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Bahrām Beyzaie’s iconic feature “The Stranger and the Fog” is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a 4K restoration.

The Iranian New Wave filmmaker released his sophomore film, also titled “Gharibeh va Meh,” in 1974. Set around the northern coast of Iran, “The Stranger and the Fog” begins with a boat drifting onto the shore of a small village. The official synopsis reads: “The beautiful Rana (Parvaneh Massoumi) hopes the stray vessel has brought back her husband, who disappeared a year ago out on the sea. But the only passenger is Ayat (Khosrow Shojazadeh), a wounded stranger with no memory of how he ended up in this land. After gradually proving himself as a member of the community, Ayat upsets the locals by marrying Rana, and then grows increasingly paranoid about intermittently glimpsed figures that vow to avenge his misdeeds from a forgotten past.”

Manouchehr Farid also stars.

The restoration was...

By Pawel Mizgalewicz

So, that happened: a Canadian movie comes out where the metaphorical Winnipeg is actually Iran. Or maybe the other way around. Matthew Rankin's simile is absurd enough that it successfully cuts both ways, and in some way still manages to have substance, whatever way you wanna read it. It was not really conceived in Asia, but with mostly Iranian-Canadian screenwriters and cast, “Universal language” feels like something way more than only an homage or a joke – it's a film where the production and the story both reflect how cultural baggage carries on with migrants even on the other end of the world. At least, if you want it to. You could also just see it as a manifest of the uniqueness of Winnipeg – a city that, between “My Winnipeg” and “Phantom in Winnipeg”, weirdly seems to be most magical on Earth, if you'd believe festival cinema,...

Jessica Alba, Lily Gladstone, Greta Lee, Catherine O’Hara, and S.S. Rajamouli, director of “Rrr,” are among the 487 artists and executives invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. With all expected acceptances, AMPAS membership will rise to 10,910 from 10,817 last year, with 9,934 members eligible to vote in the upcoming 97th Oscars in 2025—an increase from last year’s 9,375.

This year’s invitees include 44% women, a 4% increase from 2023, and 41% from underrepresented ethnic and racial communities, marking a significant 7% rise. The actors, casting directors, costume designers, documentary, executives, makeup artists and hairstylists branches have invited more women than men. The actors, directors, documentary, and writers branches mainly comprised artists from underrepresented communities.

The directors branch features the most impressive array of filmmakers from both international and domestic spheres, such as Lila Avilés (“Totem”), Jayro Bustamante (“La Llorona”), Jd Dillard (“Devotion”), Alice Diop (“Saint Omer”), Boots Riley (“Sorry to Bother You...

Starting with a packed house on the night of October 13 and concluding right after Thanksgiving, MoMA showcased “Iranian Cinema before the Revolution, 1925–1979,” the largest retrospective of Iranian cinema ever held inside or outside of Iran. With close to 70 films covering the pre-revolutionary period, there were works from Iran’s most famous filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami; the most famous film of this era, the late Dariush Mehrjui’s The Cow; and repertory favorites like Ebrahim Golestan’s Brick and Mirror, Bahram Beyzaie’s Downpour and Forough Farrokhzad’s The House is Black. But, significantly, there were also films by lesser-known but just as vital […]

The post “The Grandest Orphan Cinema”: Ehsan Khoshbakht on MoMA’s “Iranian Cinema before the Revolution, 1925–1979” Series first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Starting with a packed house on the night of October 13 and concluding right after Thanksgiving, MoMA showcased “Iranian Cinema before the Revolution, 1925–1979,” the largest retrospective of Iranian cinema ever held inside or outside of Iran. With close to 70 films covering the pre-revolutionary period, there were works from Iran’s most famous filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami; the most famous film of this era, the late Dariush Mehrjui’s The Cow; and repertory favorites like Ebrahim Golestan’s Brick and Mirror, Bahram Beyzaie’s Downpour and Forough Farrokhzad’s The House is Black. But, significantly, there were also films by lesser-known but just as vital […]

The post “The Grandest Orphan Cinema”: Ehsan Khoshbakht on MoMA’s “Iranian Cinema before the Revolution, 1925–1979” Series first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

2023 Festival dedicated to founders Tom Luddy, Bill Pence, Stella Pence, James Card.

Telluride Film Festival has announced its 2023 50th anniversary line-up with Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner Anatomy Of A Fall, and Steve McQueen’s Occupied City on the roster.

The selection, which will play in the Colorado Rockies locale from August 31 to September 4, includes Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders, Jonathan Glazer’s Cannes sensation The Zone Of Interest, Pablo Larrain’s El Conde, Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel, George C. Wolfe’s Rustin, Nyad from Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin,...

Following Main Slate and Spotlight, the 61st New York Film Festival has unveiled its Revivals lineup, featuring new restorations of classic and overlooked films. Highlights include Manoel de Oliveira’s Abraham’s Valley, Jean Renoir‘s The Woman on the Beach, Bahram Beyzaie’s The Stranger and the Fog, Abel Gance’s La Roue, Paul Vecchiali’s The Strangler, Lee Grant’s Tell Me a Riddle, Nancy Savoca’s Household Saints, Horace Ové’s Pressure, and more.

“This year’s edition of Revivals is a thrilling showcase of cinema history, packed with groundbreaking discoveries and long unseen classics alike, all in outstanding restorations,” said Florence Almozini, Senior Director of Programming at Film at Lincoln Center and NYFF Revivals Programmer. “We never cease to be amazed at the lasting influence of these cinematic gems on our collective sense of cinema, with the way they have tackled cultural, societal, or political issues with such modernity and artistry.

Cinema in Iran began to blossom in the 1950s and 1960s, kicking off what was to become one of the world's most celebrated national cinemas. What was coined the Iranian New Wave more or less includes films beginning in the 1960s all the way through the early 2010s, which encompasses the bulk of Iranian film history. Filmmaking shifted but did not stop after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, when many artists went into exile and more extreme censorship was imposed. Today, Iranian cinema that reaches the global market has a particular character to it, characterized by directors including Asghar Farhadi and Jafar Panahi, who have received international acclaim for their grounded features depicting the nuances of Iranian society. As such, this list reflects films of this nature.

In chronological order, we examine 6 Iranian films from 6 different Iranian directors that trace the diversity of these movies through the years, examining stories that have...

by Olivia Popp

Bahram Beyzaie’s 1972 “Downpour” (رگبار) paved the way for the Iranian New Wave, quickly becoming a classic within the movement. The work’s original copies were largely irreparable until a 2011 restoration of the film by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project. Within this light-hearted but heavily themed neo-realistic drama, Beyzaie expertly explores free will, controversy, and morality within the confines of a community bound by internal sociopolitical norms.

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When Mr. Hekmati (Parviz Fannizadeh), a generous but hapless schoolteacher, takes a job at a new boys’ primary school, he quickly learns that he has much more on his hands to handle than expected. The moment he meets the hard-working Atefeh (Parvaneh Massoumi), the older sister of a young pupil, he is consumed by a fascination with the young woman. However, he rapidly learns that she is engaged...

Filmmakers including Shirin Neshat, Bahman Ghobadi, Ali Abbasi and Asghar Farhadi have spoken out in the wake of the death of 22-year-old Iranian woman Masha Amini.

Iranian filmmakers and actors have spoken out in defiance against the Iranian government in an open letter, calling on “every filmmaker in the world” to support the protests against the government following the death of Iranian woman Masha Amini while in police custody.

Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, was arrested in Tehran for wearing her hijab too loosely. It has been reported that she was tortured by officers before dying in police custody...

Arian Vazirdaftari, whose debut feature “Without Her” (“Bi roya”) was picked up by Berlin-based sales company Picture Tree Intl. and is screening as part of Venice Film Festival’s Horizons Extra section, is no stranger to international festivals. He was a part of Berlinale Talent Campus and his short films screened in Busan, Brussels and Cannes among many others.

“I started as a self-taught filmmaker and only landed in film school many years later,” Vazirdaftari says. “My international experiences really helped. I got to know a more professional atmosphere globally, learned about what’s going on in film festivals, how films are selected and distributed.

“There are so many films and filmmakers around the world, so I knew that if I wanted to succeed internationally, I had to have something really special to make a movie about. These experiences made me tougher.”

In “Without Her,” the main protagonist Roya is...

One of the most interesting collisions of the public perception of Iran’s Islamic state and its reality is how, out of an apparently repressive state hostile to the creative arts, Abbas Kiarostami became the essential free filmmaker. “Freedom” is always a relative term when it comes to cinema, which, like politics, unfortunately runs on money. But it’s easy to spot the genuinely free filmmakers when they come along. Despite their varying struggles to get their movies made, the work that results is directly personal and unbound by prevailing cultural trends and diktats. They range from Jean Vigo to Kidlat Tahimik, Pedro Costa to Shirley Clarke, Stan Brakhage to Jose Luis Guerin. Kiarostami was the free filmmaker par excellence, since he managed to find his ever-developing acute approach to modernism through whatever system in which he might find himself working.

Read More: Abbas Kiarostami, Palme d’Or-Winning Director Of...

London – A retrospective of Iranian cinema from 1933 to 2006 will be jointly mounted by the Fribourg International Film Festival (Fiff) in Switzerland and Scotland's Edinburgh International Film Festival (Eiff). The two events are collaborating on the retrospective called "The History of Iranian Cinema by Its Creators." Fiff will launch the retrospective program at its 28th edition, for which 14 major Iranian directors have named 27 titles, from 1933 to 2006. The 14 directors picking titles are Mania Akbari, Kaveh Bakhtiari, Bahram Beyzaie, Asghar Farhadi, Sepideh Farsi, Mahmoud Ghaffari, Bahman Ghobadi, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Shahram Mokri, Amir Naderi, Jafar

read more...

Los Angeles hosts annual showcase featuring extensive array of work from contemporary and veteran film-makers

The annual celebration of Iranian cinema run by the University of California, Los Angeles, is a vital occasion for two dynamic and overlapping constituencies: cinephiles and Iranians in Los Angeles. The festival's screenings routinely draw large audiences, eager to see films from a nation distinguished by its rich and sustained contribution to world cinema. This year's programme underscored the depth and diversity of cinematic voices in Iranian life.

In recent years, the archive has expanded the scope to include older films, working with Iran's national film archive and exiled filmmakers such as Parviz Sayyad to present seminal works such as The Lor Girl (Dokhtar-e Lor; 1933), directed by Ardeshir Irani; Masoud Kimiai's Caesar (Qaisar; 1969); and Sayyad's own Dead End (Bon Bast; 1977). This year, the festival began with a screening of Bahram Beyzaie's first feature film,...

Fat Shaker, a surreal film about an obese and oppressive father and his son, is a refection on wider frustrations and corruption

There is something about the way he breathes, about the way he carries the weight around his waist, and the way his lips hang from his face.

Levon Haftvan's physique is as heavy as his acting, and he is ideally cast in Mohammad Shirvani's latest feature, Fat Shaker (2012). The strange, frustrating, dreamlike story of the relationship between a father (Haftvan) and his deaf son (Hassan Rostami), unsettled by the entrance of a young woman (Maryam Palizban), defies expectations and exercises a daring liberty in the process. The film gained international attention when it won one of the Hivos Tiger awards at the Rotterdam film festival, and it became the first Iranian feature to be screened at the Sundance film festival.

Although the plot may sound recycled...

Banning the celebrated director from making films is the latest step in the regime's attempt to murder the nation's creative soul

A spectre is haunting the Islamic Republic of Iran – the spectre of freedom. All the powers of the old guard have entered a holy alliance to exorcise it: the ayatollahs and their warlords, Ahmadinejad and Khamenei, hanging judges and paramilitary vigilantes.

To try to exorcise that spectre, the custodians of the sacred terror will go to any lengths. But have they gone just a bit too far this time?

What exactly does it mean to condemn a globally celebrated film-maker who has done nothing but bring credit to his profession and glory to his homeland, to six years in prison, and on top of that to ban him from making a film for 20 years, from writing any script, from attending any film festival outside his country, or giving any...

Iranian movie make-up artist Farhang Moayyeri died May 10 in Tehran of cardiac arrest. He was 65 and had already fought a long battle with lung cancer, the Iran State News Agency reported. Moayyeri created several make-up designs and prosthetics for Iranian theater, television and film. He is best known for creating make-up for the films of Bahram Beizai, Mas'ud Kimiai and other well-known Iranian directors. According to the Isna, Moayyeri was born in 1943 and began his career acting on The Brick and the Mirror (1965), then tried directing before entering the make-up industry in 1978. He created the make-up for Bashou, the Little Stranger (1986), Maybe Some Other Time (1988), Killing Mad Dogs (2001) and other films. Mohsen Maleki, head of the Iranian Association of Make-Up Designers, expressed sorrow over Moayyeri.s death and described him as the father of modern Iranian make-up design. Moayyeri was honored by the association in 2006 for his efforts to train...