Author: Bijan Tehrani

MAY IN THE SUMMER follows sophisticated New Yorker May Brennan to her childhood home of Amman, Jordan for her wedding. Shortly after reuniting with her sisters and their long-since divorced parents, myriad familial and cultural conflicts lead May to question the big step she is about to take. MAY IN THE SUMMER, written and directed by Cherien Dabis (AMREEKA), stars Dabis, Alia Shawkat, Nadine Malouf, Ritu Singh Pande, Hiam Abbass and Bill Pullman. The film was produced by Dabis, Alix Madigan-Yorkin and Christopher Tricarico. Cherien Dabis is an award-winning feature filmmaker who received her MFA in film from Columbia University.…

Devin “Super Tramp” Graham is a YouTube celebrity who first started creating video content for a friend in college. Since his first video, he’s shot to internet superstardom, earning over 300 million views, gaining 1.78 million followers, and directing commercials for brands like Ford, Mountain Dew and Panasonic. Bijan Tehrani: How did you come up with the idea with these series of videos?Devin “SuperTramp” Graham: I was going to film school at BYU in Utah and my dream was to do feature films. At the time my roommatewas using YouTube and social media to basically promote their company. So from…

ON THE RIM OF THE SKY directed by Xu Hongjie is the story of a substitute Teacher in the Gulu Primary School, on the cliff in Sichuan, China, for over 26 years SHEN QIJUN has always wanted to become a real teacher till one day a young man, BAO TANGTAO, who calls himself “Don Quixote” arrived at the village…Bijan Tehrani: How did you come up with the idea of making ON THE RIM OF THE SKY? Please tell us about pre-production stage of ON THE RIM OF THE SKY.Xu Hongjie: I read a report about Gulu Village, the substitute teacher…

Miss Lovely, directed by Ashim Ahluwalia is a 2012 Indian drama film directed by Ashim Ahluwalia and set in the criminal depths of Mumbai’s C-grade (horror and porn film) industry. Ahluwalia’s debut feature follows the story of the Duggal brothers who produce sleazy sex-horror films in the mid-1980s. The plot explores the intense and mutually destructive relationship between younger sibling Sonu Duggal, played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, and his elder brother, Vicky (Anil George). Sonu finds himself drawn to a mysterious young woman named Pinky (Niharika Singh) eventually leading to his downfall. The film has received the National Film Award -…

Shadow People is based on a group of homeless people and prostitutes with all their problems as well as their little joys in life. Paul’s group is formed by people from different nationalities, such as refugee Jacov, a Russian Jew and his friend Ahmed, a Persian actor who was humiliated and prosecuted in his country. Darioush Shirvani director of Shadow People Was born 1963 in Shiraz/Iran and already visited at the age of 14 the music-university of his hometown. At the same time his short-movies arose. From 1977-1981 he has been assistant director, stage manager and actor at the citizen…

Siddharth is the spellbinding and gorgeously wrought tale of one fatherʼs journey across India in search of his son. Mehendra is a chain-wallah, eking out a living fixing zippers on the bustling streets of New Delhi. To ease his financial woes, he sends twelve-year-old Siddharth to work in a distant factory. When the boy doesnʼt come home for the Diwali holiday, Mehendra and his wife Suman slowly begin to suspect that he was kidnapped by child traffickers. With few resources and no connections, Mehendra desperately travels to Punjab and Mumbai with the hope that whoever took Siddharth might return him…

The amazing Palm Springs International Short Film Festival and market opens on June 18th and like every year we have a chance to see the work of emerging filmmakers and talented filmmaking students. To learn more about 2014 festival we interviewed Kathleen McInnis, new director of Palm Springs International Short Film Festival and market. Kathleen McInnis is a Film Strategist with a distinctive background in film festivals and publicity consulting. Her company, See-Through Films LLC, offers business development for emerging filmmakers. She is a veteran of the global film festival circuit and has been at such festivals as Seattle Int’l…

HELI, a film directed by Amat Escalante is an amazing and interesting film that has won the Best Director award at Cannes Film Festival 2013. Heli is a young man working in a car assembly factory; he lives with his father who also works there, his wife Sabrina, his baby son Santiago and his sister Estela. His life is normal, slow, and without prospects. Estela is revealed to be in a relationship with Beto, a cadet who at 17 is much older than her. Estela, despite Beto’s enthusiasm for engaging in sexual relations, is firm in her refusal of him,…

HOLA MEXICO Festival attracts nearly 25,000 people, and continues to be about bringing the best films, food and music from Mexico to Downtown Los Angeles–this year is no different.Festival opens the portal of Mexico to the entire LA community, so that they can experience more of Mexico’s cultural gems. 2014 is the sixth Hola Mexico anniversary and to celebrate it, festival has something for everyone! For starters, it offers its first ever FREE event in celebration of Dia de Las Madres (Mother’s Day) on May 10th, which is open to the entire community.Hola Mexico starts the day before on May…

THE GIRL AND DEATH, Winner of Best Picture at the Netherlands Film Festival,  is the latest film from Jos Stelling (THE POINTSMAN, THE ILLUSIONIST, THE FLYING DUTCHMAN). THE GIRL AND DEATH is a story about the impossible love between Nicolai and the courtesan Elise; a love that is obstructed by materialism, wealth, and the threat of death. In Russia of the post-WWII era, aging doctor Nicolai returns to an old, abandoned hotel, the place where he first met his great love 50 years ago, and relives his romantic tragedy, a tragedy that happens in the late nineteenth century, and embodies…