Browsing: Conversations

“Maryam (22) accidentally kills her husband Nasser (65) and is sentenced to death. The only person who can save her is Mona (37), Nasser’s daughter. All Mona has to do is appear on a popular live TV show and forgive Maryam. But forgiveness proves difficult when they are forced to relive the past.” This is the synopsis of Yalda, A Night for Forgiveness, the latest film by Massoud Bakhshi, and the winner of 2020 Sundance Film Festival’s World Cinema Dramatic Competition and the nominee for 2021 Lumières Awards, the French equivalent of Golden Globes. Hamidreza Nassiri has sat down to…

LAST CALL is about the life of Dylan Thomas, the famous Welsh poet and writer, examines his life and loves in New York City in Last Call. a fanciful drama about the last days of a literary legend. Inspired by the real life of a man who was regarded as one of the twentieth century’s most influential lyrical poets, Last Call stars Rhys Ifans (The Fantastic Flitcrofts) as Thomas, two-time Academy Award-nominee John Malkovich (In the Line of Fire, Places in the Heart) as Thomas’s confidant and enabler, Dr. Felton, and in supporting roles, Rodrigo Santoro (Westworld), Romola Garai (Atonement),…

In Over The Moon, Fei Fei,  a bright young girl fueled with determination and a passion for science, builds a rocket ship to the moon to prove the existence of a legendary Moon Goddess. There she ends up on an unexpected quest, and discovers a whimsical land of fantastical creatures. Directed by animation legend Glen Keane, and produced by Gennie Rim and Peilin Chou, Over the Moon is an exhilarating musical adventure about moving forward, embracing the unexpected, and the power of imagination. The film stars Cathy Ang, Phillipa Soo, Ken Jeong, John Cho, Ruthie Ann Miles, Sandra Oh, Robert…

Sergio Navarretta’s The Cuban is an independent film with an impressive cast: the legendary Louis Gossett Jr., Canadian rising star Ana Golja, Academy Awards nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo, Lauren Holly and Giacomo Gianniotti. To learn more about The Cuban we had an interview with Sergio Navarretta, The Cuban’s director: https://vimeo.com/444742327 In The Cuban, nineteen-year-old Mina Ayoub is a pre-med student who has given up her dream of becoming a singer. Orphaned as a baby in Afghanistan, Mina’s grandfather sent her to Canada at the age of eight to live with a lone aunt, Bano. A former doctor herself, Bano wants nothing…

I have known Michael Frank for almost thirty five years and I met him for the first time in Finish embassy in Tehran, when I was receiving my visa to attend the Tampre Film Festival as a jury member. Michael just rushed to meet me as I was the first person in Iranian film industry he had encountered. I found Michael s young msn full of energy and love for people, Back then I could not imagine that later we will get involved in a few projects and become close friends. Lately I had the opportunity of interviewing Michael Franck…

It is almost over three years that I had the privilege of meeting Mark Pellington in person and interview him for his amazing body of work in narrative feature filmmaking and creating  many of the best music videos of our time. Mark is a very kind and humble artist and human being. (Bijan Tehrani) I asked Mark, if he wants to pick his top 5 music videos which ones he may choose: https://vimeo.com/431371957 Mark Pellington is an American filmmaker, photographer, and artist. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Bill Pellington, a linebacker who played football with the…

In January this year and at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, I had the opportunity of meeting Eline Farideh Koning , the main character in Finding Farideh, Iranian documentary film, in person. Eline Farideh was quite enthusiastic about being part of making this important documentary, representing Iran  in 2020 Oscars. After a successful and full house screening of Finding Farideh, I interviewed Eline Farideh on camera: https://vimeo.com/422546627 “Finding Farideh” is a feature-length documentary about an Iranian girl named Farideh, who had been abandoned in a holy shrine in Iran when she was 6 months old in 1976, and then…

Frank and Ava the award-winning biopic of the tumultuous love affair between Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner is distributed in the United States and Canada by Gravitas Ventures and is available on Amazon Prime Video and iTunes. Brooklyn native Rico Simonini, a well-known Los Angeles cardiologist at a leading Medical Center, who portrays Frank Sinatra also did the screenplay adaptation of the stage play by Willard Manus. In 2014 Simonini originated the role of Frank Sinatra in Manus’ play which was developed in the Actor’s Studio. It was then that Simonini, who had a connection to Sinatra, knew he had…

Living in quarantine has changed the way filmmakers are working and communicating with others. Mark Pellington is one of the pioneers of music videos with a long list of credits in both feature films and music videos. Mark, a legendary of his field, is a humble and wonderful artist and a great human being. In the following video Marks Pellington tells us about living and working in quarantine. https://vimeo.com/416076460 Mark Pellington was born in 1962. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 1984, which he attended on an athletic scholarship, playing attack on the lacrosse team. He worked at MTV from 1984–1990, winning awards as a…

Kino Marquee is a new initiative that creates “virtual cinemas” for temporarily closed independent theaters. Local audiences support their community’s theater in these uncertain times by buying a virtual “ticket” to watch the film. Their ticket purchases directly support their local art house as all revenue is being shared between distributor and exhibitor, just as if they bought their ticket at the theater’s box office. Kino Marquee currently works with over 200 art house theaters across the nation. To learn more about how the idea of Virtual Cinemas work we had an on camera interview with Nicholas Kemp is the Director of…

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