TEHRAN – The Theater Forum was playing host to a session on Tuesday to discuss the theatrical interactions between Iran and France.

The Tehran-based French writer and actor Jean-Claude Carrière was invited to deliver a speech, but he could not attend the meeting due to his illness.

However, he sent a video recorded at a Tehran hospital, in which he said that he was familiar with Iran by his Iranian wife, Nahal Tajaddod, and Persian poet and mystic Farid ud-Din Attar Neyshaburi’s magnum opus Mantiq at-Tayr (The Conference of the Birds) which has been translated into French.  
  
He said that he wrote his play “The Conference of the Birds” under the influence of the great inspiring work from the Persian classical literature.

The Theater Forum also planned to honor Carrière for his lifetime achievements with a medal but his illness thwarted the plan. 

Theater Forum director Shahram Gilabadi said that he along with a number of his colleagues will visit Carrière at the hospital to present him the medal.   

Iranian National Commission for UNESCO director Hojjatollah Ayyubi and stage directors Qotbeddin Sadeqi and Mohammadreza Khaki also made speeches.

Photo: Theater Forum director Shahram Gilabadi speaks during a session held at the center in Tehran on January 29, 2019 to discuss the theatrical interactions between Iran and France. (ILNA/Mehdi Nasiri) 
 
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