Festivals
IFFZ – 15 feature films online from May 26th to June 3rd
The Iranian Film Festival in Zurich starts on Wednesday. You can watch all the films on TV. You can register online to watch each film individually. The feature films cost 6chf each and the festival pass is 60chf for 42 films.
Here are a few summaries of the 15 feature films.
Nasrin – This film will open the film festival.
Secretly filmed in Iran by women and men who risked arrest to make this film. An immersive portrait of the world’s most honoured human rights activist and political prisoner, attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh, and of Iran’s remarkably resilient women’s rights movement. In the courts and on the streets, Nasrin has long fought for the rights of women, children, religious minorities, journalists and artists, and those facing the death penalty. In the midst of filming, Nasrin was arrested in June 2018 for representing women who were protesting Iran’s mandatory hijab law. She was sentenced to 38 years in prison, plus 148 lashes. Featuring acclaimed filmmaker Jafar Panahi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, and journalist Ann Curry. Narrated by Academy Award-winner Olivia Colman.
A Stranger in Paris
«A Stranger in Paris» is a true story of a recognized Iranian musician who is forced into exile taking refuge in France. To obtain French nationality in order to tour the world freely, Ahmad Yahyazadeh is advised to work as a taxi driver in Paris for a while to have regular pay stubs. Ahmad’s ‘short while’ takes longer than he expects. His passengers come from different continents, cultures, classes, languages, and ages, and Ahmad connects with them through the language of music. At the same time, Paris undergoes new changes with the Charlie Hebdo attack. Ahmad’s conversations with the passengers becomes critical of the extremist acts in a wittingly funny manner. Ahmad also lightens the heavy atmosphere through love and music. All these events become transformative experiences for Ahmad himself to become more observant of his surrounding and go beyond his own life. Ahmad’s camera eventually becomes an illuminative eye to illustrate the depth of the difficulties that many people go through – from bureaucratic problems to immigration and homelessness. Amidst all these problems, «A Stranger in Paris» is a film about hope and quest. The hope to build again one’s own life and pursuing one’s own dreams, having confidence in humanity and in life.
FilmFarsi
On 19 August 1978, hundreds of Rex cinema patrons in Abadan, Iran were killed by arson. The drama marked a key moment in the Iranian Revolution and the end of a flourishing film industry which since then has virtually been erased from collective memory.
The often slapdash but super popular films, jokingly termed ‘filmfarsi’ by a critic, with their stereotypical characters, melodramatic plots, seductive women and campy song and dance routines, provided a sensual alternative to the official image of Iran disseminated by the Shah’s regime on state TV. This commercial cinema also bred filmmakers such as Samuel Khachikian and the later New Wave directors Masoud Kimiai and Abbas Kiarostami.
Most of the films only survived the 1978-1979 revolutionary iconoclasm thanks to illegal VHS copies, from which filmmaker Ehsan Khoshbakht has compiled a fascinating history of Iran between 1953 and 1979: a country confused about its identity, caught between optimism and disillusion.
Coup 53
Ten years in the making, Coup 53 tells the story of the 1953 the Anglo-American coup d’état that overthrew Iran’s government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and reinstalled the Shah. The CIA/MI6 covert action was called Operation Ajax. It was all about Iran’s oil and who gets to control and benefit from it. BP was at the heart of this story. Shot in seven countries, featuring participants and first-hand witnesses, and unearthing never seen before archive material, Coup 53 is a politically explosive and cinematically innovative documentary that lifts the lid on secrets buried for over 66 years.
Pari
Babak, an Iranian student in Greece, doesn’t show up to welcome his visiting parents at the Athens airport. Pari and her older husband, both devout Muslims abroad for the first time, are ill-prepared to search for their son in an intimidating and alien environment. All their attempts to find a clue that might lead them to him prove to be in vain and they soon reach a dead end. But Pari can’t give up looking for him, even when returning to Iran seems like her only choice. Following the steps of her rebellious son in the darkest corners of the city, she will exhaust her inner strength to achieve more than a mother’s search for her missing son.
Seven Stories about Love
«Seven Stories about Love» composed of seven short stories, visualizes the sorrows and joys of young and old lovers. It reveals relationships, and emotions of couples who live together, or are about to divorce; people who due to different living conditions, have grown either so close to each other or far apart.
Star Stuff
A journey to three astronomical observatories in three different continents, in search for our place in the cosmos. In remote villages nearby, astonishing humans share the same vulnerability and longing for life.
For more information click here.
