I Love the Earth: Featuring Ali Reza Khamseh, this 1994 Abolhassan Davoodi comedy chronicles the misadventures of an extraterrestrial recently landed on Planet Earth.- Iranian filmmaker Abolhassan Davoodi, whose credits include Book of Love and I Love the Earth, was hospitalized after being arrested by Iran’s Islamic police.
- Tony Kushner currently rewriting the screenplay for Steven Spielberg’s as-yet-untitled 1970s-set terrorism drama.
Iranian filmmaker Abolhassan Davoodi hospitalized after Islamic religious police arrest
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and several local filmmakers have condemned the arrest of the organizers of this year’s Cinema House Awards ceremony, which has enraged Muslim fanatics in Iran’s theocratic government. Khatami has warned that such moves will force Iranian intellectuals to flee the country.
The ceremony organizers were arrested by Iran’s Islamic religious police – known as that country’s “morality police” – who claimed they were answering complaints that several attendees had failed to abide by Iran’s strict Islamic dress code.
Among those arrested was filmmaker Abolhassan Davoodi (Book of Love, I Love the Earth), currently the head of the Cinema House. Davoodi was later transported to a Teheran hospital, having reportedly suffered a heart attack following police interrogation.
The complaints chiefly originated from two radical Muslim newspapers, Jomhuri Islami and Kayhan, which displayed photographs of several women wearing flimsy headscarves and lots of makeup at the ceremony.
According to the Agence France-Presse, Iran’s theocratic judiciary has announced that it will “detoxify” the country’s film industry by eliminating “corrupt” artists.
Tony Kushner redrafting Steven Spielberg terrorism drama
In other politically related news, playwright Tony Kushner, the winner of both a Tony and a Pulitzer for Angels in America, has been redrafting the screenplay of Steven Spielberg’s as yet untitled project about the hostage-taking of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.
Initially, Academy Award-winning Forrest Gump screenwriter Eric Roth had tried his hand at the script, but his draft was deemed unsatisfactory.
Australian actor Eric Bana – Hector in Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy and Bruce Banner/the Incredible Hulk in Ang Lee’s box office disappointment Hulk – is slated to star in this Universal-DreamWorks co-production scheduled to begin shooting in June 2005.
Steven Spielberg is a three-time Oscar winner: As the director and producer of the 1993 Holocaust drama Schindler’s List and as the director of the 1998 World War Ii drama Saving Private Ryan.
“Iranian Filmmaker Hospitalized After Islamic Police Arrest” notes
See also: French film stars offer support for Iraq hostages.
I Love the Earth movie image: Sina Film.
“Iranian Filmmaker Hospitalized After Islamic Police Arrest” last updated in May 2023.