Iran
Super East-West woman: Living on the Axis, Fighting Evil Everywhere: Aphrodite Desiree Navab at Rhonda Schaller Studio, NY, Oct 20 Nov 17. About the exhibition
Exhibition in Abu Dhabi: A walk into Islamic history, the private collection of Dr. Abdul Latif Kanoo
Linux advocacy: Persian Linux
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The man who stands between US and new war – thanks Ann
Leading Americans Ask U.S. Military to Refuse Orders to Attack Iran: Text of Petition
Spinning the threat of a nuclear war in the ME: Haaretz
Conversation with history: An interview with John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt authors of the Israel lobby and US foreign policy, see also first paper in The London Review of Books
More Links
A new blog, My year in Tehran (or more) : We moved to Tehran in May 2007, to work for UNICEF there. My blog is meant to speak about the reality here, which is so much different to what most people know from the mainstream media, even though not everything is rosy, obviously…
Firoozeh Dumas starts blogging
WAIS: World association of International Studies, Stanford CA
An American scholar request: Professor Nelson Frye. Thanks Maryam🙂
4 Boxes: A play by Bayzai, October 19 & 20. Bahram Bayzai is part of a generation of filmmakers in the Ianian New Wave … read more
From Artists Unite Issue: The wisdom of age in the age of youth, excerpt from an interview with Robert Bly, poet
Trevor Paglen,Photographing the physical traces of classifed military and intelligence programs:“You can train yourself to see things that other people don’t see […] That’s what art is all about: trying to show people something they haven’t seen before.”
Middle Eastern Drumming: a blog dedicated to news, information and education for Middle Eastern drummers.
UK Crisis: Escalating Violence by Child Perpetrators. HARDtalk speaks with Camila Batmanghelidjh who runs Kids Company UK.
1, 2, 3
1 – Marjan Satrapi‘s success story in the Cannes festival: “Persepolis had its world premiere today at 4 p.m. And at the end of the film, cheers and applause rang through the Palais; the rhythmic clapping that is Cannes’ way of saying “bravo” lasted for more than 15 minutes …” read more
An interview with Marjan at the IHT: ” … In the ’70s, we grew up with American culture – bowling with my cousins, the music, hamburgers, pizza like in Chicago. Nobody can believe how many parallels between where I come from and America – countries that are not very friendly these days. But now that I know the country and have done so many book tours, I think, how stupid we are to make these clichés about America…” read more. Her homepage.
«What we wanted to say is, if these people scare you, look closer: They have parents, they have lovers, they have hope, they have stories» … more
2 – The news are as messy as usual. Monte (and 99 and Naz-banoo) mentioned the new covert action about Iran, a sort of follow up of a previous article: Subverting Iran – Washington’s Covert War Inside Iran. The comments- in the original article, are … sort of … well, worth reading.
See also Guardian declares war on Iran, and the Nah al-Bared tragedy at The Fanonite.
3 – I enjoyed reading the last Henry CK Liu article: A Mute Strategic Economic Dialogue, about the “The Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) between the United States and China“. It provides a glimpse into the Chinese way of seeing things, and their way of dealing with the regime- change mega-plans. After all, as Fred wrote: ” … Asia … we are all going to be interested in before too many years pass …”
Movies
I like movies. I used to be a real cinephile. Both Paris and Montreal offered a lot: In Paris, beside the latest movies, plenty of smaller movie theaters have retrospectives and movies from all around the world – twelve month a year, and Montreal’s great annual festival made up for whatever lacked during the year.
Now I buy or borrow CD’s. The choice is not as extended as I would have liked, but it’s ok. I can’t spend more than five minute in front of a movie I don’t like but I enjoy watching a good movie over and over again.
Here are what I saw recently, worthy of writing about:
Shine, perhaps … for the fifth time! I usually like music related movies as well as true stories. David Helfgott‘s incredible destiny and the great cast deserve certainly to be seen at least … one more time 🙂
Syriana: I believe a realistic view of some aspects of the Middle-East: The oil story and the “whatever it takes” crowd. I like Matt Damon.
The Inconvenient Truth: No comments. In fact many thoughts, specially after the latest news from this UN thing. Will, for a change, this Mr. UN make himself useful to the humankind?
The Kid, with Bruce Willis, for a second time. Cute movie. Lily Tomlin makes me laugh even if she doesn’t utter a word.
White, by Kieslowski – the second part of the trilogy Blue, White and Red. I haven’t seen the rest yet. I liked Zamachowski, the main actor. A strange love story with a Polish society background … Another “shuffled” country. If only those in possession of the “truth” monopole, would leave the people alone!
Forever Under Construction 
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