Categories
Archives
-
-
-
-
Recent Posts
- “Art is theft, art is armed robbery, art is not pleasing your mother.” — Janet Malcolm
- “I’m one of those people who thinks you can have a happy life and still be an artist.” — Shelley Duvall
- “There’s a difference between writing about something and living through it. I did both.” — poet/novelist Margaret Walker
- “I believe what Camus says. When the curtain rings down, your job is done.” — Warren Oates
- Physical Media Booklet Essay podcast interview
- “My voice isn’t an instrument I can just hang up on a hook.” — Audra McDonald
- “You can’t be on top all the time. It isn’t natural.” — Olivia de Havilland
- “If I don’t feel it, I can’t play it.” — James Cotton
- “I don’t have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I’d become. I’m me, and I’m like nobody else.” — Lena Horne
- “But man has always succeeded in rising again.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Recent Comments
- sheila on “Art is theft, art is armed robbery, art is not pleasing your mother.” — Janet Malcolm
- Kristen Westergaard on “Art is theft, art is armed robbery, art is not pleasing your mother.” — Janet Malcolm
- sheila on Supernatural re-watch, Season 5
- sheila on June 28, 1914: “But if ever a man went anywhere of his own free will, Franz Ferdinand went to Sarajevo.”
- sheila on “All I actually wanted was for my work to be useful.”–Claudius Afolabi Siffre
- sheila on Physical Media Booklet Essay: Being scholarly about movies that don’t exist
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on “I just love telling stories. That’s what we do and it’s a good business to be in, especially if you know you have talent.” –Jensen Ackles
- kirinleaf on Supernatural re-watch, Season 5
- Pat on “I just love telling stories. That’s what we do and it’s a good business to be in, especially if you know you have talent.” –Jensen Ackles
- Kelly C Sedinger on June 28, 1914: “But if ever a man went anywhere of his own free will, Franz Ferdinand went to Sarajevo.”
- Clary on “All I actually wanted was for my work to be useful.”–Claudius Afolabi Siffre
- Dan on Physical Media Booklet Essay: Being scholarly about movies that don’t exist
- Mike Molloy on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- Mike Molloy on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on R.I.P. Eric Dane: Alex remembers him
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- LongTimeReaderMargot on R.I.P. Eric Dane: Alex remembers him
- Mike Molloy on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
-
Tag Archives: Iranian film
Snapshots
— Sometimes I look up from what I am doing and I see Hope across the room staring at me, and there is a look of such coiled contempt in her eyes that I want to run fleeing into the … Continue reading
Posted in Personal
Tagged family, Hope, Iran, Iranian film, Jafar Panahi, Jeremy Renner, Mulholland Drive, Offside, Rebecca West, Ron Chernow, snapshots
11 Comments
“[The authorities] don’t even really know what they’re opposing. They don’t see that music brings energy and good nature to society.”
So says Negar Shaghaghi, Iranian indie-pop songwriter, one of the stars of Bahman Ghobadi’s new film No One Knows About Persian Cats. The film tells the story of two aspiring musicians in Tehran, trying to connect with other musicians, in … Continue reading
Bahman Ghobadi: No One Knows About Persian Cats
I read this dispatch from SXSW with great interest: a review of the new film No One Knows About Persian Cats, and cannot wait to see it. The film premiered at Cannes, winning a Special Jury Prize, and tells the … Continue reading
Jafar Panahi Update
Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi remains in prison, even though he has not been formally charged with anything. His wife (who was also arrested in the original roundup at Panahi’s house – and was released a week later) says she has … Continue reading
“My heartfelt wish is that artists no longer be imprisoned in this country because of their art and that the independent and young Iranian cinema no longer faces obstacles, lack of support, attention and prejudice.”
Abbas Kiarostami, perhaps the most famous of Iranian directors working today, has published an open letter in a Tehran newspaper calling for the release of Jafar Panahi (and also Mahmoud Rasoulof) – two filmmakers incarcerated in the last couple of … Continue reading
Some more details on Jafar Panahi’s arrest
From Iranian film expert Jamsheed Akrami. Akrami says: Jafar Panahiâs films, The Circle, Crimson Gold, and Offside, have been all banned in Iran and for the past four years he has not been allowed to make a new movie. Now … Continue reading
Update on Jafar Panahi
His wife and daughter have been released – Panahi is still detained. More here. It’s hard at times to get a feel for the truth, because official reports (and sometimes personal reports) are unreliable, due to censorship and also the … Continue reading
Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi arrested
Sad news (and, sadly, not surprising): Iranian director Jafar Panahi has been arrested in Iran, along with his wife and daughter. The arrest went down at his home in Tehran, where he was hosting a dinner party (and all of … Continue reading
Siavash (1998); Dir. Saman Moghaddam
For the Iranian Film Blogathon: I take a look at Saman Moghaddam’s Siavash. The Iran-Iraq War was the longest “conventional” war of the 20th century, dragging on for almost a decade. The slaughter was immense. An entire generation was wiped … Continue reading
God Bless the Child: The Girl In the Sneakers (1999); dir. Rasul Sadr Ameli
1999’s The Girl in the Sneakers was directed by Rasul Sadr Ameli, a native of Isfahan, Iran, who also directed 2002’s award-winning Man, taraneh, panzdah sal daram (I am Taraneh, I am 15 Years Old) starring Taraneh Alidoosti, the wonderful … Continue reading