Author: Bijan Tehrani

Set in the 1970s, Mighty Fine is the story of Joe Fine (Chazz Palminteri) a charismatic, high spirited man, who relocates his family—wife Stella (Andie MacDowell), daughters Natalie (Jodelle Ferland) and Maddie (Rainey Qualley)—from Brooklyn to New Orleans, in search of a better life. Joe’s devotion to his family knows no bounds, and he seeks to provide them with the ultimate in the good life, from a lavish home to a steady string of extravagant gifts.Unfortunately, Joe’s spending spree is wildly out of touch with reality, as his apparel business is teetering on the brink of collapse, a fact he…

Finding Mabel is a gripping documentary that follows a young woman’s journey to Argentina, to piece together the enigmatic disappearance of the woman she was named after, one of the 30,000 people who disappeared during Argentina’s last military dictatorship. Part scavenger hunt, part self-discovery, Finding Mabel intelligently weaves Argentina’s recent dark past with today’s polarizing struggle for justice.Eileen Reardon is a first generation Argentine American who holds a BA in Philosophy from UCLA, and an MFA from The New School for Drama in New York. She is a proud life member of The Actors Studio (LA & NYC) and was…

The first annual Czech Filmfest 2012 will take place at the Cinefamily Theater in Hollywood between May 16 to May 24, 2012. The festival will introduce both new and classic Czech movies to film audiences in Los Angeles, and several successful directors and actors will be present to promote their films. The 2012 Czech Filmfest has been organized by the Consulate General of the Czech Republic in Los Angeles and the Czech Film Center in Prague in cooperation with the Cinefamily in Hollywood and the Czech Center in New York, with support of Milk & Honey Films, Prague Studios, the…

My Way, an epic telling of a WWII story that no one has ever heard before, is the latest film from Korea’s game-changing Director Jegyu Kang After emerging as bitter rivals and enemies as young marathon runners, Korean native Kim Jun-shik and Japanese aristocrat Tatsuo Hasegawa both find themselves in the Japanese army, fighting the Chinese and Soviets in a bloody battle. Jun-shik is there under duress, while Tatsuo is a powerful colonel. After both are taken prisoner by the Soviets, their mutual hatred and mistrust boils over into a violence that is only stopped by the continuing horror of…

Fightville examines the world of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), which over the past decade has grown from a controversial gladiatorial sideshow into a billion-dollar international industry. But Fightville looks beyond the spotlight of Las Vegas and focuses on the fighters, promoters and trainers who populate MMA’s not-quite-as-bright regional landscape in the American South, including current MMA powerhouse Dustin Poirier and veteran trainer “Crazy” Tim Credeur. It’s there—specifically in the local strip mall gyms and rodeo arenas of Lafayette, Louisiana—that a group of dedicated, determined young men enter caged arenas to brutally fight for a chance at glory, success, and a…

17 Girls is based on a headline-grabbing incident in the U.S., sister directing duo Delphine and Muriel Coulin’s provocative debut feature – which they also co-wrote – follows the fallout in a sleepy French coastal town of Brittany, when a group of 17 teenage girls from the same high school all decide to become pregnant at the same time, an act at once unexpected and incomprehensible to the adults and the boys in their world. 17 Girls one of the new French films at 2012 COL*COA Film Festival, has been directed by sister filmmakers Delphine and Muriel Coulin. Bijan Tehrani:…

A few days ago and after posting my interview with Parviz Sayyad, the Iranian filmmaker, Shannon Kelley, Head of Public Programs at UCLA Film & Television Archive, contacted me to clarify a few issues that was discussed in my interview with Mr. Sayyad.I also used this opportunity to ask a few questions from Shannon about UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema. Bijan Tehrani: I know one of the reasons we are doing this interview is to give more information about the UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema for 2012 and also you had some comments on CWB’s interview with Parviz Sayyad’s I…

After several years of absence we can see again a special presentation of Croatian films at American Cinematheque in Los Angeles. The new series, called Kino Croatia, will take place April 13th through April 15th at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica. It is presented in co- operation with Consulate General of Croatia in Los Angeles and their partners, and supported by E.L.M.A. (European Languages and Movies in America).We had a conversation about Kino Croatia with Mr. Marijan Orešnik, consul for culture and media at the Croatian Consulate in Los Angeles and two people who helped compile the series: the…

City of Lights, City of Angels (COL•COA) was created in 1996 by The Franco-American Cultural Fund, a unique collaborative effort of the Directors Guild of America, the Motion Picture Association, the Writers Guild of America West, and France’s Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music (SACEM). COL•COA is also supported by l’Association des Auteurs-Réalisateurs-Producteurs (ARP), the Film and TV Office of the French Embassy in Los Angeles and UNIFRANCE. COL•COA is committed to promoting new French films in the U.S. and to showcasing the vitality and the diversity of French cinema in Hollywood: comedies and dramas, box office hits…

Parviz Sayyad actor, writer, film, theater and television director and producer is one of the most famous actors among the masses in Iran while among the film fans and film critics he is known films that he has directed and produced. Sayyad that started his career at 1960 in Iranian National Television is an Iranian example of what French new wave critics called an “author”, he creates his characters, writes his own screenplays and directs them with a recognizable style. One of the memorable acting performances in history of acting in Iran was by Parviz Sayyad, playing a leading part…