Wednesday, February 11, 2026

‘Tips for Survival’: Interview with Filmmaker, Actress Reem Kadem

By Fred Parvaneh Reem Kadem is an American-born Iraqi actress, filmmaker and activist living in Los Angeles.She is best known for playing the lead role in "Nawal the Jewel," inspired by the story of Reyhaneh...

Video Game Revisits 1953 Overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh

By Julie Ershadi Kurosh ValaNejad was born in Iran in 1966 to an Iranian father and an American mother. He and his older brother Cyrus grew up there until shortly before the 1979 Revolution, when...

Iranian Short Film Association Calls on Government to Ease Censorship

By Azadeh Karimi The Iranian Short Film Association (ISFA), a nonprofit non-governmental organization operating under the auspices of the Iranian House of Cinema, released a statement recently calling on the Ministry of Culture and Islamic...

Another Oscar for Iran and Asghar Farhadi, the Director who Refused to Attend this...

Though he boycotted Hollywood's annual Awards Ceremony, Tehran-based film director Asghar Farhadi has repeated history, clinching a second Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for "The Salesman" five years after he became the first Iranian...
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From Shakespeare to Stalin: Actor Paul Chahidi Stars on Film and Stage

It’s a late summer afternoon somewhere in west London. Paul Chahidi has just come off the set of “The Death of Stalin” – an upcoming movie focusing on the power struggles that preceded the...

Genius Mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani Is Remembered in Documentary: Interview 

By Firoozeh Nordstrom Maryam Mirzakhani was the first woman to win the world’s most prestigious mathematics prize, the Fields Medal. George Csicsery’s “Secrets of the Surface” is the first feature-length film about the life and...

Iranian Films Win Awards At Venice Film Festival

By Ahmad Rafat Iranian filmmakers and actors won three awards in the Horizons (Orizzonti) section of the Venice Film Festival earlier this month. The section runs parallel to the main festival competition. Dominique Welinski and René...

Shirin Neshat Presents Movie in Venice, Opens Photography Show in London

By Nazanine Nouri Shirin Neshat -- who in 2009 won the Venice Film Festival’s Silver Lion best-director award for “Women Without Men” -- was back at this year’s festival for the premiere of a movie...

Nasrin Sotoudeh, ‘Iran’s Mandela,’ Is Focus of New Documentary 

By Natasha Phillips A documentary telling the story of the acclaimed Iranian human rights lawyer and activist Nasrin Sotoudeh offers a rare glimpse into Iran, and the ongoing fight for women’s equality in the country. “Nasrin” follows Sotoudeh...

Rave Parties in the Iranian Desert Are Subject of New Documentary

By Julie Ershadi
In the Iranian poetic tradition, the desert is the symbol of a soul-searching spiritual journey, or a refuge from the eyes of the world. In Raving Iran, filmmaker Susanne Regina Meures’ 2016 documentary, the desert is the hiding place for a pair of modern revelers keen to express themselves away from the government’s reach.