Sima Bina is a great Iranian singer who can’t sing in her own country because of being a woman!
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Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
Movie Has U.S. Theatrical Premiere Wednesday, October 13 at Film Forum (NY)!!!
About VISION: (2010, 111 mins.) Directed and Written by Margarethe von Trotta. Produced by Markus Zimmer. Cinematography: Axel Block. Music: Chris Heyne. With original compositions by Hildegard von Bingen. Cast: Barbara Sukowa (Hildegard von Bingen), Heino Ferch (Brother Volmar), Hannah Herzsprung (Richardis von Stade), Lena Stolze (Jutta), Alexander Held (Abbot Kuno). France / Germany. In German with English subtitles. A Zeitgeist Films release.
Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevari
Yesterday… I went to work out at my gym. Found a New York Times issue from last Thursday next to my leg press machine.
(photo from Ngawang Choephel's Facebook profile pictures)
Today… went through the paper on the D train bound to Brooklyn this morning, and my eyes were attracted by the title (p A32) ” Tibetan Ex-Prisoner Evokes His Homeland’s Struggle in a Movie”, written by Kirk Semple. The article is about the Tibetan movie director and music scholar Ngawang Choephel (pronounced cheu-FELL), 44, who was in a Chinese prison for six and a half years, lives now in Queens and his movie Tibet in Song which made its theatrical release in New York City at the Cinema Village Theatre last Friday September 24. It premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2009 where it won the Special Jury Award in the World Documentary Competition. Since then, Tibet in Song has won numerous awards and screened worldwide.
Abyaneh is a historical and ancient village in Iran where time has stood still and its people are as old as the place itself.
Two years ago, filmmaker Zohreh Shayesteh visited the village and took pictures of its women. She returned in 2006 with a video camera. While searching for the women in the photos she met Keshvar, a blunt and feisty woman who became the physical and spiritual guide for the filmmaker in this journey of self-discovery. Thanks to Keshvar and the unexpected friendship that developed between these two women, what was to be a simple video documentary about a village and its people becomes a spiritual journey to a place the filmmaker once called home.
Hand Of Fatima DVD cover
The Hand of Fatima is a feature-length documentary structured by two parallel journeys to the remote Moroccan village of Jajouka, where a hereditary band plays music older than history.
The first journey begins in the 1960s, when critic Robert Palmer uncovers “cryptic allusions” to Jajouka in the novels of William Burroughs. On assignment for Rolling Stone in 1971, Palmer finds the place where the musicians spend their days smoking kif, playing music, and “driving possessed tribesmen into mass Dionysian frenzies.”
About this documentary
The fringes of Iranian society can be a lonely place, especially if you are a teenage girl with few resources to fall back on. The Glass House follows four girls striving to pull themselves out of the margins by attending a one-of-kind rehabilitation center in uptown Tehran. Forget about the Iran that you’ve seen before.
With a virtually invisible camera, the girls of The Glass House take us on a never-before-seen tour of the underclass of Iran with their brave and defiant stories: Samira struggles to overcome forced drug addiction; Mitra harnesses abandonment into her creative writing; Sussan teeters on a dangerous ledge after years of sexual abuse; and Nazila burgeons out of her hatred with her blazing rap music. This groundbreaking documentary reflects a side of Iran few have access to or paid attention to: a society lost to its traditions with nothing meaningful to replace them and a group of courageous women working to instill a sense of empowerment and hope into the minds and lives of otherwise discarded teenage girls.
The director’s statement
Finally a timely documentary about Iranians in America. An intimate look at the lives of Iranians who came to the US to find peace and freedom, yet had to face many challenges before they could settle down into a new life.
For more information please go to: www.caughtbetweentwoworlds.com
Produced and directed byPERSHENG SADEGH-VAZIRI and SIMIN FARKHONDEH.
Edited by BAHMAN KIAROSTAMI.