March 13-21, 2008

The Tiburon International Film Festival will present a selection of latest films made by or about the Iranians from around the world. The festival will be held March 13-21, 2008 in Tiburon, California.

Sound Barrier

Director: Amir Naderi  (In Person)

Cast: Charlie Wilson, Frank Glacken
 

Deaf and mute eleven-year-old Jesse (Charlie Wilson) travels from Manhattan with a letter and a key to a Queens storage unit. He is searching for a tape cassette recording of his deceased mother, a former radio talk show host, that he hopes will offer further clues to his past and possibly even his hearing loss. But when he does find the tape he must then find somebody to speak it so that he can read their lips and finally hear the message.

The legendary Amir Naderi (The Runner), who helped focus attention on Iranian cinema in the mid-80s, tells this minimal story in only two scenes, plus a short prelude and epilogue. The film, his sixteenth, is the first part of his "sound" trilogy exploring the use of sound as character.  

Colors of Memory

Director: Amir Shahab Razavian  (In Person)

Cast: Shahbaz Noshir, Ezatollah Entezami, Saber Abar

Filled with denial and distrust, heart surgeon Dr. Bahman Parsa (Shahbaz Noshir) returns to his home country Iran after 30 years in Germany. There he meets two men who will change his attitude towards life: Qanati (Ezatollah Entezami), a 70-year old waterfinder and Bahrami, a young and reckless taxi driver. Together with them he travels to his hometown Bam, which was destroyed after a heavy earthquake a few years ago. Step by step this journey brings Parsa closer to his own roots and a past that has been completely erased. But in the experiences with his new friends also lies the chance for a new beginning.

Unfinished Stories

Director: Pourya Azarbyjani

Cast: Setareh Pesyani, Hengameh Ghaziani, Saiideh Amir Saii

The three episode-film tells the story of 3 young women, Setareh, Hengameh and Saiideh who share the same situation: they have no where to go and have to spend the night on the street. Setareh, is a young girl who has running away from home because her parents are against her marriage with the boy she loves. She is waiting for him to join her in the bus stop so that they can runway together…Hengameh, is a pregnant woman who has left her house after a big quarrel with her husband who is unwilling to have a baby. She is looking for someone to abort her child …Saiideh whose husband is in prison must runway from the hospital at night with her new born baby for she has no money to pay the bill but …

These three women have three different stories who show different stages and situations of women. One young girl who wants to be married, another married woman who wants to have a baby and the last one who had a baby but tries to keep it. They are all abandoned by their families and are obliged to solve their problem on their own.

Exile Family Movie (Iran/Austria)

Director: Arash Riahi
 

A family's story, typically crazy and exceptional at the same time. A film about home and exile, parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters and all the other relatives, close and distant, in an extended Persian family. Some of them emigrated to Europe or America, though the majority has stayed in Iran. Regardless of all the danger involved, they secretly meet after 20 years at a place which won't raise suspicion among the Iranian authorities: Mecca. They come from America, Sweden, Austria and Iran to laugh, argue, cook and celebrate. This is accompanied by an excessive amount of hugging and kissing, and also a clash between Muslim and Western cultures.

Iran Behind Walls   (Iran/Turkey)

Director: Hakan Tokyay   (In Person)

Cast: Fatma Mutemedarya, Pouran Derakhshandeh, Münire Ravanipur, Azem Talegani

In Iran women are the key to the transformation of the country. Women played an influential role in the downfall of the Shah in 1979 and the rise to power of Muhammad Hatemi. After Hatemi became president, discussions in the media started an ongoing debate on dress code, the chador, punishments for criminals such as diyet and rajm, polygamy, the muta (short-term) marriage, women's abilities to become judges, women's right to divorce, their visibility in the cinema, television and the media. Women claimed that the culture of patriarchy rather than religion kept women under pressure.

Where do Iranian women stand vis a vis religious authorities and pro-freedom intellectuals? 

Faces on the Wall  (Iran/France)

Directors:  Bijan Anquetil & Paul Costes  (In Person)

All three Dastvaré children were killed during the Iran-Iraq War. The Islamic Republic of Iran had a mural painted in their memory. A fresco which, among hundreds of others in Tehran, represents these young soldiers who sacrificed their lives, in the name of God, for their country, dying as "martyrs of Islam". Today, in their neighborhood, the legend of the "Dastvaré martyrs" still circulates, a complex mix of popular religion, State propaganda and personal memories. <b>The Faces on the Wall</b> questions the disillusion that surrounds an ideology based on the martyr's figure, the founding myth of the Iranian new regime.

A Season of Madness (Iran/US)

Director: Katja Esson (In Person)

Cast: Marjan Neshat, Maz Jobrani (In Person), Madhur Jaffrey

Based on the short story by Hanan Al Shaykh, SEASON OF MADNESS is a fairy tale gone wrong about a young woman desperately attempting to escape the golden cage of her arranged marriage  – by feigning insanity….but her plan backfires…

Kill the Messenger   (France)

Director: Mathieu Verboud & Jean Robert Viallet

Cast: Sibel Edmonds

A few days after the 9/11 attacks, Sibel Edmonds, 32, an American woman of Turkish/Iranian origin, is recruited by the FBI as a language specialist with top-security clearance. Her job is to translate counter-intelligence wiretaps related to ongoing criminal investigations. After two months, Edmonds reports serious wrongdoings in the conduct of investigations and a case of espionage within her unit. Her claims aren't taken seriously.

In March 2002, she is fired from the FBI, physically escorted from the building, and warned "Don't talk!" But Edmonds brings a lawsuit. A few months later, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft invokes the all-encompassing blanket of the State Secrets Privilege in the case. Not only Sibel is forbidden from publicly exposing classified information, she can't even go to court with any of her allegations. A tense real-life thriller, Kill the Messenger explores the abuses behind the State Secrets Privilege, and shows the persecution of other US national security whistle blowers.

The filmmakers spent nearly two years researching and interviewing experts, including Daniel Ellsberg, Coleen Rowley (FBI), Russell Tice (NSA), Bogdan Dzakovic (DHS), John Vincent (FBI), Steve Elson (FAA), John M. Cole (FBI). Like the National Security Whistle blowers Coalition, the film highlights the danger that government suppression brings to light

The Shade (Iran/Canada)

Director: Mohammad Gorjestani  (In Person)

Cast: Aryan Atri, Camyar Chai, Joleh Chaichian

In a village in central Iran on a hot summer day a young boy sells balloons in hopes of buying ice cream. His struggle is paralleled with a city man, whose car blows a tire, causing him to search for a way back home. The two stories, though independent to themselves, are united by an umbrella, which shades each character's journey.  

Security   (US/Iran)

Director: Matthew Linnell  (In Person)
Cast: Chris Messina, Lanna Joffrey, Lori Tan Chinn, Manee Kassaii, Rozie Bacchi

Dark humor veers into tragedy in Security, a drama about an American Immigration agent at Newark International Airport whose private fears spill into his professional life when he confronts an Iranian mother and her son. Starring Chris Messina (Six Feet Under). Based on the one act play by Israel Horovitz.

Tiburon International Film Festival

Phone: (415) 381-4123

Fax: (415) 388- 4123

info@TiburonFilmFestival.com

www.TiburonFilmFestival.com

1680 Tiburon Boulevard, Tiburon, CA 94920 USA 

"Understanding the World Through Film"

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