Author: Bijan Tehrani

Midnight’s Children is an epic film from Oscar-nominated director Deepa Mehta, based on the Booker Prize-winning novel by Salman Rushdie.At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, as India declares independence from Great Britain, two newborn babies are switched by a nurse in a Bombay hospital. Saleem Sinai, the illegitimate son of a poor woman, and Shiva, the offspring of a wealthy couple, are fated to live the destiny meant for each other. Their lives become mysteriously intertwined and are inextricably linked to India’s whirlwind journey of triumphs and disasters.From the unlikely romance of Saleem’s grandparents to the birth…

JOSHUA TREE, 1951, A PORTRAIT OF JAMES DEAN Deandirected by Matthew Mishory, is an intimate portrait of James Dean on the cusp of achieving notoriety as both a great actor and an American icon. Set primarily in the early 1950s and focusing on Dean’s experiences as an up-and-coming actor in Los Angeles, the film is a series of revealing and sometimes dreamlike vignettes that blend biographical and fictionalized elements to present a pivotal moment in a remarkable life. Bijan Tehrani: What inspired you to make this film?Matthew Mishory: Making a film for me is always very personal. Conceptually, it was…

Augustine is an examination of the real case story and unusual relationship between Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot, the pioneering 19th century French neurologist – whom Sigmund Freud studied under – and Augustine, his star teenage patient. After suffering an inexplicable seizure which leaves her paralyzed on her right side, 19-year-old illiterate kitchen maid Augustine (27 year-old singer-turned-actress Soko in a break out performance), is shipped off to Paris’ all female psychiatric hospital Pitié-Salpêtriere which specializes in detecting the then-fashionable ailment of ‘hysteria’. Augustine captures the attention of Dr. Charcot (Vincent Lindon, Mademoiselle Chambon, Welcome) after a seizure, which appears to give…

American Cinematheque is a Los Angeles Mecca for fans of cinema as art, especially international cinema. To learn more about the activities of the American Cinematheque, we talked to Barbara Zicka Smith, who co-founded the American Cinematheque. Barbara Zicka Smith has served as the organization’s Executive Director since 1992. Currently, she is involved in developing the historic Egyptian Theater in Hollywood as the permanent home of the American Cinematheque. Prior to her involvement with the Cinematheque, Smith was the Associate Director of the legendary Los Angeles International Film Exposition (FILMEX) from 1977 to 1983. Bijan Tehrani: Please tell us about…

Sony’s New SLT Camera, A-58, will appear in major electronic stores early next week. To learn more about SLT cameras and specifically A-58 and how it could help the filmmakers, we interviewed Mark Weir, Senior Manager of Technology for Sony Electronics Digital Imaging. We will follow this interview with a Sony SLT A58 review and soon with a series of reviews using Sony SLT A99. Bijan Tehrani: Please tell us a little bit about the SLT technology and how it is different from the traditional SLR technology. Mark Weir: Traditional SLR technology, at least when it regards the mirror, has…

Sony Pictures Classics has been one of the main players in introduing the world cinema in U.S. Michael Barker* and Tom Bernard are co-presidents of Sony Pictures Classics—an autonomous division of Sony Pictures Entertainment founded in January 1992 (with Marcie Bloom) that distributes, produces and acquires independent films from the United States and around the world. The team has worked with many of the world’s finest independent filmmakers including Woody Allen, Pedro Almodóvar, Robert Altman, Allison Anders, Hector Babenco, Kenneth Branagh, Ingmar Bergman, John Boorman, Francis Ford Coppola, David Cronenberg, Luc Dardenne, Jonathan Demme, Guillermo del Toro, Atom Egoyan, R.W.…

UCLA Film & Television Archive continue its long tradition tracing the unfolding of Iran’s fascinating national cinema. Continually offering compelling new voices and visions, Iranian film responds to a rich storytelling heritage and enters into crucial dialogue with other world cultural and artistic traditions in its unique interplay of social inquiry and formal experimentation. This edition of the UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema offers a panoply of genres and storytelling modes, sampling the contributions of an array of film artists, working in widely varying settings and focused on diverse topics. 2013 Celebration of Iranian Cinema opens April 13 and continues…

A palpable sense of unease hangs over a single city block in the coastal town of Recife, Brazil. Home to prosperous families and the servants who work for them, the area is ruled by an aging patriarch and his sons. When a private security firm is reluctantly brought in to protect the residents from a recent spate of petty crime, it unleashes the fears, anxieties and resentments of a divided society still haunted by its troubled past. Kleber Mendonça Filho, director of Neighboring Sounds, was born in 1968 in Recife, Brazil. He graduated with a degree in journalism and has worked…

In 1980 Stanley Kubrick released his classic horror film, THE SHINING. Over 30 years later, viewers are still struggling to understand its hidden meanings. Loved and hated by equal numbers, the film is considered a genre standard by many loyalists, while other viewers dismiss it as the lazy result of a legendary director working far below his talent level. In between these two poles, however, live the theories of ardent fans who are convinced they have decoded THE SHINING’s secret messages regarding genocide, government conspiracy, and the nightmare that we call history. Ascher’s ROOM 237 fuses fact and fiction through…

Filmistaan happens In Mumbai, where affable Bollywood buff and wanna-be-actor Sunny, who works as an assistant director, fantasizes on becoming a heart-throb star. However, at every audition he is summarily thrown out. Undeterred, he goes with an American crew to remote areas in Rajasthan to work on a documentary. One day an Islamic terrorist group kidnaps him for the American crew-member. Sunny finds himself on enemy border amidst guns and pathani-clad guards, who decide to keep him hostage until they locate their original target. The house In which he is confined belongs to a Pakistani, whose trade stems from pirated…