Presented by UCLA Film and Television Archive & The
Bijan Amin and Soraya Amin Foundation
Like the nation it reflects so vividly and thoughtfully, Iranian cinema is at
a crossroads. Iran has an overwhelmingly young population, and almost all of the
selections in this survey of recent Iranian filmmaking concern a generation of
young people dissatisfied with their present situation and uncertain about the
future. In very different ways, LETTERS IN THE WIND and DEEP BREATH movingly and
excitingly depict protagonists caught between adolescent rebellion and the
search for a place in society. Similarly, a new generation of filmmakers is
emerging as the trickle of titles distributed independently grows to a flood.
Like LETTERS IN THE WIND, TEHRAN, 7:00 A.M. is a first film from this
independent movement, and like DEEP BREATH, it represents a break with the kind
of filmmaking that foreign viewers typically associate with Iranian cinema.
Instead of pastoral lyricism or poetic neorealism, these films focus on the
pleasures and displeasures of everyday urban life.
The tradition in Iranian
cinema of combining keenly observed realism and symbolic allegory continues with
another first film, DANCING IN THE DUST. Yet another first feature, BLACK TAPE,
combines two concerns of recent Iranian cinema—the place of women and the place
of the dispossessed Kurds—but with a harsh contemporary edge unusual in the
films from the 1990s that put Iranian cinema on the map. Our opening night film,
CRIMSON GOLD, is a collaboration between two acknowledged masters, Abbas
Kiarostami (TEN) and Jafar Panahi (THE CIRCLE). This film too is concerned about
dehumanizing forces in Iranian society. It is a concern with global
resonance.
Special thanks to: Mark Amin; Bo Smith, Lori Donnelly—Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston; —Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago; Tom Vick—Freer and Sackler
Galleries, Smithsonian Institution; Bérénice Reynaud—REDCAT; Zareh Arevshatian.
All films in Farsi with English subtitles.
Friday January 16 2004,
7:30PM
CRIMSON
GOLD
(Talaye Sorgh)
(2003)
Directed by Jafar Panahi
A dark drama based on a real-life incident,
CRIMSON GOLD is director Jafar Panahi's superb follow-up to THE CIRCLE (2000).
The film begins with a robbery gone terribly wrong, and then backs up to
patiently outline the steps leading to it. Working from a script by his mentor
Abbas Kiarostami, Panahi employs a dramatic visual style that is both dazzling
and hard-edged. Together, the two filmmakers have fashioned a subtle yet
devastating portrait of social inequality and urban alienation in contemporary
Tehran. They are aided in their task by Hussein Emadeddin, an affectingly
natural nonprofessional actor, who plays the exasperated pizza deliverer driven
to violence by hard times and despair. Producer/Editor: J. Panahi. Screenwriter:
Abbas Kiarosta
Producer: Jafar Panahi. Screenplay: Abbas Kiarostami. Cinematographer:
Hossain Jafarian. Editor: Jafar Panahi. Cast: Hussein Emadeddin, Kamyar Sheisi,
Azita Rayeji, Shahram Vaziri. Presented in Farsi dialogue with English
subtitles. 35mm, 97 min.
CRIMSON GOLD is scheduled to open at the Music
Hall Theater, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., on Friday, January 31.
Saturday January 17 2004,
7:30PM
LETTERS IN THE
WIND
(Namehay Bad)
(2001)
Directed by Ali Reza Amini
 In the great Iranian neorealist manner, Ali Reza Amini's lyrical
debut feature focuses on a group of young men at a military training camp in the
mountains. Drawn mainly from the country's most remote provinces, the conscripts
must cope with the punishing routine and harsh discipline designed to transform
them from callow youths into soldiers. Two of the young men become friends by
sharing the tape recorder one of them has smuggled into boot camp, listening to
recorded female voices from the world outside. Soon the tape recorder becomes
the focal point for the entire barracks, allowing the recruits an outlet for
their homesickness, loneliness and desire. Amini combines sly humor and
near-documentary dispassion to transform this simple story into moving
poetry.
Producer: Ali Reza Amini. Screenplay: Bayram Fazli. Cinematographer: Ali Reza
Amini, Mohammad Taghi Hashemi. Editor: Behroz Kahali. Cast: Faramarz
Hashemzadeh. Presented in Farsi dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 76 min.
Friday January 23 2004,
7:30PM
DEEP BREATH
(Nafas-E
Ameegh)
(2003) Directed by Parviz
Shahbazi
 This wry, whimsical character study from Parvis Shahbazi may be the
first cinematic account of the urban slacker phenomenon in Iran. Mansour
Shahbazi and Saeed Amini play a couple of listless twentysomethings, each from
opposite ends of the social spectrum but both equally bored with their
constricted lives, which seem to consist mainly of aimless driving, melancholy
reflection and the occasional bout of petty crime. When the boys pick up a
vivacious young hitchhiker (Maryam Palyzban), her dynamic presence begins to
rouse them from their terminal ennui. Punctuated with beautiful imagery and
comic moments to leaven its examination of a generation adrift, DEEP BREATH is a
sympathetic yet unsparing picture of disaffected Iranian youth.
Producer: Amir Samavati. Screenplay: Parviz Shahbazi. Cinematographer: Ali
Loghmani. Editor: Parviz Shahbazi. Cast: Mansour Shahbazi, Maryam Palizban,
Saeed Amini. Presented in Farsi dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 82 min.
Sunday January 25 2004,
7:00PM
TEHRAN, 7:00
A.M.
(Tehran Sa'at-e Haft Sobh)
(2003) Directed by Amir Shahab Razavian
 TEHRAN 7 A.M. traces the fleeting connections among disparate
characters who briefly meet, tell stories, philosophize or confess love, before
moving on to the next encounter. At 7 a.m, a traffic cop extends the red light
to keep his favorite actress from crossing the street. The driver of a moped
taxi listens to the life stories of passengers he never sees as they sit behind
him. Of course, the real star of the film is Tehran in all its chaotic glory:
traffic and pedestrian bridges crisscross the frame as the hulking girders of
new construction beckon the city's loners to secret encounters by
firelight.
Screenplay: Majid Eslami, Farzad Pourkhoshbakht. Cinematographer: Morteza
Poursamadi. Editor: Parviz Shahbazi. Cast: Behnaz Jafari, Hasan Moazeni, Reza
Khamseh, Parviz Larijani. Presented in Farsi dialogue with English subtitles.
35mm, 85 min.
Saturday January 31 2004,
7:30PM
BLACK TAPE—A
TEHRAN DIARY
(Ravaryete Makdus)
(2002) Directed by Fariborz Kamkari
 A young Kurdish woman in Tehran receives a video camera for her
birthday and proceeds to record, often surreptitiously, the heavily
circumscribed—and increasingly disturbing—domestic life she leads with her
older, controlling husband. The film gradually reveals their marriage to be a
chilling allegory for the utter powerlessness of the dispossessed Kurdish
population. First-time filmmaker Fariborz Kamkari borrows the conceit of THE
BLAIR WITCH PROJECT—we see only what the video camera records—to create a
harrowing account of psychic and physical confinement, complete with hints of
sexual sadism and a touch of Gothic horror. Not for the fainthearted, BLACK TAPE
is a scorching howl of protest.
Producer: Sayed Ahmad Samsam Shariat. Screenplay: Fariborz Kamkari.
Cinematographer: Tiraj Aslani. Editor: Amin Aslani. Cast: Mehdi Asadi, Parviz
Moasesi, Shilan Rahmani. Presented in Farsi dialogue with English subtitles.
35mm, 83 min.
Friday February 6 2004,
7:30PM
DANCING IN THE DUST
(Raghs
Dar Ghober)
(2003) Directed by Asghar
Farhadi
Although DANCING IN THE DUST begins as a heartfelt
melodrama about a youthful marriage gone awry, things really get interesting
when the immature groom finds himself unexpectedly stranded in the desert. With
a grizzled and taciturn snake hunter his only companion and guide—and his only
chance to make it back to civilization alive—our protagonist finds himself
forced to grow up fast. As the two men from different generations alternately
spar and attempt to bond, the stakes continue to rise until the standoff is
interrupted by a life-or-death emergency. The result is a haunting examination
of wasted lives and second chances.
Producer: Iraj Taghipour. Screenplay: Asghar Farhadi. Cinematographer: Hassan
Karimi. Editor: Saeed Shahsavari. Cast: Faramarz Gharibian, Yousef Khodaparast,
Baran Kosari, Jalal Sarhad-Seraj. Presented in Farsi dialogue with English
subtitles. 35mm, 95 min.
Sunday February 8 2004,
7:00PM
ABJAD
(2003) Directed by Abolfazl Jalili
Abolfazl Jalili’s astonishing new film is a
semi-autobiographical story set in the late 1970s, in the tumultuous period just
before the Revolution. The story centers around sixteen year-old Emkan, a
sensitive, curious and artistically inclined youth whose creative leanings are
constantly stifled by his conservative family. To complicate matters further,
Emkan, a Muslim, falls in love with the beautiful Maassoum, a young Jewish girl
whose family runs a local cinema. Soon the two youths are caught between their
feelings for each other and the outrage of their families. Out of this story and
the perfectly nuanced performances of its two young actors, Jalili has crafted a
masterpiece, infused with subtlety and tender humor.
Producer: Emmanuel Benbihy. Screenplay: Abolfazl Jalili. Editor: Abolfazl
Jalili. Coreographer: Mehdi Majde Vaziri. Cast: Mehdi Morady, Mina Molania,
Sharare Roohy, Fariba Khademy. Presented in Farsi dialogue with English
subtitles. 35mm, 111 min.
For
further info, please call 310.206.FILM or log on to www.cinema.ucla.edu.
All films screen at the James
Bridges Theater in Melnitz Hall, located on the northeast corner of the UCLA
campus, near the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Hilgard Avenue.
Tickets are available at the
theater one hour before showtime.
Admission is $7 general; $5 students, seniors and UCLA Alumni Association
members with ID. Admission to the
Animation From Iran program is $5 per person.
NOTE:
Advance tickets for all programs
are now available for $8 using your credit card at www.cinema.ucla.edu!
Free
street parking after 6 pm daily on Loring Ave. at Charing Cross Rd.; or for $7
in Lot 3, adjacent to the James Bridges Theater.
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