religion Articles

Jafar Panahi, condemned by the powers-that-be in Iran's theocracy for “assembly and colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security” and “propaganda against the Islamic Republic,” has been sentenced to six years in prison. Additionally, Panahi has been banned from making movies, writing screenplays, leaving the country, or talking to the media for the next 20 years. (As if Iran's power-hungry [...]

Barbara Sukowa as Hildegard von Bingen in Vision Margarethe von Trotta's Vision, Official Selection at the Telluride and Toronto film festivals, will open (via Zeitgeist Films) in Los Angeles at the Laemmle theaters on November 12. A national release will follow. In Vision, two-time European Film Award nominee Barbara Sukowa plays Hildegard von Bingen, a 12th-century Benedictine nun who was a Christian mystic, composer, philosopher, [...]

Distributed by New American Vision, Eyes Wide Open will stay one more week at New York City's Cinema Village. Directed by Haim Tabakman and written by Merav Doster, the forbidden gay love story set among Israel's ultra-orthodox Jewish community — where homosexuality isn't exactly welcome — stars Zohar Shtrauss and Ran Danker. The information below is from the film's press release. Aaron, a respectable butcher [...]

Directed by Haim Tabakman and written by Merav Doster, Eyes Wide Open is a gay love story set in Jerusalem's "ultra-orthodox" Jewish community — in other words, in a society in which homosexuality is anything but acceptable. Here's the synopsis from the Eyes Wide Open press release: "Aaron, a respectable butcher in Jerusalem's ultra-orthodox Jewish community is married to Rivka and is a dedicated father [...]