Alternative Film Guide

"This film reflects my inner experience," says Iranian artist/director Mania Akbari about 10 + 4, a documentary that chronicles her battle against cancer in a society where gender roles are strictly enforced. "It is vitally important to expose deep inner truths no matter how difficult and painful they are. 10 + 4 depicts a part [...]

"As an 18-year-old girl who lives in Iran today and who faces very specific ideological, political and social pressures, I have a lot to say … Even though my film was not made in Iran, it shows my desire to speak of collective suffering, in Iran as well as in Afghanistan."
That’s director Hana Makhmalbaf, whose [...]

Ta’m e guilass / Taste of Cherry (1997)
Direction and Screenplay: Abbas Kiarostami. Cast: Homayon Ershadi, Abdolrahman Bagheri, Afshin Khorshid Bakhtiari, Mir Hossein Noori
 
By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
There is the old, and often neglected, nostrum about ‘gilding the lily.’ I was reminded of this while watching Abbas Kiarostami’s acclaimed Ta’m e guilass / Taste of [...]

"It’s almost strange that it’s the first ceremony," remarked French director Luc Besson at the 1st Asian Film Awards presentation held this evening at Hong Kong’s Convention and Exhibition Centre, as part of the 31st Hong Kong International Film Festival which kicked off last night.
"Good films come from everywhere," added Besson. "Artists are like mushrooms, [...]

The Palm Springs International Film Festival announced its jury and audience winners this past Sunday, Jan. 14.
The New Voices New Visions Grand Jury Prize was given to Rafi Pitts’s Iranian drama Zemestan / It’s Winter, the story of a woman left behind in a small Iranian town after her husband travels abroad looking for work.

The [...]

The top winner at the 2006 edition of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, which wrapped today, was Kim Tae-yong’s Korean drama Gajokeui Tansaeng / Family Ties, about different relationships within a dysfunctional family.
In addition to the Golden Alexander Award for Best Film (worth 37,000 euros), Family Ties won a joint Best Actress award (for Moon [...]

Kambuzia Partovi’s Café Transit / Border Café, the story of an Iranian widow who encounters a number of social and personal obstacles once she begins managing her late husband’s roadhouse (a practice forbidden in Iran), has been chosen as the Iranian entry for the 2006 Best Foreign-Language Film Academy Award. The film’s star, Fereshteh Sadr-Orafaii [...]

At a awards ceremony yesterday, Sept. 30, the 54th Donostia-San Sebastián Film Festival’s Golden Shell was given to two films: Niwemang / Half Moon (Iran-Iraq-Austria-France), which also took the International Film Critics’ FIPRESCI Award, and Mon fils à moi / My Son (France).
Directed by Bahman Ghobadi, Half Moon follows an old Kurdish-Iranian musician on his [...]

Via New Kerala.com: Iranian director Jamil Rostami, whose Iranian-Iraqi Marsiyeh Barf / Requiem of Snow recently became Iraq’s first film to be submitted for a Best Foreign-Language Film Academy Award, has withdrawn his coming-of-age drama from a Copenhagen film festival as a protest against the publication in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten of cartoons portraying [...]

"Our series is always based on what is happening in Iranian cinema that year. In the past, it has focused on youth, urban living, or showcased female directors, but this year there is not necessarily a concurrent theme. The films are very diverse in style and subject matter this year. There is something for [...]

Reza Mir-Karimi’s Khilli dors khilli nazdek / So Close, So Far, a tale of two Irans — one modern and secular, the other ancient and religious — has been chosen best Iranian film at the 9th Iran Cinema Celebration Awards.
Mir-Karimi also won the best director award, and the film’s star, Masud Rayegan, took best [...]

IFC Films has acquired U.S. rights in all media to Bahman Ghobadi’s Iranian-Iraqi production Turtles Can Fly, winner of the Golden Shell at this year’s San Sebastián Film Festival and one of the hottest-selling titles at the American Film Market. Turtles Can Fly has also been submitted as the Iranian entry for the Best [...]

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and several Iranian filmmakers have condemned the arrest of the organizers of a film award ceremony that has enraged religious fanatics in the theocratic Iranian government. Khatami has warned that such moves will force Iranian intellectuals to flee the country.
The festival organizers were arrested by Iran’s "moral police," who were [...]