Women filmmakers have an impressive presence in the list of films submitted for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.Women filmmakers have an impressive presence in the list of films submitted for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. So far 83 countries have announced their selection and Ghana, Honduras and United Arab Emirates will submit theirs in the next few days. Among 83 films selected for the Best Foreign Language Film Award, 22 films are directed by woman filmmakers. Iran is the only country represented in this list by two women filmmakers, Anahit Abad, Iranian Armenian filmmaker that her film Yeva is…
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.
Cinema came to Iran courtesy of Mozafaredin Shah, a king of Iran who visited Paris around the turn of the century, fell in love with the Can-Can and the magic of the cinema; he fooled around with the ladies and bought himself a brand new motion picture camera. Accompanying the King was one Ibrahim Khan, part noble, part peasant. He learned to use the camera and then shot the first Iranian movie. No one ever recorded his name in any film history, but he was the first to use panoramic movement in his documentary of the King’s harem and his…
Bita Elahian, the Iranian/American filmmaker has received Honorable Mention at the Eighth Los Angeles Movie Awards for her new short film “Blame” Blame is about A young man that after seven years of marriage, has quarrels with his wife over having children, not realizing that their lives are about to change forever. Bita Elahian last week won Award of Merit: Short Film (Student) and Award of Merit: Women Filmmaker (Student) from the 7th Best Short Film competition in California. Also, “Blame” will be screened on Saturday, October 7th at the 14th “Other Venice Film Festival” in the Short Films competition…
HP Workstation Department is the partner and sponsor of Bridging the Borders Award at the Palm Spring International Film Festival and Palm Springs ShortFest Film Festival. To learn more about what HP Workstation offers for filmmakers and editors and involvement of HP by supporting cultural activities we spoke with Josh Peterson. Josh Peterson is currently Head of Product Management for HP’s Workstation and Immersive Computing business. He has worldwide product portfolio responsibility for desktop workstations, mobile workstations, immersive computing, and all related accessories. Josh has spent over 16 years at HP and has led product management, strategic alliances, and fostering…
The UCLA Film and Television Archive returns the golden age of Spanish language cinema back to Main Street. The Getty Center’s second iteration of the arts initiative “Pacific Standard Time” spotlights the Latin American creative space in Los Angeles, titled “Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA.” UCLA’s Film and Television Archive teamed up with the Getty to create a lineup of approximately 40 Spanish-language films hailing from different Spanish-speaking countries including Mexico, Argentina and Cuba for the exhibition. The archive restored and rediscovered around 40 Spanish language films, some considered lost or irrelevant, from the golden age of films – the 1930s…
From the opening moments, it’s clear the title character is not a typical female in this patriarchal society: she’s dirt-bike racing. But as the understated domestic drama unfurls, it becomes obvious even a woman this strong is no match for the web of rules around her behavior in Tehran. She works hard at her husband’s pizza joint, but when tragedy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rBAWEbtJFA strikes, she struggles to run it alone. This is, after all, a country where a woman delivering pizza on her motorcycle at night is a shock. While not as tightly or artfully wrought as an Asghar Farhadi film, Azar…
Rolling off its international premiere at Toronto Film Festival, Peter Schønau Fog’s drama “You Disappear” has been chosen to represent Denmark in the Foreign Language Oscar category. Based on Christian Jungersen’s bestselling novel and penned by Fog, “You Disappear” centers on a woman who is married to a successful headmaster suffering from a brain tumor. The film is a “story about the challenges we face as neuroscience forces us to rethink what we are as human beings,” said TrustNordisk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_gGEaDeL8E “You Disappear” was selected over Henrik Ruben Genz’ “Word of God” and Fenar Ahmad’s “Darkland.” “You Disappear” was well received…
Today is the birthday of one of the greatest actress of all times Sophia Loren! For many she is a just a beautiful woman and actress, but looking through her acting career you recognize her as an amazing artist. her performance as Cesira in Vittorio De Sica’s masterpiece, Two Women; Loren’s performance earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1962 and made her the first artist to win an Oscar for a foreign-language film. https://youtu.be/Cr6trPCGRe0 She holds the record for having earned six David di Donatello Awards for Best Actress: Two Women; Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow; Marriage Italian…
Loving Vincent is a unique and beautiful animated film about the Life and art of Vincent van Gogh. We had the opportunity to have a video interview with Co-director of the film Dorota Kobiela. https://vimeo.com/234551496 LOVING VINCENT is the world’s first fully painted feature film. Written & directed by Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman, produced by Poland’s BreakThru Films & UK’s Trademark Films. The film brings the paintings of Vincent van Gogh to life to tell his remarkable story. Every one of the 65,000 frames of the film is an oil-painting hand-painted by 125 professional oil-painters who travelled from all across the…
Rahman Oladigbolu, based in Boston, U.S., is a writer and filmmaker best known in the continent for winning the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) 2015, for Best Film by An African Living Abroad with his debut In America. His second feature, Theory Conflict, was nominated for the 2016 edition of AMAA. He recently secured the approval to adapt Chimamanda Adichie’s poem ‘A Private Experience’ into a movie. The script is ready and Oladigbolu will soon hit location, funds permitting. He spoke with FLORENCE UTOR about the project, his experience as an African filmmaker living in the U.S. What have you…