11th Annual     

Iranian Film Today

High Museum of Art 

Friday,Sept. 5

8:00 P.M., Rich Theater

Colors of Memory/Minaye Shahre Khamoosh

(Directed by: Amir Shahab Razavian)

The protagonist of Amir Shahab Razavian's quietly moving drama is Dr. Parsa, a middle-aged surgeon who has lived in Germany since his teens. Shattered by a recent divorce and emotionally adrift, he decides to travel to Iran on the pretext of performing an operation. He finds a vastly changed country which he rediscovers through the eyes of a brash, young driver, and through his encounters with an elderly musician/well-digger who accompanies him on a trip to his earthquake ravaged home town, Bam. As Parsa revisits his childhood home, seeks the whereabouts of a young love, and decides what to do with his father's palm groves, he reconciles with his past and finds a path into the future. (2007, 102 minutes.) In Persian and German with subtitles.

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Saturday, September 6

8:00 P.M., Rich Theater

Persian Carpet/ Farshe Irani

(Directed by: Dariush Mehrjui, Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, Majid Majidi, Bahram Beiza-ee, Bahman Farmanara, kamal Tabrizi and... )

Carpets have served as iconic expressions of  Persian art and culture since ancient times, and are the theme around which 15 leading Iranian directors weave their cinematic variations. Ranging from purely visual celebrations to potent, short dramas, the contributions to this ambitious omnibus film features were created by Abbas Kiarostami (The Wind Will Carry Us), Rakhshan Bani-Etemad (Under the Skin of the City), Bahman Farmanara (Smell of Camphor, Fragrance of Jasmine), and Dariush Mehrjui (Santouri) among others. (2007, 109 minutes.) In ersian with subtitles.

Friday September 12

8:00 P.M., Rich Theater

A Few Kilos of Dates For a Funeral / Chand Kilo Khorma Baraye Maraseme Tadfin

(Directed by: Saman Salour)

Saman Salour’s dark comedy about male friendship centers on a crabby former carnival strongman, Mr. Sadri, and his naïve companion, Yadi, who still nurtures a spark of romance in his soul. These two lovelorn losers operate a gas station on a now untraveled roadway that cuts through a snowy expanse of desert. With a healthy sense of the absurd that recalls the plays of Samuel Beckett, A Few Kilos of Dates For A Funeral was praised in the Edinburgh Film Festival program as “a gentle, at times laugh-out-loud funny, and also surprisingly wise meditation on the vicissitudes of modern life, the Iranian landscape . . . and most of all, people's seemingly infinite capacity to drive each other crazy.” (Iran, 2006, 85 minutes.) In Parsee with subtitles.

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Saturday September 13

8:00 P.M., Rich Theater

Unfinished Stoies / Ravayat Haye Na Tamam

(Directed by:Pouria Azarbaijani)

Unfinished Stories is an intriguing trio of interwoven tales that explores the obstacles facing women in contemporary Iran. On a winter’s night, three women find themselves alone on the freezing streets of Tehran. Setarah is a high school student in love with a boy who her parents have forbidden her to see. Instead of renouncing him, she’s arranged a midnight rendezvous, and while she waits she ends up talking with a lonely soldier. Hengameh, comfortably middle class and possibly pregnant, has just had a fight with her husband, who has thrown her out of the house. She’s on her way to a 24-hour pharmacy when a policeman stops her and demands the identity papers she’s left at home. A new mother, Saiideh, completes the group. As she recuperates in the maternity ward, she learns that her husband has been jailed and that her child will be taken from her unless she can pay the hospital bill. This strong debut from director Pourya Azarbayjani features fine performances and a beautifully observed script that brings to mind Panahi’s The Circle. . (Iran, 2007, 76 minutes.) In Persian with subtitles.

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Friday, September 19

8 p.m., Rich Theatre

The Night Bus / Autobus e Shab

(Directed by: Kiumars Pourahmad)

Stark and suspenseful, this anti-war film from director Kiumars Pourahmad is set during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Strong, realistic performances and striking black and white cinematography serve the gripping story of two Iranian soldiers and their crabby bus driver who must transport thirty-eight blindfolded and bound Iraqi POWS through the minefield-laced desert to their base camp. Pourahmad uses their journey to criticize the senselessness of a conflict that was instigated by fanatical leaders and pitted ordinary men from two closely related nations against each other. In her Variety review, Deborah Young praised the film’s “pleasing spareness” and the “powerfully authentic” lead performance by Merhrdad Seddiquian. (Iran, 2007, 90 minutes.) In Persian with subtitles.

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Friday, September 26

Two Shows

8 :00 and 10:15 P.M., Rich Theatre

Tambourine / Dayereh Zangi

(Directed by: Parisa Bakhtavar)

Director Parisa Bakhtavar's riotous box office hit Tambourine unfolds over the course of one day and mines the farcical conflicts between neighbors in an upscale condo building in Tehran. Like Crash, it opens with a car accident; pretty but poor Shirin gets into a fender bender (in her father's car, no less), so she turns for help to Mohammad, a bootleg-video salesman who thinks his wealthy contacts might come to her aid. He takes her to meet one of his best clients, an aspiring filmmaker who has avant-garde tastes  hes a big fan of Jim Jarmusch  but still lives with his ultra-conservative dad. Bakhttavar, with assistance from her husband, screenwriter Asghar Farhadi (Fireworks Wednesday) pits Westernized moderns against religious traditionalists to great comic effect. In his Variety review, Robert Koehler wrote: Tambourine is a whirligig comedy ... carrying hints of the ensemble-shuffling of Robert Altman, the snarkiness of Preston Sturges, and the pace of Billy Wilder. (Iran, 2008, 110 minutes.) In Persian with subtitles.