Sunday, April 6, 2025

Culture

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...

Pioneering Film Poster Artist Qazi Falls on Hard Times

Manouchehr Qazizadeh, fondly known as “Qazi," was one of Iran’s leading film poster artists before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Now destitute, he is forced to sell his oil paintings in the streets of Tehran,...

Looking to Buy Iranian Art? You Can Shop Online With ARTIANA

By Tara Biglari ARTIANA, a gallery based in Dubai, is launching its first auction site for Middle Eastern art in November. ARTIANA has had previous online auctions in Dubai, but this is the first time...
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The Shah’s Dying Days: Interview with Filmmaker Bobak Kalhor

By Fred Parvaneh "A Dying King” is a documentary by first-time filmmaker Bobak Kalhor that examines the untold medical story of the late Shah of Iran and the truth behind his death in July 1980. The...

German-Iranian Author Nava Ebrahimi Discusses Her First Novel

By Behjat Omid A wave of titles by second-generation German-Iranian authors is making its way into German bookstores. Critically acclaimed releases include Nava Ebrahimi’s "Sechzehn Worter" ("Sixteen Words"), Shida Bazyar’s "Nachts ist es Leise in Tehran"...

Venice Film Festival Hosts Filmmakers Shirin Neshat, Khatami

Four Iranian directors are presenting their movies at this year's Venice Film Festival (which ends Sept. 9), all of them outside of the official competition. They include Shirin Neshat, who won the festival's Silver...

Fighting for Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights: A Talk with Author Diana Nammi

By Tara Biglari Diana Nammi has spent the past few decades fighting to protect Iranian and Kurdish women against so-called honor killings, forced marriage, child marriage and domestic abuse. In a recent talk in north...

Sixteen-Month Incarceration of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe Inspires New London Play

By Tara Biglari A play inspired by the plight of British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – a Thomson Reuters Foundation employee incarcerated in Iran for more than a year and separated from her husband and young daughter...
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‘Fast Fingers’ Musician Mortazavi Holds Workshop In German Village

The world-famous Iranian virtuoso Mohammad Reza Mortazavi – master of the daf and tombak percussion instruments, and once described by a German TV channel as having “the fastest fingers in the world” – held...

France’s Top Photo Festival Spotlights Kiarostami, Shadi Ghadirian

Iranians are in the spotlight this year at France's foremost photography festival, the Rencontres de la Photographie d'Arles. Held in the heart of Provence – in the city Vincent van Gogh once called home...