Cinema Without Borders jury announced the winners of the Bridging The Borders Award for 2025 Lucas International Film Festival for Young Film Lovers in Germany. GIRLS DON’T CRY a documentary film by Sigrid Klausmann and Lina Luzyte wins 2025 Bridging The Borders Award and our Honorary Mention goes to the OLIVIA AND THE INVISIBLE EARTHQUAKE Directed by Irene Iborra Rizo. Bridging the Borders Award is offered by Cinema Without Borders Foundation and sponsored by 360 MEDIA Consulting Kelly Barger, one of the jury members announced the winner of Bridging the Borders Award and also the Honorary Mention in a video…
Author: Bijan Tehrani
Bijan Tehrani
Bijan (Hassan) Tehrani Founder and Editor in Chief of Cinema Without Borders, is a film director, writer, and a film critic, his first article appeared in a weekly film publication in Iran 45 years ago. Bijan founded Cinema Without Borders, an online publication dedicated to promotion of international cinema in the US and around the globe, eighteen years ago and still works as its editor in chief. Bijan is has also been a columnist and film critic for the Iranian monthly film related medias for 45 years and during the past 5 years he has been a permanent columnist and film reviewer for Film Emrooz (Film Today), a popular Iranian monthly print film magazine. Bijan has won several awards in international film festivals and book fairs for his short films and children's books as well as for his services to the international cinema. Bijan is a member of Iranian Film Writers Critics Society and International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI). He is also an 82nd Golden Globe Awards voter.
On Tuesday, October 21, at 7:00 PM, the Cinema Without Borders Foundation honored acclaimed filmmaker Rodrigo García with its prestigious Bridging the Borders Award, recognizing his lifetime achievements and contributions to global cinema, at the beautiful Laemmle Royal Theatre in Santa Monica. The Bridging the Borders Award—previously bestowed on legendary filmmakers such as Andrzej Wajda and Asghar Farhadi—places García in distinguished company. Before a packed audience of film industry professionals, Bijan Tehrani, President and Founder of Cinema Without Borders, welcomed the attendees: https://vimeo.com/1129957812 After Bijan’s introduction, The Follies — the latest film by Rodrigo García — was screened. The Follies,…
Raymond & Ray Rodrigo García’s intimate comedy-drama about two half-brothers drafted into the strangest possible last act of filial duty, is the rare film that breathes with lived-in feeling from its very first frame and keeps deepening as it goes. Ewan McGregor (as Raymond) and Ethan Hawke (as Ray) arrive like two sides of a single wounded coin—one taut with manners and denial, the other loose with charm and habit—but what García pulls off is a duet in which both men gradually find the same rhythm, a rhythm that only grief, memory, and shared humiliation can teach. The premise could…
On Tuesday, October 21st at 7:00 PM, the Cinema Without Borders Foundation will honor acclaimed filmmaker Rodrigo García with its prestigious Bridging the Borders Award, recognizing his lifetime achievements and his contributions to global cinema. Legendary filmmakers such as Andrzej Wajda and Asghar Farhadi have previously received this award, placing García in distinguished company. The celebration will be held at the Laemmle Royal Theater, 11523 Santa Monica Blvd, 1st Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90025. The evening will begin with a special screening of García’s latest feature, The Follies, a film that has already been praised for its lyrical storytelling and…
From the moment Familia begins, one senses right away that Rodrigo García has crafted something intimate, deliberate, and quietly powerful — a film that refuses spectacle and instead trusts in the small fissures of connection, memory, conflict, and love to carry its weight. In a cinematic landscape saturated with bombast, this is a welcome reminder of how much drama, and how much beauty, can unfold in a single afternoon, simply by putting a group of people in a room and letting their pasts and present demands collide. The film’s conceit is deceptively simple: Leo (played with haunting gravity by Daniel…
Rodrigo García’s Four Good Days (2020) is a film that, at first glance, might seem to belong to the familiar cinematic terrain of addiction dramas. Yet García, true to his lifelong sensibility as a storyteller of quiet emotional earthquakes, transforms this apparently simple narrative into an intimate psychological study of love, endurance, and the almost unbearable fragility of hope. The film, co-written by García and Eli Saslow (based on Saslow’s Washington Post article “How’s Amanda? A Story of Truth, Lies and an American Addiction”), stars Mila Kunis as Molly, a woman fighting to escape the destructive gravitational pull of heroin,…
There are films that attempt to recreate the divine through spectacle, and there are others that dare to approach it through silence. Last Days in the Desert, directed by Rodrigo García, belongs to the second kind — a film that listens instead of preaching, that breathes instead of shouting, that dares to imagine the mystery of faith as something painfully human, fragile, and trembling before its own reflection. From its first frame, García makes it clear that we are not entering the territory of biblical grandeur or Hollywood’s well-lit sainthood. Instead, we are being invited to walk into a desert…
Albert Nobbs is not simply a period drama set in the streets and rooms of nineteenth-century Dublin; it is a meditation on survival, disguise, solitude, and the fragile hope that flickers even in the most stifled lives. Rodrigo García directs the film with the same quiet intensity that has defined his career, and in doing so, he transforms what might have remained a small and contained story into a haunting portrait of the human need for recognition. The film does not shout or demand; it whispers, it glances, it hides behind silences, yet by the end it leaves the viewer…
The 14th Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival (EMIFF), taking place from October 21–29, 2025, is widely regarded as the most prestigious boutique film festival in Europe. Set against the stunning Mediterranean backdrop of Palma, EMIFF draws top-tier talent, industry decision makers, and fresh new voices from the indie film scene. EMIFF’s mission is to bridge cultures and showcase diverse films, fostering creative exchange and collaboration between filmmakers from around the world. Each year, the festival presents a vibrant, international program that inspires both creative connection and cinematic innovation, forging its reputation as an essential destination for filmmakers and film-lovers alike.…
Cinema Without Borders Foundation is honored to welcome Hessam Abrishami—the internationally celebrated Iranian-born American artist—to its Advisory Board. Known for his emotionally charged and vibrantly colored contemporary figurative paintings, Abrishami’s art is a celebration of the human spirit, capturing energy, elegance, and dreamlike depth with remarkable intensity. After pursuing higher education at the Accademia di Belle Arti Pietro Vanucci in Perugia, Italy, Abrishami embarked on a prolific career that has spanned decades and continents. His achievements are staggering: more than 180 solo gallery exhibitions, participation in over 65 international exhibitions, and inclusion in eight major museum shows. Beyond the galleries,…