TEHRAN -- The first episode of the home video series “Iranian Dinner”, which displays the Iranian reception in a cooking competition, was released on Tehran’s home video market on Tuesday.

 

Iranian actresses including Bahareh Rahnama, Shaqayeq Dehqan, Ladan Tabatabaii and Sahar Zakaria are the first group participating in the competition.

 

Directed by Bijan Birang, “Iranian Dinner” copycats “Come Dine with Me”, a popular Channel 4 television program shown in the United Kingdom. The program shows either four or five amateur chefs competing against each other hosting a dinner party for the other contestants. Each competitor then rates the host’s performance with the winner winning a cash prize.

 

The format has been taken up by many other broadcasters throughout the world. However, Birang believed that it is not an imitation of the program “Come Dine with Me”.

 

“The Cinema 24 Company proposed the project to me and I accepted it since I thought that it was an attractive one,” Birang mentioned during a press conference.

 

He said that the show is different from the original program which broadcasts in 40 countries since “the participants know each other and people know them as well.

 

“As you know them they are kind and easy-going characters and people love them. We hope people welcome the show to enable us to continue it,” he said.

 

The representative of Cinema 24 Company Hossein Hajibeigi said that “If the work is welcomed by people, no problem if people copy the CDs illegally.”

 

“We are facing with a new experience…it is very ideal idea to have one celebrity with three unknown faces but we should wait for the reaction of audiences. Such show is not produced in any part of world in the form of home video and we are the first to try it,” Birang mentioned.

 

Birang said that some people told him why he accepted such a work and other said that it is not original.

 

“However we continue our work in silence and prefer to do our task. I have my reasons to do so. Most projects which were done in different parts of the world are not innovations but ideas which can be changed in different cultures like talk shows and other TV completion,” he said.

 

He said that renowned actors Rambod Javan, Sorush Sehhat, Ashkan Khatibi, Mehdi Pakdel have participated in another part of the show.

 

“The program is not about cooking but about the characteristics of participants. The audience likes to see others’ reactions in the identical situation,” he concluded.

 

SB/YAW

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