Students’ theater section at the 26th Fajr International Theater Festival, which was held for the first time independently and with separate panel of jury, featured works by nine students at Tehran University’s auditoriums.
According to ISNA, a number of directors and students commented on the section. Ehsan Falahat-Pisheh who participated in the event with the play ’Perplexed’ said that inclusion of the section in the 26th Fajr Theater Festival was a good idea and he hoped that it will not be viewed as a peripheral section in subsequent rounds of the event.
On the presentation of nine plays in university campuses, he said that the Fajr Festival should serve to bring out the students from university spaces and provide them with a chance to stage their works in other theater halls in Tehran.
Students’ experience section was judged independently from the international section, he said, adding that this is while it was initially declared that they would have similar facilities for evaluation.
Arezou Roushenas, a theater student who took part in the section with the play ’Two Hangmen’, also said that Fajr Theater Festival is the official theater event in the country and is more professional in comparison to university’s theater.
Therefore, inclusion of the section in the event can pave the way for students to go beyond the student level and enter a professional ambiance.
She further said that it was initially announced that the section will be paid due attention but in practice that was not the case.
Mostafa Koushki, director of the play ’Autumn of 1921É’ also said that the section can help promote the trend of university theater but unfortunately, selected works did not have suitable quality and the section was left to itself without supervision.

The wiser a man,
the less talkative he will be.

Second annual art expo is underway in Niavaran Cultural Complex and will continue until February 27.
Seven Group is an alliance of galleries comprising of Dei, Golestan, Vali, Elaheh, Mah-e Mehr, Haft Samar and Arya.
According to a press release sent to Iran Daily by Niavaran Artistic Creations Foundation, a total of 170 paintings, statuettes, calligraphy works will on sale during the event.
The most expensive work participating at the event is a beautiful miniature by Farah Osouli, which has been valued at 240 million rials.
This is while visual artworks by some artists are on sale for two million rials to encourage the public to buy them.
Mohammad Ehsaei, whose works are well-received in leading auctions in the world, is also participating at the event with three works. Two of them have been valued at between one hundred and one hundred and fifty million rials.
This year’s expo has paid special attention to sculpture by presenting works by more than 12 artists.
Works by Ali Akbar Sadeqi, Yadollah Kaboli, Nasrollah Efjei, Bahram Dabriri, Sadeq Tabrizi, Jalal Shabahangi, Parviz Kalantari and Kourosh Shishegaran are also presented at the event.

Reza Qeisarieh

Works of Italo Calvino (1923-1985), an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels, was reviewed in a session attended by Reza Qeisarieh, Azam Rasouli and the Italian ambassador to Iran Roberto Toscano.
According to MNA, Qeisarieh, a translator, said that Calvino’s family and the neo-realism movement of Italy influenced his cultural notions.
His father was a well-versed botanist and his mother and brother were biologist and geologist respectively. He was born in Cuba and grew up in an erudite family and certainly his interest in scientific issues, notably mathematics, stems from this background.
Describing neo-realism as a response to schools such as Futurism and Surrealism which emerged in the early 20th century, he further said that it considers simplicity and proximity to people as the solution.
Calvino has combined rationality, reality and imagination in his works.
During the 60s, he created a figure named Marco Waldo who is like Bohloul apparently mad but very clever.
Rasouli, for her part, described Calvino as an innovative and creative writer and said that he has dealt with self-alienation, hostility, poverty and corruption following World War II in his works.
Tuscano said that he read Calvino’s stories because they are simple.
There is no ostentatious relation between love and wisdom in his works. Love takes its force from love and love derives its passion from wisdom, he said.
Meanwhile, Persian versions of two collections of stories by Calvino will be published soon by Ketab-e Khorshid Publishing House.

An exhibition of restored historical and artistic works is underway at Naderi Complex in Mashhad, Khorasan Razavi province.
Announcing this, an official of the provincial Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Department, Mohammad Reza Pahlavan told IRNA that the exhibition is part of the program to mark the 29th anniversary of the victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.
At the event, works in calligraphy, miniature and Persian illumination (Tazhib) dating from the 7th century to the Qajar (1796-1925) era, are on display.
The exhibition also features manuscripts, pertaining to the early Islamic era, in calligraphy styles of ’Nastaliq’, ’Naskh’, ’Sols’ and ’Shekasteh’.
Pahlevan noted that the works have been selected in a manner to reveal the evolution of Islamic script.
The exhibition is open to the public every day from 8:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m.

Visitors at the First Photo Expo, which ended in Tehran, yesterday.

A picture taken by Mohammad Farnoud was sold at 50 million rials at the First Photo Expo, a four-day event, which began in Tehran’s Esteqlal Hotel on Tuesday.
According to Fars news agency, the photo features a social document in the 1980s which was bought from a collection owner.
Another work by Farnoud, with a price tag of 50 million rials, is also on display at the event.
However, the highest price for a work at the expo has been set for a photo by Mohsen Rastani, which was valued at 70 million rials. It has not yet been sold.
A total of 300 photos by 150 photographers were on display, of which 40 by 20 artists were sold on the first day of the event sponsored by Haft Honar Gallery.

The play ’Simply’ directed by Morteza Saeedian was nominated for the Honorary Award of World Theater Network of Theater for Children and Young People (ASSITEJ)
Announcing this in a press release sent to Iran Daily, the Public Relations Department of the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (IIDCYA) said that the play was performed last year by Baran Group at the IIDCYA Theater Center and was well-received by the audience.
The play portrays different scenes from social life using a creative and new style.
Birth, relations with nature, social life, creativity and ideas about human ideals and wishes are among the topics taken into consideration in the play.
Ten institutes and private entities from around the world had been nominated for the 2008 award of which three, including the Iranian Group Baran, were eventually selected.
The award, which includes a cash prize of $5,000 as well as an engraved silver cup, is presented every three years to a person or group which undertakes special work in the field of children and young adults theater.
The final winner will be decided in a meeting of STIG in Adelaide, Australia in May.
ASSITEJ is a World Theater Network of Theater for Children and Young People. It was established in 1965 by a global alliance of professional theater for children and young adults.

The end of the Hollywood writers strike means the Oscar show will be the usual star-studded, fashion-filled extravaganza, organizers promised.
“The strike, the bad news, is past us,“ Sid Ganis, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said Thursday.
The 80th annual awards show will be held Feb. 24 at the Kodak Theatre and will feature a host of A-list stars. Forest Whitaker, Helen Mirren, Jennifer Hudson, Miley Cyrus, George Clooney and Nicole Kidman will be among the presenters. Others include Denzel Washington, Martin Scorsese, Cate Blanchett, Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford and Tom Hanks, reported AP.
Had the three-month writers strike not ended Tuesday, the Academy still would have put on a “B“ show, one without the glitter of the nominated actors, virtually all of whom said they would not cross a picket line.
“The ’B Show’ was going to have the musical numbers, and there was going to be a lot of energy to that,“ telecast producer Gil Cates told. “But it was going to rely mostly on film clips, mostly on historical clips, because it is the 80th year of the Oscars.“
The “A“ show will feature performances of the year’s five nominated songs. ’Enchanted’ star Amy Adams will sing ’Happy Working Song,’ one of the film’s three nominated tunes.

Sabine El Gemayel (c) on the location of the film 'Niloufar'

Sabine El Gemayel, French director of the Irano-French project ’Niloufar’, was recently in Iran to see the film’s rough cut version.
According to ISNA, Gemayel attended the closing ceremony of the 26th Fajr International Film festival during his five-day stay in the country.
Fereshteh Taerpouri and Jan Berhart are producers of the film, whose technical processes are taking place in Tehran’s Bahman Studio. ’Niloufar’ is the story of a rural Iraqi girl who has a longing to become a physician.
The cast includes Roya Nonahali, Shahab Hosseini, Fatemeh Mo’tamed-Aria and Sadeq Safaei.
Fardin Khalatbari will produce the theme song for the film while Bahram Badakhshani is the director of photography.