Browsing: CinéEqual

Social Justice Cinema

Dr. Mohammadhossein Moshkelgosha M.D. has joined I, Immigrant, First Responders & Essential Workers In Corona War online film competition as project advisor. Dr. Moshgelgosha will also be in charge of communication with the hospitals, clinics, medical facilities, physician and nurses organizations in order to find immigrant healthcare workers engaged in the war with corona virus and encourage them to participate in I, Immigrant film festival. Dr. Mohammadhossein Moshkelgosha M.D. is co-founder of “Healthy Behavior Institute” and “Health Alphabet Journal “ which in collaboration with WHO and The Global Fund project,fights against spread of HIV infection and AIDS among youngsters in…

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 Iran’s National Orchestra has released a music video titled “Song of Humanity” to acknowledge the efforts the medical staff have made in the battle with the corona-virus. The orchestra under the baton of conductor Sohrab Kashef has performed for the music video, which was unveiled during a meeting attended by Health Minister Saeid Namaki and Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Seyyed Abbas Salehi at the Health Ministry on Thursday. The orchestra performed the song in honor of the healthcare staff in Vahdat Hall in Tehran. https://vimeo.com/446222222 Speaking at the ceremony, the culture minister expressed thanks to the health minister…

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Farah Nabulsi director of The Present, the Palestinian film and winner of GoE Bridging The Borders Award at 2020 Palm Springs ShortFest International is a down to earth and fascinating person.  Farah Nabulsi is an activist young filmmaker that in The Present shows her power of use of language of cinema and her understanding of the world problem, the new colonialism. Lately  Farah Nabulsi sent us a thank note for receiving our GoE Bridging the Borders Award:  ” I just wanted to reach out and thank you for choosing our short film, The Present, to receive the GoE Bridging the…

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Aydin Nazmi is a pop and rock music musician, composer and singer living in Tehran, Iran. Most of Aydin Nazmi songs address social justice issues. About his latest song, I Can’t Breath, inspired by George Floyd killing in US, he told us: ” As an Iranian artist who sees the world as an interconnected web of humans with a common ancestor, I’ve made this song and video to show solidarity and as a tribute to all who have faced systematic discrimination, specially the African-American community in the US. https://vimeo.com/430590177 As Dr. King said : “injustice anywhere is a threat to…

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The Human Rights Watch Film Festival presents its first full digital edition of bold new films that will be available nationwide, in response to this time of crisis. The film festival will feature in-depth online discussions with filmmakers, film subjects, and Human Rights Watch researchers. This first Digital Edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival will run from June 11 to 20, 2020. To learn more about the 2020 festival we had a phone interview with John Biaggi is the Director of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival: https://soundcloud.com/user-222526075/an-interview-with-john-biaggi John Biaggi is the Director of the Human Rights Watch…

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Protests have peaked in the U.S. following the death of George Floyd, and the future of America is more uncertain than ever. With social media flooded with images of inequality and injustice, a lot of Americans find themselves stuck feeling helpless in their homes. For many, the health risks of joining a large protest in the middle of a pandemic are too high to bear. And with unemployment skyrocketing, it can be hard to scrape together the money to donate. One thing people can do, however, is to continue to educate themselves. Educating yourself through literature, social justice accounts, and…

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Working Man is not only one of the best American films I have seen in recent years. An honest film that deals with an ordinary life of a middle aged man that all he knows from life is working for a factory, a tragic life that Hollywood never deals with. the simple, but well thought and beautiful structure of the Working Man reminds me the good Italian New Realist films. I had the opportunity of speaking to Robert Jury, writer and director of the Working Man on camera (Bijan Tehrani): https://vimeo.com/415824445 Somewhere in the Rust Belt of America another factory is…

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Did You Know? More than 1 in 6 U.S. healthcare workers are immigrants. In the states hardest hit by the coronavirus, California and New York, more than a third of all healthcare workers are immigrants. Also there are other immigrant Essential Workers on the front lines making sacrifices in order to save lives and keep the country running in the brutal battle against the Coronavirus. Essential Workers have not been able to work from home during the shutdown, but rather have continued to go to their normal jobs, bringing them into contact on a daily basis with COVID-19 patients or…

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Dear Bijan, It was the Friday before the weekend when New York City stopped. Our Director of Photography had just flown in from a job in Amsterdam though by the next day, flights from Europe were banned. We’d gotten everyone together and were scouting for our big shoot with the team of digital scholars at Butler Library at Columbia University, when we got word that the University was going dark due to infections. Immediately. Everyone out. No exceptions. Then, President Trump declared a national state of emergency. We scrambled to find an alternative. What if we could find a studio…

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Last week, I had the joy of interviewing the Oscar winning director of LEARNING TO SKATEBOARD IN A WARZONE (IF YOU’RE A GIRL), Carol Dysinger. In the last fifteen years, I have interviewed over eight hundreds filmmakers around the world, but this last one is hard to forget. Carol Dysinger is not only a great director, but she has a deep knowledge about Middle East and in particular Afghanistan. And that’s not all, Carol has such a big heart when it comes to care about people, all through our conversation, she hardly mentioned her Oscar, even when I directly asked about it.…

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