Women Behind the Camera
Director: Alexis Krasilovsky
This made-by-women-for-women documentary, based upon Alexis Krasilovsky’s book of the same name, connects globally, exploring the lives of camerawomen in Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Mexico, Russia, Senegal, and other countries in a way never seen before. From the secret films by camerawomen of Taliban beating Afghani women, to historic footage by China’s first camerawomen of Mao’s travels through the Chinese countryside. From the playful narrative of a Russian filmmaker who learned the art from her father, her choice of career told as a love story, to rural India, where subsistence-level women are taught camera work as a means of empowerment, to the glowing young Senegalese camerawoman willing to climb onto a man’s shoulders – literally – to get her subject, Alexis Krasilovsky shows us a world of beauty, courage and technical skill.
On the Road with Kiarostami
Director: Mark Cousins
Abbas Kiarostami is the most acclaimed Iranian film director whose films have won prizes all around the world. In this film he gives a rare and frank interview about his work, and journeys out of Tehran to meet Babak Ahmadpoor, the now grown up star of his famous trilogy, which started with Where is the Friend's House? On the journey Kiarostami picks up the camera himself, producing images of pure poetry.
Lessons from Bam
Director: Alireza Ghanie
Forty days have elapsed since the earthquake in Bam- an earthquake that killed over 68,000 people (unofficially) and destroyed the city and the ancient mud-brick citadel of Bam. The children of the Old Citadel School have finally gone back to school in the old citadel but as most buildings have been destroyed, class has been set up in the open air. The children have written compositions about their own experience of the earthquake and one by one are reading their composition out to the class. But one young girl, Fateme, does not want to read out loud her essay.
Iran: Behind Closed Cha-Dors
Director: Holly Morris
An installment of the popular PBS series “Adventure Divas.” We find the Divas in modern day Iran, a country struggling to balance Islamic ideals with contemporary realities. Often referred to as a regime that’s repressive towards women, the filmmakers come to understand Iran as a nation that is much more complicated than can be defined by a dress code or a dictator. We are witness to ways in which Iranian women break the rules, but more importantly what integral roles they play in the society.
American Fugitive: The Truth About Hassan
Director: Jean-Daniel Lafond
Revealed to the world in the 2001 movie "Kandahar," directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, David Theodore Belfield is wanted in the U.S. for the 1980 killing of an Iranian diplomat, and now lives in exile in Iran. The story of an unrepentant assassin and an articulate accuser. This is the story of Hassan, a Black American who, in 1980, in Washington, acting on a fatwa, assassinated the Shah’s representative to the United States, Ali Akbar Tabatabai. Since then, he has been wanted by the FBI and has lived in exile in Iran.
