A powerful and provocative look at the seismology of the Iranian social order and the connective tissue that sustains Iranian women in particular, Women Without Men represents a very different kind of Persian cinema from that typically seen in the west—a cinema-in-exile rooted less in allegorical neorealism than a forthright magical realism. Whether micro-distributor Indiepix has the resources to exploit a picture of this type remains to be seen—in better times it would have been easy to imagine an October Films or even a New Yorker Films managing a fruitful platform release throughout the summer months. The current independent and foreign distribution vacuum, however, adds a layer of uncertainty as to whether audiences will have the time and opportunity to find the film. Go to original article.

An extensive collection of Islamic artwork is making its way around the globe. Its organizers hope that it will arouse an interest in Islamic culture and foster understanding between Muslims and the western world.

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The fans who are crowded into a basement bar in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, on a chilly Tuesday evening already know the lyrics to the songs, even though none of them have been officially released.

This is not the hottest new British or American band who are hoping to break out of from the underground.

This is Radio Tehran and they are playing a launch gig for their debut album, 88, in London because to do so at home in Iran would almost certainly get them arrested.

The songs were recorded and produced in the Iranian capital, but the band know all too well that it would be impossible to replicate this concert at home.

“For bands like us who play rock music it’s not easy to have a gig in Iran, it’s just something that you wouldn’t even try,” says singer Ali Azimi. Go to BBC.

Her recitation on the show brings cheers, death threats

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – It was a startling voice of protest at a startling venue. Covered head-to-toe in black, a Saudi woman lashed out at hard-line Muslim clerics’ harsh religious edicts in verse on live TV at a popular Arabic version of “American Idol.”

Well, not quite “American Idol”: Contestants compete not in singing but in traditional Arabic poetry. Over the past episodes, poets sitting on an elaborate stage before a live audience have recited odes to the beauty of Bedouin life and the glories of their rulers or mourning the gap between rich and poor.

Then last week, Hissa Hilal, only her eyes visible through her black veil, delivered a blistering poem against Muslim preachers “who sit in the position of power” but are “frightening” people with their fatwas, or religious edicts, and “preying like a wolf” on those seeking peace.

Her poem got loud cheers from the audience and won her a place in the competition’s finals, to be aired on Wednesday.

It also brought her death threats, posted on several Islamic militant Web sites.

‘It’s a way to express myself’
Hilal shrugs off the controversy.

“My poetry has always been provocative,” she told The Associated Press in an interview. “It’s a way to express myself and give voice to Arab women, silenced by those who have hijacked our culture and our religion.”

Her poem was seen as a response to Sheik Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak, a prominent cleric in Saudi Arabia who recently issued a fatwa saying those who call for the mingling of men and women should be considered infidels, punishable by death.

But more broadly, it was seen as addressing any of many hard-line clerics in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the region who hold a wide influence through television programs, university positions or Web sites.

“Killing a human being is so easy for them, it is always an option,” she told the AP.

Poetry holds a prominent place in Arab culture, and some poets in the Middle East have a fan base akin to those of rock stars.

Hilal’s 15-verse poem was in a form known as Nabati, native to nomadic tribes of the Arabian Peninsula. She criticized extremism that she told AP is “creeping into our society” through fatwas.

“I have seen evil in the eyes of fatwas, at a time when the permitted is being twisted into the forbidden,” she said in the poem. She called such edicts “a monster that emerged from its hiding place” whenever “the veil is lifted from the face of truth.”

She described hard-line clerics as “vicious in voice, barbaric, angry and blind, wearing death as a robe cinched with a belt,” in an apparent reference to suicide bombers’ explosives belts.

The three judges gave her the highest marks for her performance, praising her for addressing a controversial topic. That, plus voting from the 2,000 people in the audience and text messages from viewers, put her through to the final round.

“My message to those who hear me is love, compassion and peace,” Hilal said. “We all have to share a small planet and we need to learn how to live together.” Go to MSNBC.

The game, created by a 20-member team, is expected to be released abroad to coincide with the Iranian new year, which starts Saturday. There have been other Iranian-produced computer games, but “Garshasp, the Monster Slayer” is the first that can compete internationally.

The action-adventure game is set in ancient Persia (as Iran was formerly known) in a world taken over by mythological monsters called “deevs.” All characters are drawn from Iranian myths and legends. Players must fight their way through three “worlds,” or levels, by killing opponents and solving puzzles.

The creative impetus behind “Garshasp,” which won praise during recent gaming conferences in the United Arab Emirates, Germany and France, was set in motion years ago in Tehran. During jam sessions with a semiprofessional rock band and breaks from university basketball games, a group of youths started daydreaming about making a computer game.

“Me and Soheil Eshraghi played in a band,” said Jafari, a former electronics engineer with long, dark hair. “We liked games, but I didn’t know Soheil could make animations,” he said. One of Eshraghi’s cartoons received a U.N. award in 2000.

While at the prestigious Sharif University of Technology, Jafari met Fassihi, an old friend, who was studying civil engineering. Both had passed a grueling national exam taken by 200,000 students a year. The top 800 are accepted at Sharif University; Jafari placed 97th and Fassihi 180th. Go to Washington Post.

Ebi performing at the BBC Persian session recording

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One of Iran’s biggest pop stars has used a rare visit to London in time for Persian New Year to give President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a blunt message.

“Shame on you,” says Ebrahim Hamedi – known to his millions of fans simply as Ebi.

“Get the hell out of Iran and find [another] place, because sooner or later they are going to kick you out of the country.”

Protest songs

Ebi has not been home since before the Islamic revolution in 1979.

He now divides his time between Marbella in Spain and Los Angeles in the US – as well as performing in concert halls around the world.

If you haven’t heard of him, it may be because he sings only in his home language, Farsi.

Imagine, though, an Iranian version of the British singer Tom Jones – Ebi is now 60 – but with added politics.

In London, Ebi recorded an acoustic session for the BBC’s Persian television service, including one of his most famous protest songs. Go to BBC.

Mrs Behbahani is Iran’s most celebrated living poet

Iran’s leading female poet has told the BBC she has been barred from leaving the country by the government.

Simin Behbahani, 82, said she was about to fly to France when her passport was confiscated at Tehran airport.

The human rights activist has written poems in support of the opposition campaign against disputed elections in June last year.

Last week Iran detained international award winning film director Jafar Panahi and members of his family.

“The moment I was due to get on the plane, a man came and took my passport away from me and said that I was banned from going abroad,” she told the BBC’s Persian service.

They questioned her for hours asking questions and then ordered her to appear before a court, she said.

She was on her way to Paris to present a paper on feminism and read a poem at conference.

Election challenge

Mrs Behbahani is close to the Nobel Peace Prize winning human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, who has been living in exile since elections in June.

Supporters of reformist figures Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi say that the elections in June were rigged in favour of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Iranian protest movement has developed into the biggest challenge to the government since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Thousands of people have been arrested and dozens killed.

Opposition supporters have faced increasing pressure from the authorities, with some hardliners labelling them as “mohareb” – enemies of God who can be sentenced to death under Iran’s Sharia law.

At least nine have so far been sentenced to death and two people have reportedly been hung. Go to BBC.

Free Iran: Hopefully someone will make a film about Neda, the June election and Iran’s Green movement – a love story, tearjerker, political documentary all wrapped into one.

The film industry made history Sunday night when Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win a Best Director Oscar, for her work on “The Hurt Locker,” an Iraq War drama that also took the Best Picture prize and four other awards.

The tense story of Army bomb-disposal experts in Baghdad, made for a mere $11 million, upset the popular favorite, “Avatar,” a roughly $300 million sci-fi epic that was widely praised for its advances in 3-D technology and artistry. “Avatar,” the new all-time box-office champion, has sold $720 million in tickets in the United States. “The Hurt Locker,” though considered the most successful of Iraq-themed films to date, has drawn a mostly art-house audience, barely cracking $20 million worldwide.

“Avatar” once seemed untouchable for Hollywood’s top award. But in a move designed to bring in more viewers to the telecast, Motion Picture Academy brass doubled the Best Picture field to 10 nominees — and the complicated voting dynamics broke in favor of the smaller indie film.

Bigelow was only the fourth woman nominated for the prize. When the time came, the envelope was opened with dramatic flair by Barbra Streisand — herself the director of three feature films — who looked at the contents and announced, “The time has come.” Accepting the award, Bigelow called it “the moment of a lifetime.” Go to Washington Post.

Actress Golshifteh Farahani, exiled in Paris, reveals the pressures on Iran’s artistic community after anti-government film-maker is arrested.

Golshifteh Farahani knows how dangerous it is now to be an artist in Tehran. In 2008 she became the first Iranian-based actress in almost 30 years to appear in a Hollywood blockbuster. Starring opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe in Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies, she hoped the film would be appreciated in her homeland for its critical stance on America’s politics in the Middle East.

She was wrong. When she returned to Tehran the then 24-year-old was subjected to seven months of inquisition from the authorities of the Islamic republic. Reprimanded for not having asked the permission of the government, she became a regular guest of the Information Ministry and intelligence services.

Eventually she cracked. By the time Body of Lies was released, she was an exile in Paris. She does not know when she will go home.

Last week, as the Iranian diaspora reeled from the arrest of Jafar Panahi, the most outspoken film director still living in Tehran, Farahani felt a fresh rush of fury towards a regime which critics say is taking ever greater steps towards a total crackdown on free speech.

Panahi, a vocal supporter of the opposition movement and known for his award-winning, politically subversive movies, was taken from his home in Tehran on Monday night along with 16 others. Most have since been released, but Panahi remains in detention. He had reportedly been making a documentary on the mass protests which came in the aftermath of last year’s disputed elections. Go to Guardian.

The Crimson Gold director, who is a vocal supporter of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, has reportedly been detained by security forces.

The Iranian director Jafar Panahi has reportedly been detained by security forces in his homeland. Panahi, 49, is a vocal supporter of the opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi and has long been regarded as a pariah by the Iranian establishment. He is currently believed to be being held at an undisclosed location.

Mousavi’s website Kaleme quotes Panahi’s son, who claims that the film-maker was arrested at his home on Monday night, together with his wife, daughter and 15 dinner guests. Security forces allegedly searched the house and seized belongings. The official Iranian media is not reporting the story.

Panahi is known as one of the leading lights of modern Iranian cinema. He won the Camera d’Or award at the Cannes film festival in 1995 for his debut feature The White Balloon and took the Golden Lion prize at Venice for his 2000 drama The Circle. His other films include Crimson Gold and Offside.

Panahi’s productions are largely funded by European money as a means of bypassing what he sees as government interference. His films are banned in Iran, where the authorities regard them as implicitly critical of the current regime. “[The authorities] think that anyone who is independent or not following their views is a spy of the west,” Panahi told the Guardian at the time of Crimson Gold’s release. “Paid by the west. Spreading western propaganda.”

The film-maker is known to have criticised the outcome of last year’s disputed presidential elections, which returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power and sparked opposition protests across the country. Since then his activities appear to have been curtailed. Last month, organisers of the Berlin film festival claimed that a travel ban had prevented the director from attending the event. Go to Guardian.

The Islamic revolution that engulfed Iran in 1979 didn’t just sweep away the old political order. Under Ayatollah Khomeini’s strict interpretation of Shiite Islam, just about every form of music was banned, including the nation’s supremely sophisticated classical tradition with roots stretching back to Persia’s pre-Islamic Sassanian Dynasty.

Kayhan Kalhor, the unsurpassed master of the kamancheh, an ancient four-string spiked violin, has spent much of his life building bridges between Iran and the West. But he launched the Masters of Persian Music partly as a way to repair the post-revolution generational divide among Iranian musicians. A founding member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, he lived in Europe and the United States for about two decades before returning to Iran in 2003.

On the flipside, Iranian filmmakers continue to find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

The Film in Iran panel was overshadowed by the absence of Iranian helmer Jafar Panahi. The director, whose “Offside” won a Silver Bear in 2006, had been invited to Berlin as Kosslick’s honorary guest but was refused permission to leave Iran by the authorities.

Kosslick paid tribute to Panahi and pledged to travel to Iran to help resolve the issue.

Panelists, including helmers Rafi Pitts and Nader Davoodi, both of whom have films in Berlin’s official selection, also made a point of acknowledging Panahi. Pitts, whose “The Hunter” world preemed in Competition, was particularly vocal about the challenges facing Iranian directors from inside and outside the country. Go to original article.

Renowned Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf has made 18 feature films, garnered multiple international awards, and is here this week to celebrate yet another: the Freedom to Create Prize.

But when I sit down with Mr. Makhmalbaf Sunday evening, the filmmakers he most wants to talk about are amateurs—the Iranian democrats shooting footage of militiamen beating students with clubs, of a beautiful young woman bleeding to death in broad daylight.

These clips, viewed world-wide via YouTube, probably wouldn’t be classified as films by most critics. But Mr. Makhmalbaf says the videophone-wielding protesters who made them “are the most honest filmmakers of Iran.” They are changing the fate of his nation.

“I think the thing they are doing is more important than all of the history of our cinema,” he says. “For the past 30 years, we were trying to reach some kind of reality in art. We used our films like a mirror in front of society. But their images are full of reality; there is no artificiality. We were talking about democracy; they are in danger for democracy.” Go to WSJ.

Monologue | Thursday night on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on ABC: Today is the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution in Iran. President Mahmoud Amembersonlyjacket celebrated by declaring that Iran is now a nuclear state. So that’s good news. Mazel tov to them.

Iran’s telecommunications agency announced a permanent suspension this week of all Google Gmail service. From now on, if you want to reach anyone in Iran, you have to use Faceburqa.

The government announced that they’re going to start their own national email service as a way to build trust with the people, because if there’s anyone you can trust with your email, it’s the Iranian government, of course.

Today is also a day of celebration for Sarah Palin, who celebrated her 46th birthday today. Her family managed to hang streamers from the walls of the igloo, which is not easy to do.

And let me tell you something. You have not been to a birthday party until you’ve seen Sarah Palin blow out 46 candles with an assault rifle. Go to NY Times.

For the past two decades, the UCLA Film & Television Archive has been presenting the preeminent in Iranian art-house cinema — highly personal, moving, contentious and even controversial films dealing with day-to-day life, social mores, religion and war.

Searing, haunting and often disturbing, these films offer insight into a troubled country that is largely known internationally only from reports in newspapers and on news channels.

The “20th Annual Celebration of Iranian Cinema,” which opens Friday at the Billy Wilder, includes dramatic features, shorts and documentaries. Go to LA Times.