Snow in Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari province

(Photo by Mahmoud Raeisi)

‘A Cube of Sugar’ Heading to Spain

The Iranian family drama ‘A Cube of Sugar’ by Reza Mirkarimi will compete in the 4th Ibn Arabi International Film Festival (IBAFF) that will be held in Murcia, Spain from March 4 to 9.
In ‘A Cube of Sugar’, members of a large family come together in a happy friendly atmosphere to make preparations for their youngest sister’s engagement party. However, a series of bad news ruins everything planned.
Negar Javaherian, Rima Raminfar, Saeid Pursamimi, Parivash Nazarieh, Reza Kianian and Hedayat Hashemi are the A-list cast of the film, Press TV said.
The world-renowned Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami will also hold a series of workshops, which are composed of theoretical and practical sessions, on the sidelines of the festival.
The festival is named after the great Andalusian philosopher, poet and mystic, Ibn Arabi, who was born in Murcia in 1165.
Mirkarimi’s ‘A Cube of Sugar’ and ‘So Close, So Far’ will also go on screen at the Cine Doré Hall in Madrid on March 12 and 13.
Cine Doré is the cinema hall of Filmoteca Española (Spanish Cinemathèque), whose aim is to restore, investigate and conserve the film heritage of Spain and its diffusion.

Persian Music to Echo At Austrian Fest

Iranian Sufi music ensemble Shams will be performing at Imago Dei, an Easter festival that is held annually in Krems, Austria in March and April.
The band’s concert entitled ‘Dance of Creation’ will be performed on March 9.
“This performance will be a repetition of our concerts held in Tehran in (August) 2008 in commemoration of Rumi,” band leader Keikhosro Purnazeri said, Mehr News Agency reported.
A group of dervishes will also perform sama, the Sufi ecstatic dance, he added.
Tambura and barbat virtuoso Tahmures Purnazeri, and tambura and kamancheh virtuoso Sohrab Pournazeri, and Najmeh Tajadod will also accompany the band as vocalist during the concert.
Among the band members are also Hamidreza Taqavi, Kaveh Gerayeli, Shahab Paranj, Hossein Zahavi, Khorshid Dadbeh, and Amirhossein Hassaninia.
Shams always selects poems by Persian mystic and poet Jalal ad-Din Rumi (1207-1273) for its performances.
The focus of this year’s Imago Dei festival will be on creation myths, the tales of the beginning and the origin of all existence, organizers announced.
The group has written a quotation from Rumi on the festival’s website which reads, “In the waters of purity, I melted like salt. Neither blasphemy, nor faith, nor conviction, nor doubt remained. In the center of my heart a star has appeared. And all the seven heavens have become lost in it.”
The festival will be held at the medieval Klangraum Krems Minoritenkirche and at the Kolomani Hall of Stift Melk.
Bands from Latvia, the Netherlands, Austria, India, and Belgium will also perform during the event.

Australian Award For ‘A Separation’

Arts & Culture Desk

Prestigious Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s ‘A Separation’ has been honored at the Sixth Annual Australian Film Critics Association Awards.
The social drama has been awarded as the Best Overseas Film. This is the 106th international award for the artist.
Farhadi’s masterpiece received the Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards. It also won the Golden Globe as well as the Best Foreign Film Award of the 2012 Independent Spirit Awards.
According to the AFCA website, the 2013 Australian Film Critics Association Awards winners are from “a professional association for film critics, film reviewers and film journalists who work regularly in the media, and provide informed discussion, analysis, and comment about Australian and world cinema.”
The Awards’ goal “is to raise the level of film culture in Australia by recognizing the work of Australian film critics and film commentators and to broaden public awareness of film as an art form and cultural artifact.”

Conference on Saffarzadeh Held

A conference with a special focus on the late Iranian poetess Tahereh Saffarzadeh was held in Tehran on March 7.
Titled ‘A Repertoire of 100 Years of Persian Poetesses’, the conference was held in two sections of articles and introduction of younger poetesses besides a special session assessing the works and life of the late Saffarzadeh, said Fatemeh Rakei, CEO of the Association of Iran’s Poets, in an interview with IBNA.
As she said, as many as 100 articles had been submitted to the secretariat of the conference of which 40 were selected in the first phase of screenings.
Twenty articles in various fields were chosen and presented in the one-day conference.
At the end of the conference, poems composed by young poetesses were rehearsed for the audience.

Brooklyn Museum Opens Exhibition of American Drawings

‘Fine Lines: American Drawings’ from the Brooklyn Museum presents a selection of more than a hundred rarely seen drawings and sketchbooks produced between 1768 and 1945 from the Brooklyn Museum’s exceptional collection.
The exhibition will feature the work of more than seventy artists, including John Singleton Copley, Stuart Davis, Thomas Eakins, William Glackens, Marsden Hartley, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, Eastman Johnson, Georgia O’Keeffe, John Singer Sargent, and Benjamin West.
Among the works on display will be Gaston Lachaise’s Back of a Nude Woman (1929), Winslow Homer’s Two Girls in Field (1871), and William Merritt Chase’s Shinnecock Hills (circa 1895).
Investigating the place of drawing within the broader history of American art before 1945, Fine Lines showcases a variety of subjects, styles, and practices and demonstrates the variety and vitality of the graphic arts in America across nearly two centuries, according to ArtDaily.
The exhibition provides insights into why artists draw through a range of works: carefully transcribed anatomical, portrait, and nature studies; preparatory drawings; quick sketches capturing an artist’s impressions; and highly finished compositions made for display or reproduction.
Organized into six thematic categories, Fine Lines draws comparisons among artists of diverse periods and artistic approaches. The exhibition includes one section on portraiture and two sections on the human figure: one focusing on the nude, and the other examining the clothed figure. A section considers narrative subjects and how artists craft a story through the integration of figures, objects, and setting. Natural and urban environments are the focus of two landscape sections.

Indian & Southeast Asian Artworks on Sale

On March 20, Sotheby’s New York will present Indian & Southeast Asian Works of Art as part of the Asia Week series of auctions.
The approximately 130 lot sale includes a stunning array of important thangkas, one of the most important groups of Indian folk bronzes in the world, an excellent selection of Buddhist, Hindu and Jain art, and over 30 exquisite Indian miniature paintings.
Works will be on view in our York Avenue galleries beginning 15 March 2013. The sale is highlighted by two paintings from the famed Ngor Monastery, renowned for commissioning some of the most significant thangkas in Tibet, which depict Sachen Kunga Nyingpo, known as the first of the Five Great Sakya Masters, and Mahasiddha Avadhutipa (est. $300/500,000 each), ArtDaily wrote.
These spiritual paintings are renowned for their elegance, supreme artistry and delicate execution. The two exquisite works are from a larger set of important paintings that can be found in collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art and The Brooklyn Museum, New York; as well as in published private collections such as Navin Kumar, Lionel Fournier and Michael Henss.
A further highlight is a highly important thangka depicting Yamantaka Vajrabhairava, which is a masterful example of an 18th century Tibetan painting (est. $250/350,000). This exceptional and large-scale work exhibits an immense size, skilled draughtsmanship and vibrancy of the coloring.
Delicate landscape elements create a beautiful naturalistic setting for the deities, who occupy the center stage of the painting. Yamantaka Vajrabhairava, the central figure, is the main deity of the Gelug order of Tibetan Buddhism, dark blue in color, with nine heads, thirty-four arms and sixteen legs.

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH):

Kill not your hearts with excess of eating and drinking.