News

Mark Cousins says ChatGPT presented him with an “exact summary” of a book he wrote almost 30 years ago, when he was researching his new film Story Of Documentary Film.

The Northern Irish filmmaker was speaking in a ‘A Morning With’ conversation at Cph:dox, with Toronto film festival documentary programmer Thom Powers.

“When I started this project, I asked ChatGPT, ‘What is the history of documentary?’” said Cousins, in response to a question about his thoughts on AI technologies. “If it can do it, I don’t need to,” joked the director.

“You know what it did? It was an exact...

Despite facing censorship, house arrest and exile, directors such as Jafar Panahi and the late Abbas Kiarostami kept Iran at the forefront of world cinema. Here is a selection of their photographs, alongside those of compatriots Nasser Taghvai, Kamran Shirdel, Majid Barzegar, Ebrahim Golestan and cinematographer Seifollah Samadian.

The exhibition Time Lapse is at Cama, London, until 2 October.

As the I for Iran series has taken the Tiff Lightbox by storm, with several sold out screenings and great press coverage, Sound on Sight has taken a moment to ask some questions on what has brought the series to Toronto and the greater impacts of Iranian cinema are within an increasingly globalized world.

Brad Deane, who is the Senior Manager, Film Programmes at Tiff, and the programmer for the series at Tiff Cinematheque.

Amir Soltani, a Toronto-based film critic and contributor to The Film Experience and Movie Mezzanine, who also writes and co-hosts a podcast about Iranian films at Hello Cinema. Amir Soltani will be introducing Hamoun, Dariush Mehrjui’s incisive, ironic, and finally dreamlike study of middle-class Iranian life, on Saturday, March 28 at 3:45pm.

Check out the rest of the series schedule Here

What has brought the I for Iran series from Fribourg International Film Festival to Toronto?...