The Fifteenth Anniversary Scandinavian Film Festival L.A. comes to the Writers Guild Theater, Beverly Hills over two weekends: January 18-19, 25-26, 2014. The yearly showcase of Nordic films and filmmakers, launched in 2000, screens the year’s Scandinavian films submitted to the Academy as nominees for Best Foreign-Language Film as well as other current feature, documentary, and short films. James Koenig is someone whose voice is heard in various arts arenas. He graduated from Northwestern University with bachelors and masters degrees in voice continuing studies in Italy, Germany, and California. As a classical singer he has sung in opera and concert…
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.
2014 Palm Springs International Film Festival will open on January 3rd and continue through January 13th. PSIFF has consistently proven to be a fantastic platform for international film exhibition, as well as an outstanding event for international film fans within the U.S. and abroad. Last week, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Darryl Macdonald, Director of the festival, and discussing the ins-and-outs of the 2014 PSIFF. Bijan Tehrani: We are getting close to the 2014 Palm Springs International Festival and it is always exciting for international film lovers! What should we expect to see this year?Darryl Macdonald: It…
George Hayward is the author of the fiction novel SOUL AFFLICTED, a godless man’s search for hope and faith. A native of Lynn, Mass., Hayward’s writing career began during his early college years as journalism major, when he interned at the Boston Globe and covered high school sports and features for his hometown newspaper, the now-defunct Lynn Sunday Post. In 1987 he began a 12-year stint in the U.S. Air Force that included assignments in Colorado Springs, Alaska, Kuwait and San Antonio. The last nine of those years were as an award-winning journalist. He was the 1993 Air Force Journalist…
THE GOOD ROAD , directed by Gyan Arora, is India’s Oscar Entry for the Best Foreign Language Award Film. THE GOOD ROAD deals with three storylines which cross each other on the film’s titular highway.Pappu is a truck driver. Supporting his parents and extended family is beyond his means. Now, he has been presented a plan. An accident will be staged. Pappu will “die”. Insurance payments are substantial.David and Kiran, a middle class urban couple, with their son Aditya, are on a holiday. Aditya will be accidentally separated from them during a brief halt at a Dhaba. And his loss…
Halima’s Path, Croatia’s Oscar Entry, directed by Arsen Anton Ostojic tells the tragic but inspiring story of a grieving, but strong-willed Muslim woman Halima who tries, without success, to find the remains of her son who was killed in the Bosnian War and buried in one of the many mass graves. She realizes that she must track down her estranged niece, who we find carries a mysterious connection to him. After finding her, Halima discovers a horrifying fact from her worst nightmares. With this discovery, the spiral of tragic events from the past would continue in the present, disrupting once…
15 Years + 1 Day, directed by Gracia Querejeta is Spain’s Oscar Entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Award. Margo (Maribel Verdú, Belle Époque, Y tu mamá también) is struggling to deal with her son, Jon (Arón Piper) a rebellious and freespirited teenager who runs with a bad crowd. After Jon is expelled from school, Margo sends him to live with his grandfather Max (Tito Valverde, El comisario, Todos los hombre sois iguales), a retired military officer who lives in a small coastal town and believes he can fix his grandson with his own style of discipline. This new…
MAN OF HOPE is Poland’s Oscar Entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Award directed by legendary Andrzej Wajda . The New Europe has its beginnings in Gdansk! “Wałęsa. Man of Hope” is a story of a contemporary hero – Lech Wałęsa (Robert Więckiewicz). The movie begins with Oriana Fallaci (Maria Rosaria Omaggio) appearing at the Wałęsas’ flat in an apartment block to interview the future Nobel Prize winner. The emotion-packed conversation with one of the world most famous journalists constitutes a fabric of the movie narrative. Fallaci poses questions no one else ever wanted or dared to ask the…
The Butterfly’s Dream directed and written by Yilmaz Erdoðan is Turkey’s OSCAR entry for the Best Foreign Language Award Film. The Butterfly’s Dream centers on two young poets in the 1940s of Turkey who make a bet on a pretty girl. Whoever’s poem the girl likes will win, and the other will step aside. The poets however have to deal with other problems like disease, poverty, compulsory work in the mines and the Second World War in the meantime. As the story unravels, the poets travel through cities and events in search of happiness. Is it the optimist who’s the…
CHILD’S POSE, directed by Călin Peter Netzer is Romania’s Oscar Entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Award.A tangled drama of ethics, corrupt authority and misplaced maternal love, CHILD’S POSE stars one of the stalwarts of Romanian cinema, Luminita Gheorghiu (THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU, 4 MONTHS 3 WEEKS 2 DAYS, BEYOND THE HILLS, 12:08 BUCHAREST) as a middle-aged domineering mother and member of Romania’s ruling class, who uses all of her connections to keep her estranged adult son out of jail when he faces manslaughter charges for reckless driving. Bijan Tehrani: How did you come up with the idea…
THE HUNT directed and co-written by Thomas Vinterberg and Denmark’s Oscar Entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Award, is a disturbing depiction of how a lie becomes the truth when gossip, doubt and malice are allowed to flourish and ignite a witch-hunt that soon threatens to destroy an innocent man’s life. Mads Mikkelsen won the Best Actor Award at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival for his penetrating portrayal of Lucas, a former school teacher who has been forced to start over having overcome a tough divorce and the loss of his job. Just as things are starting to go…