Author: Bijan Tehrani

Ahmad Kiarostami has worked in cinema and software industries for twenty years. After taking on leadership roles at Microsoft Middle East, he founded three companies including the first multimedia and online production venue in Iran, where he published award-winning multimedia products in cinema and visual arts. Ahmad was a member of several national software standard committees, and developed the first full-text search technology for Persian content which was adopted by different products and online newspapers. This technology is used in his personal project, Persopedia, one of the first and biggest online libraries on Persian poetry.Ahmad has made short films and…

An Unlikely Weapon follows Eddie Adams’ journey from a small town newspaper to the Associated Press; the transition from war photography to celebrity photography. Adams’ life brought many opportunities including photographing Arnold Schwarzenegger in a pool with a rubber ducky, and Clint Eastwood in silhouette for the movie Unforgiven. From Penthouse to Time Magazine, and to his founding of a free workshop for young photographers on his farm in upstate New York, Adams’ life went through many changes and evolutions.Eddie Adams photographed 13 wars, 6 American Presidents and every cultural and historical figure of the last 50 years. Eddie’s photograph…

TOKYO SONATA is a portrait of a seemingly ordinary Japanese family. The father who abruptly loses his job conceals the truth from his family; the eldest son in college hardly returns home; the youngest son furtively takes piano lessons without telling his parents; and the mother, who knows deep down that her role is to keep the family together, cannot find the will to do so. From the exterior, all is normal and the same. But somehow, a single, unforeseeable chasm has appeared within the family, threatening to disintegrate them. Born on July 19, 1955 in Kobe, Hyogo prefecture, Japan,…

On the lonely roads of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, two men forge an improbable friendship that will change both of their lives forever. Solo is a Senegalese cab driver working to provide a better life for his young family. William is a tough Southern good ol‘ boy with a lifetime of regrets. One man‘s American dream is just beginning, while the other‘s is quickly winding down. But despite their differences, both men soon realize they need each other more than either is willing to admit. Through this unlikely but unforgettable friendship, GOODBYE SOLO deftly explores the passing of a generation as…

My Marlon and Brando is the true-life, border-crossing romance between a Turkish actress and her Kurdish lover. In this semi-fictional work-up, the real actress earns kudos for taking on her own role in a moving statement on war, human rights and the confining artificiality of borders. Huseyin Karabey, director of My Marlon and Brando, is regarded as one of Turkey’s new directing talents at a time when the independent film scene in Turkey is gaining recognition and Turkish films are receiving a wider distribution worldwide. Despite the challenging subject matter of many of his previous documentaries and short films, Karabey’s…

HUNGER is the stunningly assured debut feature from Turner Prize-winning visual artist Steve McQueen. Winner of the 2008 Cannes Camera d’Or among other top international prizes, the film is a work of astonishing precision co-written by acclaimed Irish playwright Enda Walsh and starring Michael Fassbender (300, Tarantino’s upcoming INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS) in an unflinchingly passionate turn. HUNGER was an official selection of the Toronto, Telluride and New York film festivals. In 1981, a deadly serious battle takes place in the infamous H-block of Belfast’s Maze Prison. Republican inmates, led by Bobby Sands (Fassbender), refuse to eat until the British government acknowledges…

Based on a true story, EVERLASTING MOMENTS explores the complexities of the marriage between Maria (Maria Heiskanen) and Sigfrid Larsson (Mikael Persbrandt), who wed in 1907 and soon had a houseful of children. Sigfrid, a dockworker, alcoholic and womanizer, leaves the worries of family responsibilities to Maria, who one day goes to hock an old camera that she won in a lottery but has never used. Encouraged by the obviously smitten camera shop owner (Jesper Christensen), Maria begins taking and developing photographs, a process that is forever miraculous to her. While she possesses an obvious “gift for seeing,” accumulated family…

Hollywood, California – February 22, 2009 – Tonight Man ON Wire won the Best Documentary Feature Award at Academy Award Ceremony. On August 7th 1974, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit stepped out on a wire illegally rigged between New York’s twin towers, then the world’s tallest buildings. After nearly an hour dancing on the wire, he was arrested, taken for psychological evaluation, and brought to jail before he was finally released. Following six and a half years of dreaming of the towers, Petit spent eight months in New York City planning the execution of the coup. Aided by a…

Revanche starts in a late summer. A small lake in the woods. No people. Silence. Not far away, a newly built house inhabited by a couple: Robert (Andreas Lust) and Susanne (Ursula Strauss). They live an ordinary life like so many other people. Meanwhile in Vienna. Nightlife, red light district, the world of prostitution. Here money rules. Most people have jobs that barely let them scrape by. Like Alex and Tamara (Johannes Krisch and Irina Potapenko). She is a prostitute from Ukraine; he, the boss’ errand boy. They are lovers, but they have to keep it a secret. Employees aren’t…

The Baader Meinhof Complex happens in Germany in the 1970s: Murderous bomb attacks, the threat of terrorism and the fear of the enemy inside are rocking the very foundations of the yet fragile German democracy. The radicalised children of the Nazi generation lead by Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin are fighting a violent war against what they perceive as the new face of fascism: American imperialism supported by the German establishment, many of whom have a Nazi past. Their aim is to create a more human society but by employing inhuman means they not only spread terror and…