Kurdish movie night: The Songs of My Mothers Land – Marooned in Iraq (Bahman Ghobadi, 2002)

By: börek - February 1st, 2015  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday February 15th 2015, Kurdish Iranian new wave cinema: The Songs of My Mothers Land – Marooned in Iraq. آوازهای سرزمین مادری‌ام‎ (گم‌گشتگی در عراق) by Bahman Ghobadi, 2002, 108 minutes. In Kurdish and Persian with English subtitles. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm. Free admission.

Synopsis: In Iran and Iraq’s postwar years, when Iraq bombs its Kurdistan, an old Iranian Kurd singer, accompanied by his musician sons, start searching for his ex-wife Hanareh. Hanareh, a women singer, has gone to Kurdistan in Iraq. The film is the story of the band’s journey, joined with their music. It is the story of a nation that has always been wandering. Being so used to war, they take it as a game and with their music they celebrate life.

Many years ago before our memories were clouded by the moments of heroic bravery at the hangman’s alter which will, for many Arabs, go on to posthumously defining Saddam Hussein, there were innumerable mass graves, gassed victims, orphaned children and menacing jet fighters roaring in the Kurd skies that reminded people of what Saddam stood for.

Bahman Ghobadi’s “Songs of my motherland” (also known as ‘Marooned in Iraq’) is not just a tale of Mirza the legendary Kurd singer but an epic of his people. As Mirza sets out to seek his rebellious ex-wife, Henareh, a belle who has captured the hearts of the people through her voice and her songs, we are introduced to the nuances and shades of the people of the region.

The Kurds are as rugged as their inhospitable landscape locked between the Arab, Turkish and Iranian nationalists who are willing to forcefully suppress anyone that questions their territorial integrity with calls for a Kurdistan. Yet through the eccentric tribal mannerisms of the Kurdish people and their scant regard for authority the movie reveals the trait of natural defiance comfortably adjusted to a cruel fate that the Kurds have had. […Lees verder]

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Iranian new wave cinema: A few kilos of date for a funeral (2006)

By: börek - December 1st, 2014  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday December 7th 2014, Iranian new wave cinema: A few kilos of date for a funeral ( چند کیلو خرما برای مراسم تدفین) by Saman Salur (2006, 85 minutes), in Persian with English subtitles. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm.

Synopsis: Sadry and Yadi work at a petrol station removed from the main traffic routes since the building of a ring road. It is winter and heavy snow lies on the ground. Sadry, a former performing strongman who accidentally lost an eye, is behaving strangely. He takes off from time to time and seems obsessed with the weather. Yadi is in love with a girl from a nearby town and sends her passionate letters via the local postman. Sadry and Yadi occasionally receive a visit from Orooj, the neighbourhood undertaker, their only contact with the exterior.

Director’s statement: The idea of this film, originally under a different title, came to me during my studies. At the time I often travelled from Tehran to my home town, Boroujerd, in the south-west of Iran. I often thought of the petrol station that was once situated along the highway and whose prosperity had disappeared with the building of a ring road. I also thought of likable outsiders such as Sadry and Yadi, left on the margins of society and forgotten by the rest of the world. The fate of such people has always fascinated me. I often dreamt as the film began to take shape and as my dreams were often colourless and grey, I decided to shoot in black and white. The close cooperation of my friend Touraj Aslani as director of photography was of utmost importance to me. The actors Mohsen Tanabandeh, Nader Fallah, Mahmoud Nazaralian and Hassan Rashid Ghamat are no strangers to cameras, the latter also doubling as film editor and short-film director. Mohsen Namjou who plays the role of the postman is a composer in real life. As snow was an essential element of the story, I must admit that Mother Nature also had her role to play.
“A Few Kilos of Dates for a Funeral” is a story of ordinary people with all their qualities and defects……but it is above all a story of love.

More info: http://www.dreamlabfilms.com/a-few-kilos-of-dates-for-a-funeral/ […Lees verder]

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Kurdish movie night – A Time for Drunken Horses (Bahman Ghobadi, 2000)

By: ready - August 16th, 2014  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday August 17th 2014. Kurdish movie night: A Time for Drunken Horses by Bahman Ghobadi, 2000, 85 minutes. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm.

Kurdish Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi grew up during the devastating Iran-Iraq War, which killed several of his relatives. After starting out in photography, he began attracting attention in his twenties from his short documentary films about Kurdish life. After serving as Abbas Kiarostami’s assistant director on The Wind Will Carry Us (Bād Mā-ra- Khāhad Bord, 1997), he expanded the theme of one of his short documentary films, Life in Fog, to make his first feature film, A Time for Drunken Horses (Zamani Barayé Masti Asbha, 2000). The film, about the harsh circumstances of an impoverished Kurdish family near the Iran-Iraq border where the local economy subsists around the dangerous smuggling trade, was an immediate sensation and multi-award winner, including the FIPRESCI critics prize and the Camera D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

The Kurdish people live mostly in Kurdistan, a mountainous region of the Middle East that covers parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. For them the national boundaries that separate their people are artifacts of past political processes that excluded their participation. But paradoxically these same artificial boundaries that close off free exchange have presented a secondary, though fraught with danger, economic opportunity: smuggling. A Time for Drunken Horses tells the story of an orphaned family trying to survive in these perilous conditions. […Lees verder]

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Movie night about Afghan refugees in Iran: “Three, Four Days Ago” & “Baran”

By: börek - June 1st, 2014  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday June 1st 2014, Movie night about Afghan refugees in Iran. Short film: “Three, Four Days Ago” By “Dornaz Hajiha” (2011). Feature film: “Baran” by Majid Majidi (2001). Films with English subtitles. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm.

Baran – After the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, over 1.4 million Afghans fled to Iran seeking sanctuary and work. In this extraordinarily spiritual drama by Majid Majidi (*Children of Heaven, The Color of Paradise*), the plight of these refugees is vividly portrayed. They are strangers in a strange land forced to make do in dire circumstances after the loss of everything near and dear to them.
Synopsis: In a building site in present-day Tehran, Lateef, a 17-year-old Turkish worker is irresistibly drawn to Rahmat, a young Afghan worker. The revelation of Rahmat’s secret changes both their lives. […Lees verder]

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Eenhorn Filmavond presents: A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)

By: börek - April 1st, 2014  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday April 27th 2014, Eenhorn Filmavond presents: A Separation (جدایی نادر از سیمین) Directed by Asghar Farhadi, 2011, 123 minutes, in Persian with English subtitles. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm.

Nader and Simin argue about living abroad. Simin prefers to live abroad to provide better opportunities for their only daughter, Termeh. However, Nader refuses to go because he thinks he must stay in Iran and take care of his father, who suffers from Alzheimers. However, Simin is determined to get a divorce and leave the country with her daughter. […Lees verder]

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Movie night: Half Moon (Bahman Ghobadi, 2006)

By: börek - March 1st, 2014  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday March 2nd 2014, Movie Night: Half Moon by Bahman Ghobadi (2006, 114′). With English subtitles. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm.

Mamo, an old renowned Kurdish musician, has begun a journey to Iraq with his sons to perform a concert after the fall of Saddam Hossein. Kako, a middle-aged man and a huge fan of Mamo’s, enthusiastically escorts them in an orange mini bus which he has borrowed from a friend. Mamo gathers his sons one by one from different areas. The last son who joins the team insists on speaking to Mamo in private. He explains to Mamo that the Wise man of the village has predicted that Mamo should not go on the trip because, as the full moon nears, something awful will happen to him. Mamo persists on continuing his journey. He claims that he must continue his trip despite all the obstacles because he was not allowed to perform in Iraq for many years. Mamo intends to take Hesho, a female singer who lives with 1334 other women in exile, as part of his team. But the strength of Hesho’s voice has dwindled along with her self confidence. While crossing the borders, Mamo’s team faces many difficulties as their journey is wrought with adventure and disaster each step of the way. […Lees verder]

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Movie night: No One Knows About Persian Cats (2009)

By: börek - June 1st, 2013  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday June 16th 2013, Movie night: No One Knows About Persian Cats -کسی از گربه‌های ایرانی خبر نداره – Directed by Bahman Ghobadi, 2009, 106 minutes. In Farsi with English subtitles. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm.

No One Knows About Persian Cats is the fifth feature by awardwinning director Bahman Ghobadi, winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at the Cannes film festival. Co—written by imprisoned Iranian—American journalist Roxana Saberi, the film is an indictment of cultural repression in Iran’s exciting underground music scene, a powerful cinematic foreshadowing of current protest movements, and a celebration of an entire generation of Iranians striving towards personal and creative freedom. Shot in secret and featuring extraordinary performances by real underground bands, follows a pair of young musicians, recently released from prison, on a mission to take their rock band to Europe. Forbidden by the authorities to play in Iran, they plan their escape abroad with a fast—talking music promoter. Vowing to play one last show before leaving Tehran, their dangerous mission takes them on a free—wheeling journey through the City’s vibrant and diverse underground scene, home to an estimated 2,000 illegal independent bands. […Lees verder]

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Kurdish Iranian movie night: Turtles Can Fly (Bahman Ghobadi, 2004)

By: börek - February 1st, 2013  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday February 17th 2013, Movie night: Turtles Can Fly (Bahman Ghobadi, Kurdistan, Iran, 2004, 95 min). English subtitles. Door open at 20pm, film begins at 21:00.

A social drama concerning the life of children in Kurdistan of Iraq near the Iraqi-Turkish border before the US invasion of Iraq. Born in 1969 in Baneh, in the province of Iranian Kurdistan, Bahman Ghobadi is an internationally acclaimed Iranian Kurd director who has been living in exile for several years. A socially inclined and politically outspoken artist, Ghobadi first came to the movie world’s attention in 2000, when his “Time for Drunken Horses” won the prize for best first feature at the Cannes Film Festival. Drunken Horses was the first Kurd film in the history of Iran and also the first feature-length film in Kurdish, a tongue banned in Iranian schools since the 1940s, to achieve an international release.

This film and all subsequent made by Ghobadi (among others, “Half Moon”, 2004, and “Turtles Can Fly”, 2006) were widely praised at film festivals the world over, gathering dozens of awards, but were little or not seen in his native country, Iran. In 2009, Ghobadi completed “No One Knows About Persian Cats“- a semi- documentary about the underground indie music scene in Tehran, filmed in Iran without an official permit and in very restricted conditions. His latest film to date, “Rhino Season” (2012), was shot in Istanbul.

According to the human rights non-profit organization International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, the organization has “documented several cases of arrest or persecution of family members of Iranian political activists and journalists who themselves live outside Iran.” “In all noted cases the family members have not been implicated in any crimes and their summonses, arrests, interrogations, and intimidation have all been aimed atputting  pressure on the activists and journalists to stop their professional activities outside Iran.” On November 4, 2012, Iranian film director Behrouz Ghobadi (Bahman’s younger brother) was arrested by plainclothes forces in Iran. Amnesty International USA called Behrouz’s imprisonment “one of a series of attacks on freedom of expression by the Iranian authorities. Stifling creative expression by harassing artists and their families shows the depths of Iran’s desperate effort to cut off dialogue, much less criticism.” Ghobadi was recently released from prison in Iran, following an Amnesty-led campaign demanding his release that engaged prominent directors, actors and independent filmmakers.

Behrouz Ghobadi is the latest filmmaker to be detained by Iranian authorities. In December 2010 renowned director Jafar Panahi, who was awarded the European Union’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought has been sentenced to a six-year jail sentence and a 20-year ban on directing any films, writing screenplays, giving any form of interview with Iranian or foreign media and from leaving the country. The director was prosecuted for attempting “to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic” and now lives under house arrest. Fellow director Mohammad Rasoulof was also detained, with the arrests sparking international outrage. Also in 2011, directors Naser Saffarian, Hadi Afarideh, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, and Shahnam Bazdar were held behind bars.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, warm and cozy cinema! Doors open at 20:00, film begins at 21:00, free entrance. You want to play a movie, let us know: joe [at] squat [dot] net

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