After Maria, directed by Nadia Hallgren, is about aftermath of Hurricane Maria’s catastrophic destruction in 2017. Three Puerto Rican women and their families are caught between worlds as their FEMA housing assistance in New York expires. With the threat of homelessness on the horizon, After Maria follows as they fight to keep their families together and weather the emotional effects from displacement. We had the opportunity of interviewing Nadia Hallgren on camera about making of After Maria and its streaming on NETFLIX: https://vimeo.com/337568259 Nadia Hallgren is an award-winning filmmaker and director of photography from The Bronx, New York.With a focus on vérité…
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.
This not a film critique, this is a love letter to a film. I just finished watching Caramel on MUBI and, ladies and gentlemen, I am totally shocked. How on earth could I have misjudged this film? In 2008, I watched five minutes of Caramel and I decided it does not deserve my royal attention. Last night after watching it to the end, I was ashamed of myself for ignoring such a masterpiece. As punishment I sentenced myself to watch three episodes of the Game of Thrones! I asked myself, what happened to Nadine of Caramel? Of course, I liked…
Kamal Tabrizi’s Sly (Marmouz) is an entertaining and clever political satire, an uncommon genre from Iranian cinema. The only other film that stands out as a political comedy in history of the Iranian cinema after the revolution, is a box office hit called Lizard (Marmoolak), also directed by Kamal Tabrizi. I could never bring myself to like the Lizard, it lacked creativity in visual storytelling, but Sly is quite different and much more advanced in use of language of cinema. Sly is about a young man, Ghodrat, that runs a group of Lumpen hardliners that trash public gatherings such as…
Burbank, California – May 8th 2019 – Tonight at the South East European Film Festival LA. held its award ceremony at Writers Guild Theater. The closing night proofed to be a great success for Southeast European Film Festival and its founder and director and a friend of Cinema Without Borders Vera Mijojlic. GoE Bridging The Borders Award offered by Cinema Without Borders and sponsored by GoEnergistics, went to Slovakian director Alexandra Makarova for her brilliant film Crush My Heart. Bijan Tehrani, Editor in Chief and founder of Cinema Without Borders and CineEqual announced the winner of the GoE Bridging The Borders Award and read…
I have been following Houman Seyyedi’s work as a filmmaker and witnessed his artistic growth through his last four feature films—Africa (2010), Thirteen (2012), Confessions of My Dangerous Mind (2014), and Sound and Fury (2016). Houman Seyyedi is not only a film director, but an author as well. He has his own way of telling stories creating worlds and he writes, directs and edits his film, as well as having a hand in the sound and music. Now in Sheeple (Maghz-haye Kuchak Zang Zadeh), Houman takes a big step forward and comes up with an extraordinary and shocking film which…
Cinema Without Borders is proud to present GoE Bridging The Borders Award for the 11 Consecutive year at the prestigious SEEfest, South East European Film Festival LA. GoE Bridging The Borders Award offered by Cinema Without Borders and sponsored by GoEnergistics, goes to a feature film that helps bringing people of our world closer together. Winner will be announced on May 6th during the closing ceremony of the 14th Edition of the festival at the Writer’s Guild theater. Jury members for Bridging the Borders Award assigned by SEEfest are: Jan Cvitkovič Jan Cvitkovič, the Slovanian filmmaker, is an Archeologist, writer, director.…
When I am not touched by a film, I prefer to avoid writing about it and share a critic’s review with our visitors. Tehran, City Of Love, with no doubt is a well made film by a talented film director, it follows the life of three depressed characters all through the film with dark humor. One of the characters is a middle-aged man who is a body building instructor and fails in romantically attracting a young man that is his student. The other character is a depressed man that sings in memorial ceremonies and finds the opportunity of becoming a…
Bomb, a Love Story is about love and war, or better to say, how cruelty of war helps blossoming of a love. The story of Bomb, a Love Story happens during the Tehran bombardments during Iran/Iraq war and creates the atmosphere and mood of the city on those dark and unforgettable days quite faithfully. Bomb, a Love Story will be screened on May 10, 2019 – 7:30 pm at Billy Wilder Theater as part of UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema. Iraj (Payman Maadi) and Mitra (Leila Hatami) are a couple that have troubled relationship. Iraj is bothered by the fact that his wife, before their marriage…
Kamran Heidari creates the genre of his own. His films are new kind of dacudrama and dacufiction, while he never leaves his real characters and real events, he turns them masterfully to an impressive drama. One of his latest films, Ali Agha, reminds me the Italian Neorealist cinema and specially films like Vittorio De Sica’s Umberto D, where the main character in both films are struggling for survival, they are old and they both have a deep affection for their animal companions. Umberto has a hard time to let his little dog go and Ali Agha can’t leave his pigeons.…
Today, Monday April 15th 2019, is the 20th anniversary of the first release of HOME PAGE, a film by documentary filmmaker, Doug Block. In 1996 Doug fascinated by this new thing called the internet, trains his wry, analytical lens on the burgeoning home page (i.e. blogging) phenomenon. He soon falls under the spell of 21-year old cyber superstar Justin Hall, whose literally bare-all online diary spares no details about friends, family, lovers and, inevitably, Block himself. When Hall goads the filmmaker into keeping his own online diary, the story takes an unexpectedly personal turn, with hilarious and deeply affecting results. This…