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’Roommate’
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Popular film star
Akbar Abdi (r)
and Bita Saharkhiz
in a scene from
ÔRoommateÕ.
Directed by Mehrdad
Farid, the film is to be premiered in seven
Asian countries,
including Malaysia,
Indonesia and Thailand,
in September.
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Presidential Support for Avicenna Works
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has allocated funds for publication of works by well-known Iranian scientist Avicenna (Abu Ali Sina).
Announcing this, head of the Research Center of Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization told Fars News Agency that the president has announced his readiness to support publication of Avicenna’s works.
“The center is to sign an agreement with Iran’s Philosophy Association for the preservation of the scholar’s works,“ Taha Hashemi added.
Noting that about 50 percent of Avicenna’s works have remained unpublished, he said most of them are in Arabic and not translated into Persian as yet.
Iran’s Philosophy Association had planned to publish Avicenna’s works since five years ago. However, the project was put off due to lack of funds.
The association plans to release the scholar’s entire works concurrent with his birth millennium.
Over 242 works are attributed to Avicenna whose famous books are ’The Book of Healing’, a vast philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and ’The Canon of Medicine’, which was a standard medical text at many Islamic and European universities until the early 19th century.
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Director Explains ’Three Women’ Theme
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A frame from ÔThree WomenÕ
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Director of the film ’Three Women’, which will be participating in the Melbourne International Film Festival in late July, said the film portrays an image of the Iranian society, and was made with love for the country.
“The film focuses on different social strata, age groups as well as rural and urban life in Iran,“ Manijeh Hekmat told ISNA.
She added that ’Three Women’, which is her second feature after ’Women’s Prison’, maps the lives of three generations of Tehrani women. Niki Karimi--a famous actress as well as a rising director in her own right--takes center stage as Minoo, a harassed single mother facing battles in her job as a carpet conservator while looking after her senile mother and rebellious student daughter.
“The film indicates that people like Minoo who belong to the pre-Islamic Revolution generation, cannot make their way without establishing a sound relationship with the old and new generations,“ said the director. Commenting on the use of hand-woven carpet in the film, she said, “Persian carpet symbolizes our national identity. It can be found in every Iranian house. And, in the film it indicates bilateral understanding.“
The film is said to premiere in Tehran on October 1 concurrent with Eid Al-Fitr (Feast of the Fitr) which marks the end of the lunar fasting month of Ramadan.
Hekmat is currently working on a new film which is about Persian lullabies. She will travel to Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan next week to begin shooting sections of the film. The Melbourne International Film Festival will be held from July 25 to August 10. ’Three Women’ will be also screened at the 2008 Durban Film Festival in August.
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Imam Ali (AS):
If you cannot get things as much as you desire, then be contented with
what you have.
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Amini Selected for
Cannes Workshop
The 17th Cannes Cinefondation has selected an Iranian director for its training program to support the next generation of international filmmakers.
Babak Amini will participate in a workshop, in October, designed to help him in the writing and production of his first feature film, Presstv reported.
Amini was born in 1978 in Kurdestan, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy.
He worked for 10 years as an assistant to award-winning Iranian filmmaker, Bahman Qobadi, for films such as “A Time for Drunken Horses“, “Turtles Can Fly“ and “Half Moon“.
Amini’s “Angels Die in the Soil“ has been screened in several international film events, including the 16th Archipelago Film Festival in Italy, the 24th Festroia Film Festival in Portugal and the Ninth Seoul Film Festival.
In 1998, the Cannes Festival created the CinŽfondation to inspire and support the next generation of international filmmakers. Since then, with the help of the Festival, the CinŽfondation has developed complementary programs to help achieve its goal.
In the Galleries
A photo exhibition featuring works by Iranian photographer Majid Naqdi is underway at Iranian’s Photographers House.
The exhibit titled ’From Coast to Coast’, features historical architecture of Isfahan, Shiraz and Kish Island.
The event will run until July 31, Mehr News Agency said.
Tehran’s Artists House is also holding a photo exhibition featuring works by artists Hamid Gardan and Mohammad Kazem Mohammadpouri.
The house’s Momayyez Gallery hosts the exhibit which runs through July 17.
The house’s Nami is playing host to a calligraphy-painting exhibit by Saeideh Jadidi is also underway at the house’s Nami Gallery.
IRIB Dubs ’Sicko’
The Academy award-winning American filmmaker Michael Moore’s highly-acclaimed documentary ’Sicko’ has been dubbed into Persian and will be aired on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).
According to Mehr News Agency, the film which was recently screened at Tehran’s Farhang cinema theater will be aired on Channel 4.
Being Moore’s follow-up to 2004’s ’Fahrenheit 9/11’, the film ’Sicko’ is a 2007 production that investigates the American health care system, focusing on its for-profit health insurance and pharmaceutical industry. It compares the US private sector with the socialized systems of Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Cuba.
Sicko received both positive reviews and critiques as well.
Some specialists have praised the film while others have criticized it for its positive portrayal of the publicly funded health systems of Canada, the United Kingdom and Cuba, and for its negative portrayal of the healthcare system in the United States.
IRIB has also dubbed Moore’s film ’436’.
Nobel Winners Collaborate on Antigone Opera
Nobel literary laureates Seamus Heaney and Derek Walcott are collaborating on a new opera due to be unveiled this fall at the Globe Theatre in London.
The pieces based on Heaney’s acclaimed play ’The Burial at Thebes’and will be set in a South American republic, cbc.ca reported.
The 2004 work retells the original ancient play by Sophocles, which examines Antigone’s punishment, to be walled up in a cave, for defying the king of Thebes. Antigone chooses to take her own life rather than submit.
The Irish poet Heaney said he’s hoping to get a “huge enhancement“ of his work from Walcott, who will direct the production with the Trinidadian composer Dominique Le Gendre providing the compositions.
“Heaney’s text is so pressing and so contemporary that it has real relevance to the dilemmas we face today, to questions of competing loyalty which recur everywhere in this story,“ Le Gendre said.
The opera will premiere on October 11 and go on a national tour.
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