February 21 – 27 The Iranian Film Blogathon! Go check out all the pieces linked to there!
1. If you would like to promote, please feel free to take the banner above. It was created on the fly by my good friend Mark – and is the poster-image for Jafar Panahi’s Offside.
2. To keep it simple, just send me the links you have written to gibsongirl@sheilaomalley.com – or, once next week starts, just leave a link to what you have written in the comments section, and I will make sure to pull it out and promote.
3. If you do not have a blog, and would like to participate (I already have 2 or 3 of those people), just write up whatever you want, and send it to me – as a Word Doc or in an email, and I will re-format and post on my site.
I so look forward to hearing everyone’s contributions. If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know my love of Iranian film, but I certainly haven’t seen them all. This will be a great opportunity to get to know some more films and add to my neverending Netflix queue.
I will be posting some of my old reviews, since they are, as of now, buried in the archives, and I would like to resurrect them again. I’ll also be writing some new things as well.
If you are not familiar with Iranian film at all, please don’t let that stop you. There are people interested in writing something up who have never seen a film from Iran before. I can’t wait to hear their first-timer responses.
I am so pleased that there is so much interest already in this last-minute project, and thanks to the peeps on Facebook and Twitter who have been promoting it.
I want to point you in the direction to this cool “pass it on” project on The Tarpeian Rock called “Around the World with Jafar Panahi“. (Some great thoughts too about Panahi’s Crimson Gold.) There he points to this post by Yusef Sayed, who wrote:
Filmmaker Jafar Panahi has been sentenced to 6 years imprisonment and will be denied any opportunity to direct or produce films for 20 years, as a result of a criminal trial in Iran. This has been well documented amongst the cinephile community and mainstream media. In light of this news and as a gesture of support for the filmmaker, I would like to offer my Region 2 dvd copy of Panahi’s film The Circle as a gift to somebody who would like to see it and who does not have a copy. In order to enable many individuals to see this film (and in imitation of the film’s own structure) it would perhaps be fitting to allow the film to then pass from person to person, throughout the world and eventually land back where it started, at which point the situation may have changed.
We cannot change the world, but we may inspire many people, and support one great filmmaker.
Coincidentally, I just sent a copy of Offside to my friend in Texas, before I even heard about this project. In my own small way, I am trying to get the word out (and have been for years) about this amazing filmmaker. It is a nice dovetail with this Iranian Film Blogathon and wanted to let you know it was out there if you wanted to play along.
And thank you to Jake Cole, Ed Howard, Weeping Sam, and House Next Door for promoting this blog-a-thon on your own sites.
Much appreciated!
Iranian cinema is a major blind spot in my movie knowledge, so I probably won’t try contributing. But I will put your ad up in a prominent place.
Tony – oh please try if you feel like it! A woman who has been reading my site from the beginning has never seen an Iranian film before, she doesn’t have a blog either – and she just watched and reviewed Offside for me – sent it to me in an email – and it is full of heart and beauty: the beauty of a first impression.
Anyway, thank you for promoting. It’s last-minute but so far the response has been amazing!!