The beautiful Dehsalam desert is located in Nehbandan, Southern Khorasan province.

(Photo by Mostafa Qotbi)

‘Tehran 2121’ Debuts Next Month

Arts & Culture Desk

‘Tehran 2121’, the first Iranian animated comedy film, will be screened in Tehran on December 5.
Announcing this, Mohammad Abolhassani, the film’s producer hoped that the animated comedy will be warmly received by the audience.
Directed by Bahram Azimi, ‘Tehran 2121’ depicts the modern life of Tehran citizens coexisting with humanoid robots in 2121.
Azimi said the film will mark a turning point in animation industry in Iran.
The director used the technique of rotoscoping to make ‘Tehran 2121’. Rotoscoping is an animation technique in which animators trace over live-action film movement, frame by frame, for use in animated films.
‘Tehran 2121’ tells the story of a 160-year-old Akbar and his granddaughter who studies in Mars.
The story of this animation takes place in the year 2121, when robots live alongside people who live for over 160 years due to progress in medical science.
Azimi is in the vanguard of modern animation in Iran. He is best known for his animations on traffic education aired on national TV.

French Award for ‘Last Days of Winter’

Iranian movie ‘The Last Days of Winter’ won top prize at the Escales Documentaires, an international documentary festival, which was held from November 5-13 in La Rochelle, France.
Directed by Mehrdad Oskouei, the doc won the Prix de la compétition jeunesse at the festival.
The Prix de la compétition jeunesse (Youth Competition Prix) is awarded to the films that address young audiences, Mehr News Agency said.
‘The Last Days of Winter’ is about seven Iranian boys talking candidly about their lives in a youth detention center.
The documentary was picked as the best doc award at the International Oriental Film Festival (FIFOG) in May 2012.
‘The Last Days of Winter’ also won the BlackBerry Award at the 24th International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) last year.

Iran, Egypt Cinema Cooperation Welcomed

Minister of culture and Islamic guidance said linking of Iranian and Egyptian cinema industries would lead to creation of precious films, capable of serious cooperation with western cinematic productions.
According to an IRNA, Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini in his meeting with a delegation of Egyptian artists and cinematographers welcomed them to the Islamic Republic of Iran and expressed hope that during their week-long visit of Iran they would get better acquainted with the Iranian culture and cinema.
Hosseini said, “Egypt is an ancient country with brilliant culture, civilization and history. It has been influential in major developments of both the Arab and the Islamic world. And, that is the reason we have been eager to have further relations and interactions with the Egyptians.”
“I personally believe that Iran and Egypt ties would definitely benefit not only the Islamic world, but also the entire mankind,” he said.
Speaking on the cultural activities in Iran, Hosseini said, ‘During the past week we held the Tunisian Cultural Week in Tehran in the presence of the Tunisian culture minister, and we hope in the near future we would hold the Egyptian Cultural Week in Iran.’
An Egyptian cinematographer also proposed accelerating the trend of restoration of full comprehensive relations between Iran and Egypt.

Zolfonoun Album Released

Arts & Culture Desk

A traditional music album by the late Iranian virtuoso on traditional instrument ‘setar’, Jalal Zolfonoun has been released recently.
Titled ‘The Foliage Garden’, the album has been released by Fars Art Bureau in a joint effort with Irangaam institute.
The album features old songs in Persian music styles of Shour and Segah.
Zolfonoun received his early musical training from his father, Habib and his older brother Mahmoud.
In 1967, he began his academic music studies at Tehran University’s Fine Arts Faculty, where he would further play the ‘setar’ with Master Nour-Ali Boroumand.
He began combining the techniques of the older masters of ‘setar’ with his own ingenuity and mystic sensitivity. And for the first time, the musician introduced an ensemble of only ‘setar’ players, creating the best selling album of traditional Persian music, ‘Gol-e Sadbarg’ (The 100-petal flower).
Zolfonun continued to record a number of other albums with a number of well-known musicians with whom he also toured worldwide. He has also written a practical guide on ‘setar playing’.

Kiarostami Movie on Screen in Brazil

Kiarostami’s latest drama ‘Like Someone in Love’ went on screen in Brazilian theaters on November 16.
Co-produced by France’s MK2 and Japan’s Eurospace, the film features a “contemporary relationship in today’s Japan” and premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.
Shot in Tokyo and the nearby city of Yokohama, the film, which has a thematic concern in an impressive atmosphere, depicts the unusual relationship between a student and a brilliant elderly academic, ISNA said.
The Japanese cast features television star Rin Takanashi as the young student and veteran actor Tadashi Okuno as the retired professor.
The USD 4.8 million movie is Kiarostami’s second production outside Iran after his successful Certified Copy, which was also produced by the French company MK2.
The movie that has started its public screening in Japan from September 15, has been also screened in France and Portugal movie theaters.

Caravaggio Paintings on View

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is presenting ‘Bodies and Shadows: Caravaggio and His Legacy’, an exhibition devoted to the legacy of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571 – 1610), one of the most influential painters in European history.
The exhibition was co-organized by LACMA, the Musée Fabre, Montpellier, the Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, under the auspices of FRAME (French Regional American Museum Exchange), an international consortium to which all four museums belong.
Caravaggio’s striking realism, violent contrasts of light and darkness, and ability to express powerful emotions were as surprising to his contemporaries as they are to us today, ArtDaily said.
In this exhibition many of the innovations introduced by Caravaggio were adopted by painters from different countries, backgrounds, and influences. In this exhibition an unprecedented eight paintings by Caravaggio himself are shown together for the first time in California.
Fifty more paintings document his influence on a host of painters from France, Spain, and the Netherlands, including Georges de La Tour, Gerrit van Honthorst, Velázquez, and Simon Vouet. “The four-hundredth anniversary of Caravaggio’s death in 2010 triggered many exhibitions throughout the world. These have generated new scholarship, reattribution of paintings and an ongoing fascination with Caravaggio and the Caravaggesque painters,” says J. Patrice Marandel, the Robert H. Ahmanson Chief Curator of European Art at LACMA, “Our exhibition has benefited from this new research and presents to the public unexpected aspects of the subject.”
‘Bodies and Shadows: Caravaggio and His Legacy’ first opened simultaneously in two French venues, the Musée Fabre in Montpellier and the Musée des Augustins, Toulouse (both on view June 23–October 14, 2012). Following LACMA’s presentation, an edited version of the exhibition will travel to the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (March 8–June 15, 2013).
Michelangelo Merisi was born in the small town of Caravaggio, near Milan, in 1573. He first studied with Simone Peterzano (1540–1596), an artist trained in Venice and an able painter of fresco decorations in Milan.

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH):

A man who stops doing anything because it displeases God will stand under the shade of the Divine throne on the day of Resurrection.