UCLA’s 17th Celebration of Iranian Cinema
This film festival is almost reason enough to move back to LA: from March 31 to May 16, UCLA is showing Iranian movies. I’m kicking myself for not remembering this was going on much sooner; only a little more than a week left! The photo above is from Mehrdad Oskouie’s Damagh Be Sabke Irani, or “Nose, Iranian Style.”
I also suggest BEST IN THE WEST. It was shown at UCLA but it also has another screening tonight at Laemmle’s Sunset 5. Here is the info:
VC FILMFEST 2007
SATURDAY, MAY 05 – 04:30 PM | Laemmle’s Sunset 5
http://www.vconline.org/festival/program.cfm?program_id=16
BEST IN THE WEST
Throughout the 1960′s and 70′s thousands of young men and women left Iran to seek education and opportunity abroad. A group of particularly adventurous and charismatic friends met up in San Francisco. BEST IN THE WEST locates their experiences, as young men establishing their lives in a new country, within the context of the Vietnam War, changes in Iran, and the social, political, and musical atmosphere of San Francisco in the 60′s and 70′s. The parallel history of the Iranian oil industry and its relationship to American oil companies and the growth in American consumption provides a surprising and ironic counterpoint. Originally shot on 16mm and miniDV, the film also incorporates archival images of a pre-revolutionary Iran and an oil-hungry America and a lively soundtrack of Iranian music and American R&B, funk, and soul.