Iranian Films Featured at 2019 Vancouver International Film Festival
Entertainment, Culture Blog, Kodoom.com Editorial:
Every year Vancouver, Canada is host to some of the best cinema from around the world. This year The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF), held September 26 through October 11, is again host to movies made by prominent filmmakers about Iran or the Middle East, with a special emphasis on finding love and the heartache of broken dreams.
Tehran: City of Love
Three lovesick individuals struggle to repair their battered self-images and find romance as this tragicomic triptych plays out across the weddings, funerals, beauty parlours, and gyms of Tehran. One is a woman self-conscious about her weight (Forough Ghajabegli) who catfishes men into bogus dates where she watches their reaction from afar. Another is a personal trainer and former bodybuilding champion (Amir Hessam Bakhtiar) who attempts to balance his commitment to a new ambitious pupil with a promised role in a film with Louis Garrel (who is conspicuously and suspiciously unseen). The third is a dejected and morose-voiced funeral singer (Mehdi Saki) who transitions into weddings to impress a woman.
With precisely staged and framed vignettes of urban heartache, and impressively subtle physical performances from all three leads, Ali Jaberansari’s film resounds with generosity for its characters. At once a work of empathy for lonesome singles and a story about finding and preserving dignity, Tehran: City of Love’s title rings both with irony for its gloomy heroes and a genuine love for their comic flaws and inner strength.
The award-winner at this year’s Shanghai International Film Festival (the jury was led by the esteemed Nuri Bilge Ceylan), Castle of Dreams marks the first film at VIFF since 2001’s Under the Moonlight for director Reza Mirkarimi.
Limited number of specially priced tickets are available HERE.
Castle of Dreams
In this film, Jalal (Hamed Behdad) wants nothing to do with the responsibilities of the past. He shows up at his ex-wife Shirin’s house (while she’s in the hospital) to reclaim his old SUV but can’t make a clean break: somebody needs to pick up his son and daughter from school. Over the rest of the day, in and around that vehicle, Jalal re-encounters everything he wants to leave behind. His kids, Ali (Yuna Tadayyon) and Sara (Niousha Alipour), are the stars here, direct and inquisitive in meeting their authoritarian father’s excuses and lies, as inextricable a pair as the children in Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter.
Limited number of specially priced tickets are available HERE.
As in past years, VIFF has chosen Kodoom.com as a media and publicity partner for the Persian speaking community. VIFF runs from from September 26 – October 11 at various venues in Vancouver. Visit Kodoom or Vancouver International Film Festival websites for more information.
Related to Cinema:
- Shahab Hosseini Sanctimoniously Attacks Female Fan Without Hijab
- Los Angeles to Have A Taste of Kiarostami This Weekend Thanks to The American Cinematheque
- Iran's Oldest Silent Movie About Traditions, Religion and Modernity Screened in Cinema Museum
- Once Upon a Time: Courting of Hollywood Blonde by Shah of Iran
- We Love Islamic Iran but Love Canada More! Iranian Celebrities Look Way Different Outside Iran
- De Niro Opens Tribeca 2019; Festival Highlights Iranian Short & Cinema360
- The Worldwide Release of Polaris, Starring Bahram Radan and Alicja Bachleda
- Iranian British Hayley Tamaddon Finds Love Again? Announces Pregnancy at 42!
- Paul Schrader in Tehran, Discusses Taxi Driver and Raging Bull
- Join Jennifer Lawrence to Help Take Back America: Our Political System is Broken (Video)
- Italian Cinematographer of La Grande Bellezza and Kiarostami's Certified Copy to Visit Tehran
- Iranian-American Woman Wins First Oscar and Persian Culture is Referenced on Stage for the First Time
- Sultry Lebanese Actress Speaks Persian, Covers Up on Iranian TV But Also Speaks Against Bigotry
- Video: Golshifteh Sings in Hindi in Indian Film Co-starring Irfaan Khan
- Iranian Films Featured at 2018 Vancouver International Film Festival
Related to Canada:
- We Love Islamic Iran but Love Canada More! Iranian Celebrities Look Way Different Outside Iran
- Canada Serial Killer Admits Murdering Homosexual Men, Including Two Iranian Immigrants
- Street in Toronto Named Urmia: From Trudeau to Afshin Jam, Cultural and Political Figures Honor Former MP Moridi
- Iranian-born Women Shine in Canada, From Mashhad-Born Minister to Powerful Entrepreneurs
- Iranian Canadian Police Officer Reports Sexual Abuse, Harassment, Racism
- List of Iranian Americans and Canadians Running in 2018 Elections, Some Endorsed by Obama
- Hard Honest Work Pays Off: Iranian Immigrant Develops Successful Organic Farms in Canada
- Iranian Films Featured at 2018 Vancouver International Film Festival
- Midwife Offering Iranian Girls Fake Virginity Almost Deported from Canada Over Translation of Female Body Part!
- Canada's Largest Youngest Persian Summer Festival Comes to Vancouver and Calgary This Weekend
- From Tehran Taboo to Kiarostami's Last Film, Iranian Films at Vancouver International Film Festival 2017
- Guilty plea by Iranian-Canadian charged with sexual abuse of elderly women
- World's largest Iranian Festival comes to Toronto again
- Iranian composer among Jurors of Canada's 2017 Juno Music Awards
- Iranians showcased at Vancouver International Film Festival, From Farhadi to Golshifteh and Namjoo
