Arts and Culture - Tehran Times

Photos of “The Fourth Child” on display at Tehran cinema complex

2013-08-11T15:09:56Z

TEHRAN -- A collection of photos of “The Fourth Child”, Iranian director Vahid Musaian’s drama on the famine and war in Somalia, was put on display in an exhibition at Tehran’s Azadi Cinema Complex on Sunday.

The photos, which have been taken by Ali Nikraftar, depict scenes from the film and the efforts the crew made during the production of the film in the country.

“The Fourth Child” is about an Iranian nurse who leaves her country to help people in the famine and war-torn country. However, she begins a career in photography to raise awareness about the human disaster.

Mahtab Keramati, Mehdi Hashemi and Hamed Behdad are the main members of the cast.

The film, which has been produced by the Farabi Cinema Foundation, premiered last week at the complex and several other Iranian theaters.

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“Colonel” nominated for Swiss literary prize

2013-08-11T15:09:53Z

TEHRAN -- Iranian writer Mahmud Dowlatabadi’s novel “The Colonel” has been nominated for the Jan Michalski Prize for Literature in Switzerland.

The book, which was published by Haus in Germany in 2009, is a powerful novel on the life of a colonel who remembers his memories of families and friends in his solitude. The book concerns issues like nationality, history and family.

“‘The Colonel’ is a page-turning panorama of Iranian mental anguish, producing visions and nightmares like dark exotic blossoms,” the Swiss book critic Angela Schader wrote in the Swiss German-language daily newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

Serge Gruzinski’s “L’Aigle et le Dragon: Démesure européenne et mondialisation au XVIe siècle” from France, Robert Macfarlane’s “The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot” from England, Steve Sem-Sandberg’s “The Emperor of Lies” from Sweden, and Uday Prakash’s “The Walls of Delhi” from India are other nominees.

The Jan Michalski Foundation has established the prize to honor a work of the world literature.

The authors of the short-listed works will be invited for a three-month period of residence in the Maison de l’Ecriture of the foundation.

The winner will be announced during an official ceremony in Zurich in November 2013.

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Iranian short films to compete in Parisian festival

2013-08-11T15:12:33Z

TEHRAN – Three Iranian short films will be competing in the 12th Silhouette Film Festival, an outdoor short film festival, which will be held in Paris from August 31 to September 8.

The animations “A Pigeon beside Mirror” by Maryam Khalilzadeh, “Kind Moon” by Nazanin Sobhan Sarbandi, and “Successful and Admirable Life Story of the Red Pencil” by Alireza Chitaii, three productions of the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (IIDCYA), will go on screen at the festival, IIDCYA reported in a press release on Sunday.

Silhouette is taking place in the Parc de la Butte du Chapeau Rouge, which offers a great view of Paris. Organizers have also special screening programs for children.

Each year, the festival welcomes 25,000 people for nine screening nights with a rich selection of fiction, documentaries, and animations.

The entries from across the world are screened in various section of the event.

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Iranian Artists Forum to pay tribute to Khosro Sinaii

2013-08-10T14:51:11Z

TEHRAN -- The Iranian Artists Forum (IAF) plans to honor Khosro Sinaii during a program on August 15.

His poem collection “The Song of the White Butterflies”, which was published by Amrud in June 2012, will be introduced during the program entitled “Khosro Sinaii, a Poet and Filmmaker”.

Painter and poet Mohammad-Ebrahim Jafari, and poets Puneh Nedaii and Alireza Bahrami are scheduled to deliver speeches about Sinaii’s poems, and two documentaries directed by Hamid Farrokhnejad and Ronak Jafari about him will also be screened.

In addition, the IAF will unveil a collection of Sinaii’s documentaries on three DVDs, which contains “The Allley of Autumn”, a biopic about Iranian poet and painter Jazeh Tabatabii, and “Talking with a Shadow” about Iranian writer Sadeq Hedayat.

The DVDs also comprise “Biography”, “The Coldness of Iron”, “Hossein Yavari”, “Between Light and Shadow” and “The Winning Plan”.

Sinaii’s films will also be discussed by critics Akbar Aalami and Ahmad Talebinejad, and documentarian Mehrdad Oskuii.

Sinaii is also a skilful composer and accordion virtuoso and has composed for some of his own films.

In 2008, he received the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of Poland for his “The Lost Requiem”, a documentary about the Polish wartime exodus from the Soviet labor camps of Siberia to Iran.

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E. L. Doctorow’s “March” appears in Persian

2013-08-10T15:19:33Z

TEHRAN -- A Persian translation of the novel “The March” by E. L. Doctorow recently has been published in Tehran.

The book was translated by Amir Ahmadi-Aryan and published by Zavesh.

The historical fiction novel is set in late 1864 and early 1865 near the conclusion of the American Civil War.

The book follows an array of disparate characters through the final weeks of the Civil War.

As General William Tecumseh Sherman marches his Union troops through Georgia and north through the Carolinas, they are joined by another growing army of followers — freed slaves and displaced well-to-do whites, all of whom are at a loss regarding what to do now that their lives have been turned upside down.

There is neither a main character nor a central plot, but rather snippets from the lives of a wide range of characters who are trying to navigate through unique circumstances.

The book won the National Book Critics Circle Award/Fiction in 2005 when it was published. Doctorow also received the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for the book in 2006.

Edgar Lawrence Doctorow is an American author, who is known internationally for his unique works of historical fiction.

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Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Return” reviewed in Tehran

2013-08-10T14:51:09Z

TEHRAN -- Russian actor and filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev’s directorial debut “The Return” (2003) was reviewed by Iranian critics during a session in Tehran on Wednesday.

Mohammadreza Moqaddasian and Ayda Moradi-Ahani discussed the film after a screening, which was organized by the Cultural and Artistic Organization of the Tehran Municipality at its Center for Artistic Cultural Cooperation.

The film is about two brothers who confront a range of new conflicting emotions when their father - a man they know only through a single photograph - resurfaces.

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Tehran exhibit to display posters of twenty years of Iranian theater

2013-08-10T15:11:32Z

TEHRAN -- An exhibition showcasing posters for plays staged in Iran between 1969 and 1989 will open at Tehran’s Laleh Gallery this afternoon.

Works of Qobad Shiva, Farshid Mesqali, Sharareh Sadeqi, Amir Soleimani, Abbas Saranj, Shahram Shahmiri, Abbas Nalbandian and several other artists will be put on display at the exhibit, the Museum of Iranian Graphic Design announced in a press release on Friday.

Maziar Maleki is scheduled to stage “Lights Turn Green Altogether”, a play about people who chase dreams that will never come true, on the sidelines of the event. Puya Beigi will perform the solo.

The exhibition has been organized by the Iranian Graphic Designers Society and the City Theater Festival, whose second edition opened at the City Theater Complex on Saturday and will continue until August 17.

The exhibit will run until August 22 at the gallery located on Fatemi St., near Laleh Park.

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Children’s authors rewriting Persian classical works

2013-08-06T15:08:44Z

TEHRAN -- A group of Iranian children’s authors has begun rewriting masterpieces of Persian classical literature to simplify the works for publication in a collection entitled “The Iranian Sweet Stories”.

Stories from seven masterpieces of Persian classical literature have been selected for the collection, which will comprise 30 books, coordinator Hossein Fattahi said in a press release on Tuesday.

Nine of the books have been published by Sureh-Mehr, whose main focus is on literary works on the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

Authors Sepideh Khalili, Majid Mollamohammadi, Mohammadreza Shams, Mojgan Sheikhi, Zahra Heidari, Farhad Hassanzadeh, Mehr Mahuti and Jafar Ebrahimi are collaborating on the collection, said Fattahi, who is also rewriting a portion of the work.

Qabusnameh, written by Zeyarid ruler Qabus ibn Voshmagir (reigned 978–1012) is one of the works. It contains the advice of a father to his son, Gilan Shah, on how to run a country.

Jami’s most famous collection of poetry Haft Awrang (“The Seven Thrones,” or “Ursa Major”), which is a seven-part compendium, is another work of the collection.

Stories from Sadi’s magnum opus Gulistan (“The Rose Garden”) have been selected for the collection.

Among the highlights are also Rumi’s Masnavi-e Manavi, Marzban Pur-Rostam’s Marzban-nameh and Muhammad Aufi’s

Jawami ul-Hikayat wa Lawami ul-Riwayat.

They have also chosen stories from Kalilah and Dimnah, a book of animal fables, and The Thousand and One Nights, a collection of Oriental stories.

“Children need to be familiarized with their cultural roots, and the great poets and writers of their own country,” Fattahi said.

“The group of authors should simplify the stories in a way that the children understand the works without having to look up words in the dictionary,” he added.

Two books of the collection containing stories from the Haft Awrang and the Gulistan were released early last week.

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Ivan Bunin to be commemorated at Tehran institute

2013-08-06T15:08:12Z

TEHRAN – The 60th anniversary of the passing of Russian author Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin will be commemorated during a ceremony at Tehran’s Central Book City on December 10.

The ceremony has been organized in a collaborative effort by the institute and Russia’s Solzhenitsyn Foundation, the institute reported in a press release on Tuesday.

Two literati of the foundation are scheduled to deliver speeches during the event. The names of the literati were not mentioned in the report.

Several documentary films about Bunin will go on screen during the event as well.

Bunin (1870-1953) was the first Russian writer to win a Nobel Prize for Literature.

He was noted for the strict artistry with which he carried on the classical Russian traditions in the writing of prose and poetry. The texture of his poems and stories, sometimes referred to as “Bunin brocade”, is considered to be one of the richest in the language.

He is best known for his short novels “The Village” (1910) and “Dry Valley” (1912), his autobiographical novel “The Life of Arseniev” (1933, 1939), the book of short stories “Dark Avenues” (1946) and his 1917–1918 diary “Cursed Days” (1926).

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Iranian animators working on stories about Molla Nasreddin

2013-08-06T15:07:46Z

TEHRAN -- A group of Iranian animators is working on stories about Molla Nasreddin, a witty and sometimes wise personality in Persian and Middle Eastern folktales, in a 21-episode series.

The screenplay has been written by Jamal Rahmati, who is also directing the animation project entitled “The Adventures of Molla Nasreddin”, producer Ali Mo’allen said in a press release on Tuesday.

“Iranian stories are one of the strong points of the Orient,” Mo’allen said and added, “Despite his fame in many countries including Turkey, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and even Bulgaria, Molla Nasreddin has rarely been the subject of a film.”

He said that the production of the series has been underway since 2012 and will conclude in October 2013.

Esfandiar Ahmadieh (1928-2012), who is considered the father of Iranian animation, made his debut with “Molla Nasreddin” based on a story about this character.

Encyclopaedia Iranica refers to Molla Nasreddin as “a character who appears in thousands of stories, always witty, sometimes wise, even philosophic, sometimes the instigator of practical jokes on others and often a fool or the butt of a joke.”

“Stories relating to Molla Nasreddin or Nasr-al-Din Hoca (as he is called in Turkey) are generally humorous, but in the subtle humor there is always a lesson to be learned. These stories involve people and incidents in all walks of life, including kings, beggars, politicians, clerics, etc.”

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