Third Festival of NationsÕ Cultures is underway in TehranÕs Sharif University of Technology with the participation of students from 24 countries. The event features handicrafts, cuisines, costumes, tourist attractions and national luminaries of participating countries, including China, Japan, Vietnam, France, Syria and Afghanistan. (Photo by Mansoureh Motamedi)

Shahram Nazeri

Highly-acclaimed Iranian vocalist Shahram Nazeri, accompanied by Molavi music group, will perform a series of concerts in Tehran and 15 other cities from July 15.
The artist will perform in Qazvin province from July 15-16. His second programs will be at the Interior Ministry’s Grand Auditorium on August 7-12.
He will later tour Kerman, Qazvin, Isfahan, Yazd, Shiraz, Rasht and Sari, IRNA reported.
The concerts are to be sponsored by Hafez Art and Cultural Institute.
Nazeri was awarded the Chevalier de la LŽgion d’Honneur medal, one of France’s most prestigious awards in the world of art and culture, in Paris in September 2007.

Muzaffar Ali

Molana Jalaleddin Rumi is a bridge between East and the West, said an Indian filmmaker and designer Muzaffar Ali, whose long-awaited film on the 13th century Iranian poet and mystic Molana Jalaleddin Rumi will be ready for January.
“Being widely read, the Persian poet is the Oriental world’s apt ambassador in the West,“ Muzaffar said.
“Molana is a bridge between East and the West,“ he said, adding, “He is also the most widely read poet in America.“
Describing his concept of the protagonist in ’Rumi-The Fire of Love’, Muzaffar says the poet was a scholar who went on to become a ’lover of God’, said ISNA quoting “India Times“.
“My film traces the journey from his initial life to the making of a poet who wrote about the oneness of God,“ says the director who is yet to decide on the lead actors. He added that it will also explore the mystic friendship he shared with his mentor Shams-e-Tabrizi.
Ali noted that he arrived at the final script for the historical film after setting aside 25 initial drafts and that he has done intensive research on the subject, sifting through the history of the 13th century Persia, what now comprises Turkey.
The filmmaker also studied in detail the rise of the Seljuk dynasty, which ruled the region from the later part of the eleventh century till the onset of the fourteenth century.
The Seljuk period, which brought Muslim rule at the doorstep of Europe by defeating the Byzantine empire thereby spawning a new era, was central to the period in which Molana lived, the director said.
The film 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.