By
Darius KADIVAR
©imdb & ©Just Jared & ©Emmy Awards® & ©Tony Awards®
& photocomposition ©DK
" … When I was
seventeen
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for small town girls
And soft summer nights
We'd hide from the lights
On the village green
When I was seventeen …"
- Lyrics by Ervin Drake of
Frank Sinatra's
Hit Song
"It Was a Very Good Year"
It's
been a
particularly eventful Summer for the Iranian Diaspora Artists. Many have been
blessed with prestigious International Awards in their discipline. Their
personal success was also an opportunity for the laureates to highlight the
struggle of their less fortunate compatriots and colleagues back home in their
bid for freedom of expression, the respect of human rights and demands for
genuine democracy. No doubt Our Irandokhts:
Shohreh Aghdashloo,
Shirin Neshat,
Yasmina Reza and
Golshifteh Farahani all brilliantly shined through 2009 Summer
Season's International Arts Award ceremonies with their charm, enthusiasm and
undeniable talent, thus, culturally bridging Europe, and North America with
their native country Iran.
Interestingly 2009 marks a particularly rich and constructive turning point for
the Iranian film community at large.
Last March a delegation of Hollywood actors and producers (*) arrived in Tehran
to meet with their counterparts as part of a cultural exchange.
Hollywood producer
Sidney Ganis led the team, which included three-time Oscar
nominee
Annette Bening. There were a series of workshops
and meetings with movie industry types in the Islamic Republic organized through
Tehran's House of Cinema, a hangout for actors and directors. As with
most exchanges between Iran and the U.S., the visit by the delegation from the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which organizes the annual
Oscar® awards ceremonies, had not been without controversy. In a
Persian-language report, Javad Shamaghdari, Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad's cultural advisor, demanded the delegation to apologize for
Hollywood's alleged "insults and libels" against the Islamic Republic before it
would get any meetings with ranking officials. Needless to say that the
delegation refused to take such a demand into consideration, given the fact,
that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, is in no way a
spokesperson for the American government's policies nor has it ever tried to
control the freedom of speech or expression of the film community in Hollywood.
Anyone familiar with the history of Hollywood as an industry would know that the
creative control of movies today depends less on political or cultural
considerations than on financial restrictions imposed by the market. The
"political correctness" imposed by the "Hays Codification" which played a major
role in the 1930's up to the mid 1960's is no longer in application due to the
evolution of mentalities within American society as well as that of a profession
which recurrently needs to reinvent itself thanks to the talent and thriving
imagination of the film community at large. Were it not the case, it would not
be exaggerated to say that neither Martin Scorcese, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven
Spielberg, Michael Bay or Tim Burton would have been able to transform the
medium as spectacularly as they have thanks to their unique respective creative
visions. Despite vehement critics from government officials and heated debates
in the Iranian parliament (the Majlis) over the Hollywood delegations visit to
Tehran's "House of Cinema" ( The Iranian Cinemateque), the exchange between the
American and Iranian film professionals proved overwhelmingly successful and led
to interesting exchanges and contacts between both communities …
It's Been a Summer Triumphs For The Iranian Diaspora Film
and
Theater Communities
©imdb
All the more that quite recently an Iranian delegation (**) consisting of
Managing Director Mohammad-Mehdi Asgarpur, Deputy Director Farhad Tohidi,
spokesman Amin Tarokh, and Directors Guild of Iran Managing Director Alireza
Raiisian have also responded to an invitation from their Hollywood counterparts
and UCLA Film & Television department to participate to a series of
retrospectives and screenings of Iranian films during a festival entitled "Up
Close and Personal: Iranian Filmmakers in Their Own Words" from October 9 to 16.
In addition, filmmakers Ebrahim Hatamikia, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Reza Mirkarimi,
Mojtaba Raei, documentarian Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, and actress Fatemeh Motamed-Arya
will take part in the discussions with film enthusiasts and students at UCLA.
Proving if needed that both film communities can learn from one another and
boost interest and exchanges between the Iranian and Hollywood film
professionals for the first time in 30 years.
If the
international film community has been familiar with the works of Iranian
filmmakers and actors in the past two decades be it both in Europe and the
United States, what seems to be particularly striking in recent years is the
emergence of the Iranian Diaspora in nearly all fields of the movie and theater
industry. This particular vitality could be explained by the fact that after
nearly 30 years of exile from their homeland Iran, due to the Islamic Revolution
of 1979 and the 8 year Iran-Iraq War, the first generation of expatriate
Iranians sees the necessity to revisit it's roots in order to redefine it's new
identity within a far more cosmopolitan environment. This awareness has
generated a far more outspoken generation than that of their peers who simply
had to struggle to survive. Due to the internet and Satellite TV, the global
community has also come to realize that people and cultures are interconnected
and mutually influence one another. Far more efficient than "Politics", it is
rather "Art" which through its different mediums, be it film, photography,
theater or literature tends to play a far more universal and unifying role in
our collective consciousness.
©imdb
& photocomposition ©DK
The Summer of
2009 will certainly be remembered by the Iranian community at large as well as
the Iranian film community for two major reasons : the first being the
presidential Post-Election Protests in Iran that were suppressed in an
unprecedented violent clampdown by the Islamic Regime which was equaled to a
Presidential "Coup" by all objective observers. The second being a direct
consequence of the first and that is turning the Iranian film community both
inside and outside Iran into one unifying aimed at voicing the predicament of
their fellow compatriots struggle for Freedom and Democracy in Iran.
Indeed up to
the tragic events that unfolded last June, little if no true visible exchange
between Diaspora and Native Iranian filmmakers/actors was ever demonstrated in
public …
Whether or not this was due to fear of censorship or arrests in Iran, it
remained that both communities, when present together, would ignore one another
at film festivals. The brave behavior of the Iranian People at large and the
Youth in particular during the violently suppressed demonstrations, triggered
nearly everyone to drop their masks of indifference or envy, and join the
amazing wave of solidarity that took the entire International community by
storm. We thus could see such figures as
Marjane Satrapi and
Mohsen Makhmalbaf get together in a public stance at the Human Rights Commission
of the European Parliament to denounce the Iranian
government's high jacking of the elections and the violence with which peaceful
demonstrations were shut down. Similarly Iranian Artists such as actress Shohreh
Aghdashloo, Pop Icon Googoosh, filmmaker Shirin Neshat, Pop Singer Dariush
joined by Non Iranian Stars actors Isabella Rosselini, Robert Redford, and Sean
Penn amongst others
responded to a symbolic Hunger Strike called by Former Dissident Akbar Ganji in
Front of the United Nations in New York City. Paradoxically
this unity between Artists beyond geographical and cultural bounderies has been
one of the positive collateral consequences of what has since become known as
Iran's "Green Revolution".
It is therefore
because of this major uprising and the massive gesture of solidarity that
followed amongst Iranians living both inside and outside their native country,
that the following awards as well a the well deserving laureates, very
symbolically, became the focal point of nearly all media attention in the Cinema
and Theater Press.
A Quick
Overview of the Awardees Below:
Shohreh Aghdashloo EMMY 2009 (***)
Shohreh Aghdashloo
won an Emmy award for her Outstanding performance in Supporting Actress in a
Miniseries or a Movie for
House of Saddam at the 2009 Primetime Emmy
Awards held at the Nokia Theatre on Sunday (September 20) in Los Angeles.
WATCH
VIDEO
(Shohreh Aghdashloo Speech upon Winning the Emmy Award )
WATCH
VIDEO
(Shohreh Aghdashloo meets the Press after receiving her Emmy Award and
speaks about the situation in Iran)
Aghdashloo made her American acting debut 20 years ago and has enjoyed a
distinguished and successful career.
A
native of Iran, Aghdashloo, 57, exhibited depth and dignity as Saddam Hussein's
first wife, Sajida, emerging as the striking standout in a male-dominated cast.
Aghdashloo was proudly wearing a green bracelet (the
color adopted by demonstrators in recent street protests against President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad)
in a sign of solidarity for her compatriots back home. Aghdashloo has received
numerous awards for her past performances including a nomination in 2003 for her
role in the Drama
"The House of
Sand and Fog"
opposite Sir
Ben Kingsley
and
Jennifer Connelly.
Shirin Neshat wins Silver Lion at Venice Film Festival 2009
Iranian artist
Shirin Neshat picked up the Silver Lion for best
director at this year's Venice Film festival. Best known for her photographic
and video art Neshat was awarded the prize for Women Without Men, a film
about four women living through Iran's American-sponsored 1953 coup.
WATCH
TRAILER
(Women without Men directed by Shirin Neshat)
WATCH
VIDEO
( Shirin Neshat Acceptance Speech)
WATCH
2nd VIDEO
(Shirin Neshat on Iran's Green Revolution)
"This film speaks to the people of Iran fighting to find democracy and it speaks
to the government of Iran," Neshat – accepted her prize wearing a green bracelet
(the color adopted by demonstrators in recent street protests against President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) – said. "I plead to this government to give the people what
they should have – basic human rights, freedom and democracy." Neshat currently
has a solo exhibition, titled Games of Desire, at Gladstone Gallery,
Brussels.
Yasmina
Reza - Tony Award for Best Play 2009
French
playwright
Yasmina Reza humorously accepted the 2009 Tony
Award for Best Play for her work, God
of Carnage,
suggesting Tony Award voters, "missed my accent." Two previous Reza plays have
been produced on Broadway, Life x 3,
and the 1998 Tony Award winning play,
Art.
About the Tony Award for God of
Carnage,
Reza graciously exclaimed, "I share this award with my dearest Christopher and
Matthew," referring to her frequent collaborators, Christopher Hampton and
Matthew Warchus.
'God of Carnage' Tony Awards
and Nominations:
WATCH
VIDEO
(Yasmina Reza Tony Acceptance Speech)
God of Carnage
was nominated for six Tony Awards, Best Play, Best Direction of a play, and two
each in the categories of Leading Actor and Leading Actress. All four actors in
the Broadway cast were nominated. The cast included Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis,
James Gandolfini, and Marcia Gay Harden. Harden won the Tony Award for Best
Performance by a Leading Actress.
God of Carnage
confronts two couples meeting to discuss a fight between their children. Reza's
plays are known for providing actors with meaty roles, a quality perhaps
influenced by her own theatrical beginnings as an actor. She had won a First
Tony in 1998 for her Play "ART".
From Acting and Playwriting to
Books and Film:
Yasmina Reza was born to an Iranian Father and Hungarian
Mother and studied drama first in Paris at University X and then at the
L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq. She worked as an actor for
several years before turning to playwriting.
According to the
Los Angeles Times 1999 interview,
She acted a short time until, she could no longer bear "to wait by the phone for
the next part." In 1987 she wrote her first play
Conversations After a Burial
that won her a Moliere Award, the national theatre award in France, in the
category of Best Author.
Golshifteh Farahani recieves the Eleonora Duse Prize 2009
The
Eleonora Duse Prize is confered eacg year as an "International
Recognition for a Prominent Figure in Theater or Cinema" at the Asolo Film
Festival (Italy). It has been the cherry on the Cake for the Iranian actress
Golshifteh Farahani who was noticed as the first post
Revolution Iranian actress to play in a Hollywood production entitled "A Body of
Lies" opposite heartthrob Leonardo Di Caprio and under the helm of respected
director Ridley Scott
which sparked a good deal of controversy in Iran.
WATCH
VIDEO
(Golshifteh Farahani whistle's a song in
gratitude upon receiving) the Eleonora Duse Prize.
WATCH
VIDEO
( Golshifteh in an
interview about her latest film "About Elly" speaks about the theme of "Lying"
both in relation to her role and the situation in Iran)
She has also become a spotlight of the French and European Press due to the
success of her latest movie
"About Elly" directed by Asghar Farhadi which won the Berlin
Bear for its director and a Golden Bear Nomination for Golshifteh's performance.
On tour to promote this film in France she was surprised by the bloody
aftermath of the elections in her country and therefore decided to remain in
France both as a sign of protest against the clampdown but also because her
career has been talking a new international path, thanks to new proposals from
European and Hollywood directors. She is indeed currently working on her second
Hollywood film "There Be Dragons" directed by
Roland Joffé (
The Mission) a drama set during the Spanish Civil War.
©imdb
The
accomplishments of these beautiful and talented artists is certainly a source of
pride and joy for the Iranian community at large and will certainly contribute
to bridge even more solidly two communities separated by the tragedies of
History and World Politics.
Let it
be no doubt that one day our country will overcome its challenges and pave the
way towards Freedom and Reconciliation. In the process our determined and brave
« Irandokhts » will certainly play a central role in helping their compatriots
(including their fellow colleagues) achieve that ultimate noble goal. So More
Power to Them !
VIVE LE CINEMA !
VIVE LE THEATRE !
ET
BRAVO MESDAMES !
Author's Notes:
(*)
IRAN: Hollywood delegation on mission of cinema
diplomacy ( L.A. Times)
(**)
Hollywood to Host Iranian Delegation in Return
(Mehr News)
(***)
Complete List of EMMY Awards Winners (and Nominees) :
here
More Photos
Here
Recommended Readings:
On Shohreh Aghdashloo
ALLEZ SHOHREH !
By Darius KADIVAR
CLOSE UP ON SHOHREH AGHDASHLOO
By Darius KADIVAR & Parisa DEFAIE
HOLY SHOHREH!
By Darius KADIVAR
GETTING BIBLICAL: Shohreh Aghdashloo's New Epic Drama
by
Darius KADIVAR
A
Director's Cut: Cyrus Nowrasteh film The Stoning of Soraya M.
By Darius KADIVAR
"America So Beautiful":
Babak Shokrian's bitter sweet look on the American Dream
by Darius KADIVAR
ShockWave Aghdashloo's Dina Araz hits France by Darius KADIVAR
The House of Saddam
by Darius KADIVAR
Between Two Rivers: Shohreh Aghdashloo cast as Saddam's wife in HBO-BBC mini tv
series
by Darius KADIVAR
On Yasmina Reza
GODS OF CARNAGE TRIUMPHS IN NEW YORK: Yasmina Reza Wins 2009 Tony Award for Best
Play
by Darius KADIVAR
Seducer or Seduced ? Yasmina Reza Portrait of French President Elect Sarkozy
by Darius KADIVAR
On Golshifteh Farahani
Banned Hollywood Dream: Iranian actress
Golshifteh Farahani troubled over a Body of Lies By Darius KADIVAR
Other
DO YOU IMDB ? By Darius
KADIVAR
Iranian Pioneers
in French Cinema
by Darius KADIVAR
Noor Film Festival Lights Your Way to Hollywood
by Darius KADIVAR
ALLEZ MARJANE: No Win for Persepolis at Golden Globes as Oscar Momentum
Approaches
By Darius KADIVAR
A
Hero Hosts: Adrian Pasdar at the 64th Golden Globe Awards
by Darius KADIVAR
U.S. cast for Satrapi's
Persepolis announced
by Darius KADIVAR
Persepolis wins Prix du Jury at Cannes by Darius
KADIVAR
Pasdar Fever Hits France
by Darius KADIVAR
BREAKING THE WAVES: Iranian Women of the Diaspora Seduce French Media
by Darius KADIVAR
Persian Golden Boys In
Hollywood
by Darius KADIVAR
PARTNERS ON LOLITA
by Darius KADIVAR
About the Author: Darius KADIVAR is a Freelance Journalist, Film Historian,
and Media Consultant. He is also contributes to
OCPC Magazine in LA/US and to the
London Based IC Publications
The Middle East Magazine and
Persian Heritage Magazine.
... Payvand News - 10/09/09 ... --
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