Author: Bijan Tehrani

On Saturday, May 16, 2026, East Los Angeles College and Cinema Without Borders will hold the 11th anniversary of the annual ELAC International Animation Day Festival, dedicated to Nationl Film Board of Canda Animation (2016 – 2026) This event will be held at East Los Angeles College, located at 1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez, Monterey Park, CA 91754. To attend please RSVP by sending an email to  rsvpanim@gmail.com and let us know if you plan to attend the morning screening or afternoon screening or both and if you will have a guest with you The goal of the ELAC International Animation Day Festival…

There are films you watch, and there are films that refuse to let you remain the same person afterward. One Battle After Another, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, is one of those rare works that does not simply unfold on screen—it unfolds inside you. Watching it, I felt not like a spectator, but like a participant in a moral and political reckoning that speaks directly to our time, especially to those of us who cannot ignore the realities of power, war, and responsibility. Anderson has always been a filmmaker deeply concerned with the contradictions of America, but here he reaches…

The film “The Great Dictator”, directed by Charlie Chaplin, is one of the most brilliant and courageous works in the history of cinema; a film that, in 1940—when the world had not yet fully grasped the depth of the catastrophe of fascism and Nazism—dared to boldly critique dictatorship, the cult of personality, and politics rooted in hatred. In this film, Chaplin not only creates a comedy but crafts a work that is, at its core, a human, moral, and political manifesto against tyranny; a manifesto that, more than eighty years later, still resonates and appears strikingly contemporary in the face…

An exclusive, engaging, and insight-rich conversation with Shahab Hosseini My first meeting with Shahab Hosseini was in Bahman, four years ago, at the home of my dear friend Shirin Jahed, the distinguished Iranian television director to whom many well-known figures in Iranian cinema and media owe a great deal for her talent and creative vision. Thanks to Ms. Jahed, we celebrated the birthdays of Shahab Hosseini, my longtime friend and companion Abbas Yari, and myself—all of us born in Bahman—with a cake and a few candles. From that very first encounter, I found Shahab to be modest, gentlemanly, and warm-hearted.…

In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, few powers in the world have intervened in the political and military affairs of other nations as frequently as the United States. These interventions have taken many forms: direct wars, covert coups, intelligence operations, and economic pressure. Official narratives have often framed such actions with phrases like “defending freedom,” “fighting dictatorship,” “combating terrorism,” or “protecting global security.” Yet when history is viewed from the perspective of the people living in the countries affected by these interventions, a different picture often emerges—one of governments overthrown, fragile democracies destroyed, and populations forced to bear the human…

On a night when the global film industry gathers to celebrate artistic achievement, glamour, and the mythology of cinema, the 2026 Academy Awards unfolded with their usual spectacle: red carpets, emotional speeches, orchestral swells, and carefully rehearsed gratitude. The ceremony once again confirmed what the Oscars have always been extraordinarily good at doing—celebrating the dream factory of Hollywood while remaining curiously detached from the waking nightmare unfolding in the real world. This year that detachment felt particularly stark. Across the globe, nations tremble under the weight of war, displacement, economic collapse, and the erosion of democratic institutions. Millions of people wake…

Not many years ago, when the series Yellowstone first aired, many critics and viewers felt that American television had once again managed to create a work rooted in the old myths of the Western while also telling a contemporary human drama. Yellowstone was not merely the story of a large ranch in Montana; it was the story of the collision of two worlds: the world of capital and ruthless development on one side, and the world of tradition, family, and land on the other. The character of John Dutton, played by Kevin Costner, was a figure who, despite his toughness…

Death Before Birth in Anti-War Cinema and in the Reality of Wars In every war, the number of victims is not limited to those who are killed on the battlefield or those who die beneath the rubble of destroyed cities. War has other victims as well—victims who rarely appear in any official statistics: children who never have the chance to be born. They have no names in cemeteries, no place in military reports, and no role in the heroic narratives of war. Yet the truth is that every war, before it takes the lives of the living, destroys a future…

From Hitler to the Commanders of Apocalypse If one day a major film is made about the war that was waged against Iran, it would not be surprising if cinema once again followed a pattern that has appeared repeatedly in twentieth-century war films: the transformation of war-seeking leaders into the devilish figures of the narrative. In such a film, some of the political leaders who decided to initiate that war would likely be portrayed as characters issuing orders for attack from a safe distance, while the real victims of those decisions were ordinary people and civilians. In a cinematic narrative…

In times of political tension, governments have often relied on a familiar tactic: framing a people or an entire nation as the enemy in order to mobilize fear and resentment among the public. This mechanism of creating a threatening “other” is not new. It has appeared repeatedly throughout modern history, and cultural narratives—including cinema—have sometimes played a role in reinforcing such perceptions. The early mythology of the American West, as portrayed in Hollywood films, offers a revealing example of how images and stories can shape attitudes toward entire communities. In the history of American cinema, few names are as closely…