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Qur’an Recitation Contest in Turkey
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TurkeyĠs Central
Organization
for Religious Affairs
is holding a Holy QurĠan recitation
contest to promote QurĠan recitation among students.
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Rumi Filming in January
Indian filmmaker and designer Muzaffar Ali’s long-awaited film on the 13th century Iranian poet and mystic Molana Jalaleddin Rumi will be filmed in Turkey and several Persian Gulf locations in January.
The upcoming English-language film titled ’Rumi--the Fire of Love’, is budgeted at $25 million, the bulk of which is to be provided by the Qatar Foundation, headed by Sheikha Mozah, wife of the emir of the Persian Gulf state, reported MNA quoting PTI.
Ali, who heads the New Delhi-based Rumi Foundation and has hosted an annual Sufi music festival since 2001, said that the casting director of the film is currently looking for an A-list Hollywood star to step into the lead role.
Deepak Chopra and Sufi expert Kabir Helminski are on board as script consultants. Rome-based Istar Productions is in charge of putting the project together and among the technicians whose participation has already been confirmed is veteran cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, the Bernardo Bertolucci associate who has also shot films like Francis Ford Coppola’s ’Apocalypse Now’ and Warren Beattys ’Reds’.
This is while, following UNESCO’s designation of 2007 as ’Molana Year’, efforts undertaken by Iranian officials to commemorate the great poet were never at par with those at the international level.
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Avicenna Symphony Under Production
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Shahin Farhat
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Prominent Iranian composer Shahin Farhat, whose works include compositions for ’Imam Reza (AS)’, ’Persian Gulf’, ’Damavand’ and ’Iran’, is currently working on a piece to commemorate Persian Muslim polymath and the foremost physician and Islamic philosopher, Avicenna.
Farhat told Fars News Agency that upon completion of the symphony, he will record it with Ukraine’s Symphony Orchestra in late summer.
Avicenna symphony, which was ordered by Hamedan Music Bureau, comprises of three movements. The first of which is complete and the rest will be finished by September, he added.
Commenting on the symphony, he said, “The first movement focuses on Avicenna’s Persian identity. It features oriental themes using classical Persian music melody system ’Radif’, including ’Bayat’ and ’Homayoun’.
The composer added that the second movement is vocal and he would choose a traditional vocalist to perform this part.
“The final movement will feature themes from the first,“ he said.
Farhat noted that despite the use of Persian melodies, the symphony meets international standards.
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Imam Ali (AS):
Importance of the deeds that you have done with fear of Allah cannot be minimized.
And how can the deeds which are acceptable to Allah be considered unimportant?
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Music Documentary Planned
Iranian director Mohammad Ehsani plans to make a documentary on traditional Iranian music.
The film, the order for which was placed by the US Metropolitan Museum of Art and New York Asian Cultural Council, will introduce indigenous Iranian instruments.
“It will also deal with the metaphysical aspects of Iranian music as well as its influence on oriental music,“ Ehsani told IRNA.
The association will feature the documentary centered on Iranian art and culture in November.
Ehsani’s other works, namely ’Tabriz’ documentary have been featured in leading international events.
Hoqouqi Retrospective Today
A retrospective of noted poet and critic Mohammad Hoqouqi will be held today at Iran’s Academy of Arts.
According to ISNA, Literati, including Mahmoud Dolatabadi, Yadollah Maftoun-Amini, Javad Mojabi, Mohammad Ali Sepanlou and Ali Dehbashi will speak at the event.
A documentary on Hoqouqi will also be featured at the session, organized by Bokhara literary magazine.
Hoqouqi, 71, is proficient in classical Persian literature and western literary criticism. ’Modern Poetry from the Beginning to the Present’, is a creditable anthology of poems selected by Hoqouqi.
He has published a number of critiques on the works of contemporary poets, including Sohrab Sepehri, Ahmad Shamlou and Mehdi Akhavan Saales.
’Winter Seasons’, ’The Oriental’, ’Evening Labyrinths’ and ’Cherries and Birds’ are among Hoqouqi’s works.
’Lorca’ for Latin America, Spain Stage
Noted Iranian stage director Chista Yasrebi will perform the play ’Lorca, I Tease Sahra’ in Spain and five Latin American states in February.
The play will be performed in Uruguay, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Spain, concurrent with the 27th Fajr International Theater Festival in Tehran. “This will be a tribute to Spanish poet and dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca’s creativity, passion and poetry,“ Yasrebi told MNA.
She added that she aims to introduce the world renowned poet and various stages of his poetic life to Iranians.
Yasrebi has written two biographical plays ’Rabe’eh’ and ’Sylvia Platt’ and this recent play is centered on Lorca. “The play, which is made up of seven chapters, was written within a year and its structure is different from my previous works,“ she said.
The drama is in Spanish and Persian. Spanish language students will take the Spanish roles while veteran Iranian actors will play other ones.
Potter Prequel to Be Auctioned
A prequel penned by JK Rowling to her blockbuster “Harry Potter“ series of books will go up for bids in London next month.
The auction of the 800-word short story comes less than a year after the seventh and final tome in the series about the bespectacled boy wizard, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows“ went on sale, AP reported.
“There is just no telling how high the bidding might go,“ said Sotheby’s auction house specialist Philip Errington.
The proceeds will go to two charities: English PEN, which promotes the freedom to write around the world, and Dyslexia Action.
Organizers of the auction had asked 13 authors to submit a story for the sale.
Among them were Doris Lessing, the 2007 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Margaret Atwood, and Sebastian Faulks whose, latest offering, an officially authorized James Bond story, went on sale Wednesday.
Rowling’s “Harry Potter“ series has sold nearly 350 million copies around the world in 65 languages and been turned into a successful film franchise.
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