3rd Annual Iranian Film Festival - San Francisco: September 18-19, 2010

An annual event showcasing the independent feature and short films made by or about the Iranians from around the world.

Mrs. Khorvash will be present at the screening of “Prince Ehtejab” for her tribute and the Q & A, and during the festival to meet her fans.

Iranian Film Festival is a platform for the Iranian filmmakers living  around the globe to express their vision and talent through the artistic medium of film.

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7 Women

7 Women - Director: Sara Rastegar, Iran/France, 2009, 52 minutes

Thirty years after the revolution that led to the departure of many Iranians, including that of my family to France, I returned to Iran for a trip across the country, where, in the course of my meetings with the women who stayed there, I wanted to understand the complexity of the arrangements of the people with the daily reality of its country. The time of a movie, a weaving Persian colored carpet consisting of words, facts and gestures of women from different backgrounds, the emerging patterns of a traditional lifestyle that is constantly adapting to the realities of its society.

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Above the Gray Clouds

Above the Gray Clouds - Director: Sare Shafipour, Iran, 2010, 8 minutes, Animation

One night a woman decides to follow a strange voice in her room. Her curiosity leads to finding a different world of a man who lives in the lower floor.

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Space Tourists

Space Tourists - Director: Christian Frei, Switzerland, 2009, 98 minutes, Cast: Anousheh Ansari, Jonas Bendiksen, Dumitru Popescu

In his most recent work, Christian Frei turns to an age-old dream of man: to leave our planet as a «normal person» and travel into outer space. For 20 million dollars, the Iranian-American Anousheh Ansari was able to fulfil her childhood dream and becomes the first female space tourist. This documentary follows her journey from rigorous training in Star City, Kazakhstan, into space and shows everyday life as it is on the International Space Station.

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Bakhtiari Alphabet

Bakhtiari Alphabet - Directors: Cima Sedigh (In Person) & Reza Ghadyani, Iran/US, 2009, 56 minutes

Set in the breathtaking Zagros Mountains of southwest Iran. Bakhtiari Alphabet documents the seasonal migration of the proud, ancient Bakhtiari tribe as they face challenges and celebrate daily triumphs, in their struggle to maintain their richly textured culture in the face of the 21st century encroachments on its practices and traditions. This film follows a nomadic community in Iran, providing cultural insight and engaging issues related to the challenges of educating children. It reveals both the struggle and humanity of this rapidly disappearing culture.

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Border

Border - Director: Sattar Chamani Gol, Iran, 2009, 10 minutes, Cast: Korosh Ahmadi, Anita Jaafari

An Iraqi family, while taking their bride from Iran, confront the border patrol and he prevents them from crossing the border. They are forced to pass a deviated path to return to their own country.

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Carpet to Celestial Heavens

Carpet to Celestial Heavens - Director: Hamieh Razavi, Iran, 2008, 3 minutes, Camera & Editing: Bahman Kiarostami

Persian carpets, suitable for any occasion.

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Chasing Che

Chasing Che - Director: Alireza Rofougaran, Iran, 2009, 78 minutes

Chasing Che is the account of a four-year odyssey in which an Iranian businessman switches the course of his life. Inspired by a biography of Che Guevara, which he reads and then translates into Farsi, he embarks on a long odyssey through Latin America and Europe, home movie camera in hand. His mission: to retrace Che’s footsteps. In an effort to gain a greater personal understanding of Che, he looks up any of the late revolutionary’s surviving friends and foes he can find. In the process, he gains new insights into his own life. Viewing the myth of Che Guevara with an eye to his own society, he realizes the peculiarity of such a cross-cultural inspiration. Upon his return to Iran, he witnesses how the same cross cultural enthusiasm among his countrymen gives rise to an open controversy. Throughout the film, there is a process of change as he finds himself confronted by the professional challenges posed by his new endeavor and his own obsessive commitment to fulfilling the project.

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A Very Close Encounter

A Very Close Encounter - Director: Esmaeel Mihandoust, Iran, 2009, 100 minutes, Cast: Ladan Mostofi, Anahita Nemati, Hamidreza Pegah, Soroosh Sehat, Shahrokh Forootanyan

A car accident creates a suspicious for the investigator to find out the cause and the events that led to the accident…while discovering deep emotional and personal relationships among the characters. It is about a friendship that goes sour as the story widens through the detective findings.

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Country Life

Country Life - Director: Hossein Jehani, Iran/Iraq, 2008, 17 minutes

Saiwan Saeedan is at the College of the Fine Arts. He needs to complete his last project to get his degree. His project is based on a documentary on the daily life of some villagers. The life of the villagers will be photographed and then painted, which will be shown in an exhibition in the same village. For him it is important to document all aspects of life in this village. It is for this reason he is also concerned about a cow whose leg is broken after falling down in snow.

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Diplomacy

Diplomacy - Director: Jon Goldman, US, 2009, 9 minutes, Cast: Michelle Forbes, Navid Neghaban, Omid Abtahi, Nazanin Boniadi

The U.S. Secretary of State (Michelle Forbes, True Blood) is meeting the Iranian Foreign Minister for the first high-level diplomatic talks between the two countries in 30 years. Each has an interpreter: on the American side, a young man of Iranian descent; on the Iranian side, an equally bilingual young woman. But as the diplomats dig in their heels, it soon falls to the interpreters to keep negotiations on track, making outright policy revisions far beyond their authority. Will their unique approach bring about mutual understanding – or nuclear disaster?

Based on a topical subject, the film brings up the latent lack of understanding between Iran and the United States and calls a general question on a possible dialogue between the two countries. Through a lucid sense of irony, the film suggests that, sometimes, moving a few words could change things, as diplomatic relations often hang by the subtle thread of rhetoric.

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Door

Door - Director: Adel Yaraghi, Iran 2009, 3 minutes

A look at the confrontational treatment of the issue of Hijab in the past 50 years…

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Prince Ehtejab

Prince Ehtejab (Shazdeh Ehtejab) - Director: Bahman Farmanara, Story: Houshang Golshiri, Iran, 1974, 93 minutes, Cast: Jamshid Mashayekhi, Fakhri Khorvash, Nouri Kasraee, Vali Shirandami, Hossein Kasbian, Parvin Soleimani, F.Behjat Mohamadi

Based on a famous novel by the late Houshang Golshiri the film is about the last of a Ghajar Dynasty, but in reality was a very strong indictment of monarchy. When the film won the Best Film prize at the Third International Film Festival of Tehran the passage of getting a release permit was made easier, although still the scissors of censorship took about five minutes out of the film.

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Father Gave Water

Father Gave Water - Director: Mahdi Jafari, Iran, 2009, 3 minutes, Cast: Mojtaba Arabzadeh

Mojtaba is late to the class and has forgotten to bring a pencil. The teacher gets angry and Mojtaba starts to cry. But his friend comes to help him.

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Have not Reached the Tree

Have not Reached the Tree - Director: Hamideh Sharif-Raad, Iran, 2008, 50 minutes

A fan of Kiarostami’s cinema, the director of the film, sets off for Rudbar and Rostam-Abaad to find Kiarostami’s film trees. On the way to the trees she bumps into three of Kiarostami’s actors from his three films (Where is the Friend’s House?, Life and Nothing Else, and Under the Olive Trees) and with them she goes to the locations of those films. Meanwhile she gets closer to the tree. In fact she makes a film about the actors, locations and Kiarsotami’s way of filmmaking in his famous trilogy. In this film we get to know the details and difficulties of Kiarostami’s job, finding locations and actors in a way he designs the scenes and how he makes the actors play.

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Iran: A Nation of Bloggers

Iran: A Nation of Bloggers - Directors: Aaron Chiesa, Toru Kageyama, Hendy Sukarya, Lisa Temes, Canada, 2009, 3 minutes

An exploration of how the digital world allows many Iranians access to ideas and freedom of expression they haven’t had for close to thirty years. Blogging is, in essence, a means of revolution.

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Letters to the President

Letters to the President - Director: Petr Lom, Germany/Czech Republic/Canada/France, 2009, 72 minutes

This is an observational verité film about President Ahmadinejad’s regime in Iran. Allowed to travel on several of the President’s populist trips to the countryside. During his trips, the President receives many letters – the government claims ten million – from poor Iranians asking for help. The film takes these letters to the President as its narrative thread, and as a device to provide a glimpse into an Iran that is usually not open to outsiders.

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The Man with Red Travel Suit

The Man with Red Travel Suit - Director: Maryam Orang, Iran, 2009, 9 minutes, Cast: Mehrnoush Rahpeima, Khatere Isvand, Akram Deldadeh, Majid Irani

A girl among all those who are waiting for a man with red travel suit makes her mind to go after him. The contradiction of keeping waiting and moving ahead.

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Minus

Minus - Director: Kazem Mollaie, Iran, 2009, 23 minutes, Cast: Kamran Mohseni, Mohammad Akbari, Hoda Siahtiri, Hasan Eslami Moghaddam, Amir Monji, Mojtaba Alizadeh, Mohsen Kian, Moslem Maskani, Mehdi Abbasi, Ali Eslami Moghaddam, Hasan Shams Abadi, Farzad Ahmad Poor, Mehdi Sanaie, Hamid Zareyian, Hosein Fadaie

Minus is a fiction and at the same time an experimental movie, which doesn’t enjoy any distinct geography, language and time … The events occur in a razor producing company, in which a young and simple retainer is working, who has special capabilities … He knows telepathy and he can read the minds of all people and even things … Most of the time, his predictions increase his ability of presentiment …

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Naghsh e Jahan

Naghsh e Jahan - Director: Pouria Rafiee, Iran, 2009, 14 minutes

An emotional trip into people’s lives at the historic Nagh e Jahan landmark in Isfahan.

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Paradise

Paradise - Director: Ahang Bashi, Sweden, 2010, 28 minutes, Documentary

Eighty eight years old Simin from Iran is living in a nursing home for the elderly in Sweden. She doesn’t speak any Swedish and the nursing staff can’t understand her. Her everyday life is bombarded with tragicomical misunderstandings, but despite this Simin tries to remain a positive outlook on life. “Paradise” is a touching documentary about an Iranian woman’s encounter with the Swedish elderly care and tells with great sensibility and humor about our need to be understood.

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Plastic Flowers Never Die

Plastic Flowers Never Die - Director: Roxanne Varzi, US/Iran, 2008, 33 minutes

The war with Iraq was the largest mobilization of the Iranian population, achieved primarily by producing and promoting a culture of martyrdom based on religious themes found in Shii Islam. Martyrdom became state policy. Khomeini made it clear the war was a spiritual one that the people, and not a professional army, would fight. Over 800,000 people died.

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Rapping In Tehran

Rapping In Tehran - Director: Hassan Khademi, Iran, 2009, 37 minutes

How many Iranian rappers can you remove in one single day, if you are convinced that hip hop should be forbidden? Close to a hundred, if you are as efficient as the Iranian police?–?but in a country where youth is irreversibly taking over the country, the result is simply that hundreds of new rappers are seeking out the illegal studios in Tehran to try their hand at the difficult and controversial art of Persian rap. ‘Rapping in Tehran’ follows the dangerous cat-and-mouse play and gives us a unique, kaleidoscopic look at the underground culture that is Iranian hip hop?–?underground despite the fact that several million young Iranians are listening to the music today.

The authorities are upholding their ban and rappers are continuing to organize illegal concerts, from which the film gets its unforgettable, life-affirming images of young girls in headscarves and heavy makeup dancing away to the heavy beats of the music. ‘Rapping in Tehran’ is a unique contemporary document? and news from the front of a musical youth rebellion.

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Reza Shooting Back

Reza Shooting Back - Directors: Connie Rinehart & Tom Donohue, France 2009, 50 minutes

As one of the world’s elite photojournalists, Reza has used his camera and risked his life to expose the stark realities of innocent people caught in the conflicts of war. Imprisoned and tortured – and eventually – exiled – from his native Iran, Reza’s experiences have only strengthened his resolve to promote freedom of speech and justice.

“Reza Shooting Back” offers a riveting glimpse into the life of this courageous humanitarian as Reza recounts his powerful stories from the streets of Iran and the mountains of Afghanistan to the villages of Rwanda and his beloved family in Paris.

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Roof Top

Roof Top (Poshte Bam) - Director: Hooman Mansouri, Iran, 2008, 14 minutes, Cast: Maryam Meschian, Saeed Changizian

Maryam, doesn’t trust her husband, so she manages to spy on him from the roof of the adjacent building, but her plan gets to nowhere…

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Salam Rugby

Salam Rugby - Director: Faramarz Beheshti, Iran/New Zealand, 2010, 61 minutes

Women’s rugby in patriarchal Iran may sound like an anomaly, but as this documentary by Iranian-New Zealander Faramarz Beheshti shows, Iranian women are more than ready to dive into the nearest rock or maul if only the authorities would allow it. Following the Islamic Revolution in 1979 competitive sports for women were actively discouraged and it wasn’t until the social reforms of the 90s that women started to appear on the sporting field again. Women’s rugby was introduced in 2004, but shortly afterward a change in government meant strict guidelines were reinforced.

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The Final Word

The Final Word (Kalame Akhar) - Director: Moslem Mansouri, Iran, 2009, 55 minutes

Ahmad Shamlou, the most prominent and influential contemporary Iranian poet, worked extensively in the area of folklore culture and language which have tremendously affected the current folklore language and literature in Iran. Shamlou in his poetry spoke consciously of human’s suffering, injustice, love and romance. Through his distinctive possession of language and words, he skillfully sided with the oppressed and opposed cruel regimes and their inhumane institutions. Shamlou in his poems echoed the hardships and visions of his people and in doing so; his pen was his best means.

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Takhti

Takhti - Director: Mohammad Hassan Shahmohammadi, 2008, Iran, 24 minutes, Narrator: Manochehr Esmaeili

A look at Takhti’s life, the most popular athlete of Iran’s history; a review and analysis of the popularity and the mystery of the eternity of this mythical figure.

Gholamreza Takhti (1930-1968) was the greatest and most popular wrestler in Iranian history. He won the gold medal at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia, Silver medals at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki and the 1960 Games in Rome. He died at the young age of 37. His death still remains a mystery despite the report that he committed suicide. He is survived by his wife and son, Babak Takhti, an author and translator.

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Tehran Kitchen

Tehran Kitchen - Director: Pola Schirin Beck, Germany, 2009, 17 minutes

Between 600 kebab a day, nagging students and an over salted soup: Three cooks and a kitchen help in the small university canteen in Tehran working with wit and irony while doing their duties on the market and in the kitchen, philosophizing about cooking and about life in general….In this rather unpretentious micro cosmos you will get to know more about the private moments and interesting views in this small parallel universe.

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The Man Whom I Don’t Know

The Man Whom I Don't Know - Director: Ayda Tatari, Iran, 2009, 10 minutes, Cast: Noshin Noshiravani, Amir Mirzadeh

When a woman sees her man with another woman, she undesirably falls to a dark endless labyrinth, in which she would be alone and… unfaithful.

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Tongue of the Hidden

Tongue of the Hidden - Director: David Anderson, UK, 2008, 6 minutes

‘Tongue of the Hidden’ is a film based on a hand printed Artist’s book by Jila Peacock that contains ten love poems from the collected works, or Divan of Hafez, the fourteenth-century Persian metaphysical poet from Shiraz, whose work is accepted as expressing some of the central ideas of Sufism, the spiritual aspect of Islam. The whole Persian text of each poem has been designed in the shape of an animal mentioned by Hafez in the text, and set alongside a modern English translation by the artist herself. A conventional transcription in Persian script, appears at the end of the book.

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How Green Was Our Valley

How Green Was Our Valley - Director: Fereshteh Joghataei, Iran, 2009, 32 minutes

A dam has been built and the water is rising and 63 villages will be flooded and their residents must leave. There is a holy shrine in one of the villages and people of the villages and people are waiting for a miracle.

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San Francisco Art Institute, 800 Chestnut Street

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