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…
Browsing: Conversations
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…
How could I have missed a beautiful film like Nine Lives by Rodrigo Garcia, a film about nine women, in nine episode, happening in real time. How could I have known so little about this great filmmaker? If Rodrigo Garcia was French, now his amazing films were all over the film clubs and film critics would have compete to adiring and analysing them. I am going to write about each one of Rodrigo Garcia very soon and we help you to find them and watch them. I owe this to myself for my ignorance and not knowing his body of amazing films.…
Advocate- (Israel/Canada/Switzerland) is documentary feature film directed by Rachel Leah Jones & Philippe Bellaiche – This intimate and moving documentary spotlights fiercely optimistic and compassionate human rights attorney Lea Tsemel as she continues her lifelong mission of defending the defenseless, despite the torrent of backlash she receives for being an Israeli lawyer seeking justice for Palestinians accused of terrorism. Advocate was in Academy Awards Shortlist for Feature Documentary Oscar and it also won GoE Bridging The Borders Award at 2020 Palm Springs International Film Festival. To learn more about making of Advocate we had a phone interview with Rachel Leah Jones…
HAIR LOVE, nominated for the Short Animated Film Oscar and directed by Matthew A. Cherry, Everett Downing Jr. and Bruce W. Smith, is a heartfelt animated short film that centers around the relationship between an African-American father, his daughter Zuri, and the most daunting task a father could ever come across – doing his daughter’s hair for the first time. We had the opportunity to interview Bruce W. Smith, one of the HAIR LOVE directors on camera: https://vimeo.com/389876500 Directors: MATTHEW A. CHERRY – In 2007, after retiring from the NFL, Matthew A. Cherry moved to Los Angeles, and switched gears to begin work…
Sister, nominated for the Animated Short Film Oscar, is about a man thinks back to his childhood memories of growing up with an annoying little sister in China in the 1990s. What would his life have been like if things had gone differently? We had to interview Siqi Song , director of the Sister on camera: https://vimeo.com/389543939 Siqi Song is a Chinese writer & director currently based in Los Angeles. Her work has been recognized internationally by Sundance, SXSW, BAFTA, and ASIFA-Hollywood. Song graduated from California Institute of the Arts with an MFA in Experimental Animation, since then she has worked on…
Blue Glass is an interesting, powerful and beautiful experimental film by Janusz Madej. After a decade of struggling to come to terms with his comatose wife, Alice’s deteriorating condition, Adam accepts the unusual offer from a pioneering Doctor that will aid his grieving process. But what happens when 3 becomes a crowd? And how far does the rabbit hole go when you are lost, in the illusion of reality? The following is an interview with Janusz Madej about making of BLUE GLASS: Bijan Tehrani: How did you come up with idea for BLUE GLASS Janusz Madej : It’s bit of a long…
Two South American films were awarded at the 31st annual edition of the Palm Springs International Film Festival: The Peruvian film Song Without a Name / Canción sin nombre by Melina León received the New Voices/New Visions Award and the Colombian film Monos by Alejandro Landes was the winner of the Ibero-American Award. Additionally, the Mexican film Workforce / Mano de obra, the debut feature by David Zonana, received a Special Mention in the Ibero-American competition. We interviewed Melina León after receiving her award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival: https://vimeo.com/385577044 Set in 1988, in a Peru wracked by political…