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REDCAT features LA Premieres of Films from Iran

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January 13, 2006, Los Angeles -- REDCAT, the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater presents two works directed or co-directed by Iranian women, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad and Mania Akbari, Monday January 30, 2005, at 8:00 p.m., the next film in the Jack H. Skirball Screening Series, curated by Steve Anker and Bérénice Reynaud.

The evening begins with Six Video Arts (Iran 2003-2005, 30 min., DVD, US Premiere) by Mania Akbari. In these reflexive, experimental short pieces (Self, Repression, Sin, Escape, Fear and Devastation), Akbari reveals the complex layers of a contemporary Iranian woman's psyche. She explores the formal possibilities of video art -- variations on form, shape, color, movement, rhythm, sound-track and multi-screen image -- to express the tension between tradition and desire, rituals and self-expression.

Trained as a painter, Akbari veered toward cinema in 2000, first as a director of photography, then as an assistant director. In 2002, she starred in Abbas Kiarostami's Ten. In 2003, she co-directed the documentary Crystal, and in 2004 wrote, directed and acted in her first feature, 20 Fingers, which won the Venezia Digitale Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

In Gilaneh (Iran 2005, 84 min., 35mm, Los Angeles premiere), Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Iran's premier woman director, teams up with long-time collaborator Mohsen Abdolvahab to condemn the horrors of war. In 1988, peasant widow Gilaneh sees her son Ismaeel (Bahram Radan) drafted into the Iran-Iraq War. Her pregnant daughter Maygol (Baran Kosari) decides to go to Tehran to look for her husband who has stayed behind. Gilaneh accompanies her in her perilous, difficult journey, while frightened inhabitants and shell-shocked soldiers flee in the opposite direction.

The film's second half jumps ahead 15 years: Gilaneh is now caring for the bedridden Ismaeel -- a war veteran ravaged by chemical weapons -- as the United States begins its assault on Baghdad… Graced by an extraordinary performance by Fatemeh Motamed Arya as Gilaneh, the film is a timely reminder of what the Iran-Iraq War, and later the US War against Iraq, felt like from the point of view of disempowered Iranian peasants - as well as a tribute to the quiet, powerful, yet bitter, resilience of women in time of war.

Gilaneh marks Rakhshan Bani-Etemad's return to her efforts to document the Iran-Iraq war at the beginning of her career. She produced a number of television documentaries on the subject that were quite controversial at the time. In 1989, she directed her first feature, Off the Limits, a comedy attacking bureaucratic mores, and continued with a series of award winning films, often centered on female characters (Nargess, 1992; The Blue Veiled, 1995; Under the Skin of the City, 2000) and exploring a combination of documentary and fiction (The May Lady, 1998). In 2002, she directed, Our Times, a feature-length documentary on the Iranian elections, shown at REDCAT in February 2004.

A collaborator of Rakhshan Bani-Etemad since Nargess (1992), Mohsen Abdolvahab has edited more than 30 documentaries and features, and directed many documentaries including Lokh Mazar (2000), The Wives of Haj Abbas (2001) and The Heritage of the Sun (2002). Gilaneh is his first feature film as co-director.

Screening organized in collaboration with the UCLA Film & Television Archive in conjunction with The 16th Annual Celebration of Iranian Cinema (Jan 13-Feb 11).

  • Friday January 13 2006: Iron Island (Jazireh Ahani, 2005) Directed by Mohammad Rasoulof
  • Saturday January, 14 2006: We Are All Fine (Ma Hameh Khoubim, 2005) Directed by Bijan Mirbagheri
  • Saturday January 21 2006: Wake Up, Arezoo! (Bidar Show, Arezoo!, 2005) Directed by Kianoush Ayyari
  • Friday January 27 2006: Portrait of a Lady Far Away (Sima-ye Zani Dar Doordast, 2005) Directed by Ali Mosaffa -- preceded by: Reattachment (video, 2002) Directed by Saeed Nouri
  • Friday February 3 2006 and Sunday February 5 2006: One Night (Yek Shab, 2005) Directed by Niki Karimi
  • Wednesday February 8 2006: A Piece of Bread (Yek Teke Nan, 2005) Directed by Kamal Tabrizi
  • Saturday February 11 2006: So Close, So Far (Kheili Dour, Kheili Nazdik, 2005) Directed by Reza Mirkarimi

See www.cinema.ucla.edu for detailed schedule and ticket information

REDCAT, CalArts' downtown center for innovative visual, performing and media arts, is located at the corner of W. 2nd St. and S. Hope St., inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex. Tickets are $8 for the general public, $6 for students with valid ID. Seating is general admission. Tickets may be purchased at the REDCAT box office--located at the corner of 2nd and Hope Streets, by calling 213.237.2800, or by clicking here.

Upcoming Jack H. Skirball Screening Series, Spring/Winter 2006:

Monday, February 6: Britta Sjögren: In This Short Life
Monday, February 27: Patrick and Michčle Bokanowski: Angel's Flight
Monday, March 13: Jem Cohen: ChainLover Other
Monday, April 17: Allan Sekula: The Lottery of the Sea
Monday, May 1: The Devotional Cinema of Nathaniel Dorsky
Monday, May 8: Liu Jiayin: Oxhide
Monday, May 22: Sharon Lockhart: Pine Flat

REDCAT benefits from an endowment created through the generosity of The Walt Disney Company; The Sharon D. Lund Foundation; Robert B. Egelston; Lee and Lawrence J. Ramer; and Dorothy R. Sherwood.

REDCAT's 2005-06 season programming is generously supported by The Herb Alpert Foundation; American Composers Forum of Los Angeles; The Annenberg Foundation; Anonymous; Argosy Foundation Contemporary Music Fund; Barry Blumberg; California Community Foundation; Campari; The Canadian Consulate General, Los Angeles; The Capital Group Companies Charitable Foundation (Corporate matching gift); CEMAT (Centri Musicali Attrezzati, Rome); City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department; CONACULTA; The Consulate General of the Netherlands, Los Angeles; Margit Sperling Cotsen and Lloyd Cotsen; Cultural Services of the French Embassy; Delphi Capital Management, Inc.; Tim Disney; e-flux; Étant donnés, The French-American Fund for the Visual Arts, a program of the French American Cultural Exchange; Ford Foundation; The French-American Fund for Contemporary Music, a program of FACE; French Cultural Services, Los Angeles; French Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Harriett and Richard Gold; Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg; Elyse and Stanley Grinstein; Henson International Festival of Puppet Theater; IIC (Instituto Italiano di Cultura, Los Angeles); The Japan Foundation Performing Arts JAPAN; La Colección Jumex; kurimanzutto; L.A. Louver Gallery, Inc.; The Sharon D. Lund Foundation; Steve Martin; Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam; National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts; National Endowment for the Arts; E. Nakamichi Foundation; Phaedrus Foundation; Vicki Reynolds Pepper and Murray Pepper; The Puffin Foundation, Inc.; Barry Sanders; V. Joy Simmons; The Skirball Foundation; SONORA, in collaboration with Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Italy; Catharine Soros; Eve Steele and Peter Gelles; Dallas Price-Van Breda; Viacom Outdoor; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; and White Cube Gallery, London.

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