Iran Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Murtada Elfadl Revolutions bring hope for a better life and strength in community. “Immortals,” a documentary about young Iraqi activists, deals with the aftermath of 2019’s October Protest Movement. What happens when the promise of a better life has been hijacked by insidious political forces? An insightful look into the social and political fabric of modern Iraq, Maja Tschumi‘s film shows the quiet desperation of losing hope and having raging emotions that cannot be outwardly expressed.

Iranian filmmaker Farahnaz Sharifi’s My Stolen Planet won the Golden Alexander at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival today, automatically qualifying the film for Oscar consideration.

Christopher Vourlias Iranian filmmaker Farahnaz Sharifi‘s “My Stolen Planet,” an intimate family portrait of life during Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, won the Golden Alexander at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival on Sunday, bringing a close to an emotional and politically charged week in Greece’s second city. Using both the director’s personal archives and 8mm recordings of strangers’ lives, the film — which world premiered in the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama strand — uses an essayistic style to present the joy and vitality of life in Tehran in the 1970s, in contrast with the oppression imposed on the Iranian people by the country’s hardline regime.

Callum McLennan “House of Gods,” a Matchbox Pictures six-part series, boasting an entirely Arab Australian cast, presents a perspective seldom seen on screen, a Muslim community in Fairfield, Australia. “You can’t manufacture authenticity. Audiences are so intuitive and adept, they can smell if something is off a mile away.

The Independent Iranian Filmmakers Association (IIFMA) has written to AMPAS to protest the omission of murdered director Dariush Mehrjui from the In Memoriam segment of the Academy Award on Sunday night.

Kensington Palace, the home of Prince William and Princess Catherine (aka Kate Middleton), has been deemed untrustworthy by a major news agency.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Two-time Oscar-winning director Asghar Farhadi has been fully cleared by an Iranian court of allegations of plagiarism pertaining to his film “A Hero” that launched from the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. Farhadi’s former student Azadeh Masihzadeh had accused the filmmaker of stealing the idea for “A Hero” from a documentary she made during a filmmaking workshop held by Farhadi in 2014 in Tehran.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy, where debate over violence against women is currently raging, is celebrating International Women’s Day by becoming the first country to theatrically release “Tatami,” a female empowerment thriller about an Iranian judo fighter that made a splash in Venice and marks the first collaboration by Iranian and Israeli filmmakers. Italy’s BIM Distribuzione is bowing “Tatami” – which is co-helmed by Iranian actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi (“Holy Spider) and Israeli director Guy Nattiv – on 90 local movie screens on Friday as an International Women’s Day special preview at a discounted €3.50 ($3.80) ticket price.

Savina Petkova Women dancing, women singing, women burning their hijab: these acts of defiance shape Iranian filmmaker Farahnaz Sharifi’s feature-length debut, “My Stolen Planet.” After premiering in Berlinale’s Panorama section and winning a second place Audience Award, the film now competes for the Golden Alexander at Thessaloniki International Doc Fest. Prior to her feature, Sharifi made eight shorts while working as an editor for documentaries, including Firouzeh Khosrovani’s IDFA winning “Radiograph of a Family.” Using the essayistic style of a diary, “My Stolen Planet” presents the joy and vivaciousness in contrast with the regimented oppression in Tehran using both the director’s personal archives and 8mm recordings of strangers’ lives.

Two well-reviewed indies are taking a bow in limited release in the shadow of Dune, A24’s Problemista by Julio Torres, and Shayda from Sony Pictures Classics, the feature debut of Noora Niasari.

Siddhant Adlakha Aliyar Rasti’s excellent Iranian feature debut, “The Great Yawn of History,” wrestles with faith and disillusionment during a woebegone treasure hunt. Pious, middle-aged Beitollah (Mohammad Aghebati) believes his recurring dreams of finding gold coins at the end of a dark cave.

With his debut feature Last Swim, an ambitious and quietly radical portrait of young life in London, Sasha Nathwani has achieved one of the most difficult tasks for a new filmmaker: cutting through with a festival audience. 

Addie Morfoot Contributor HBO Documentary Films’ “A Revolution on Canvas,” about Iranian revolutionary artist and activist Nickzad “Nicky” Nodjoumi, is set to debut on HBO and Max on March 5. The 95-minute docu directed by his daughter, Sara Nodjoumi, and her husband, Till Schauder (“When God Sleeps”), is an art-heist-thriller-meets-portrait doc that recounts how Nickzad was forced to flee Iran in 1980 due to the controversial nature of his paintings on display at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.

EXCLUSIVE: TV and film writers will want to circle this one in their calendars: Poor Things and The Favourite producer Element Pictures is launching Storyhouse, a new Dublin-based screenwriting festival that will celebrate storytellers and storytelling.

Mahin’s friend Pouran likes talking about her ailments, real and imagined. More than that, she has something on her phone she is keen to show the ladies gathered for one of their regular lunches at Mahin’s place: the film she made of her colonoscopy. “That’s disgusting,” snorts Mahin (Lily Farhadpour). “I told her to marry! You wouldn’t be like this if you had!” Another of their wrinkly gang chips in. “What joy did our dead husbands ever bring us?” They all laugh, companionably.

EXCLUSIVE: Cinetic Media has signed award-winning Iranian filmmaker Babak Jalali (Fremont, Land) for management across all media.

When the Oscar nominations were announced last month, it marked a watershed moment for the Documentary Feature category. All the nominated films focused on international subjects – stories from Uganda, Tunisia, Ukraine, India and Chile — and not a single American director was recognized.

A UK-registered cargo ship, the Rubymar, is in danger of sinking after being attacked by Yemen's Houthi rebels, the group has said.

Naman Ramachandran British actor Solly McLeod‘s career is on an upward trajectory with Berlin-premiering “Last Swim” and Viggo Mortensen-directed “The Dead Don’t Hurt,” which premiered at Toronto 2023 and is bound for Glasgow next. Set over a hot summer day in London as the high-school year is ending, “Last Swim,” from feature debutant Sasha Nathwani, follows British-Iranian teen Ziba (Deba Hekmat) as she leads her friends on an eventful journey across the city, culminating in a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event. McLeod plays Shea, one of the key members of the group.

Christopher Vourlias A cross-country journey in search of a mysterious treasure puts the nature of faith to the test in “The Great Yawn of History,” the feature debut of Iranian director Aliyar Rasti, which premieres Feb. 23 in the competitive Encounters section of the Berlin Film Festival. The film tells the story of a man of wavering religious conviction who dreams of a box of gold hidden in a cave.

EXCLUSIVE: Alpha Violet has acquired world sales rights for Uruguayan filmmaking duo Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge’s new drama Don’t You Let Me Go, exploring themes of friendship and death.

Jessica Kiang How late is too late? It’s a question that besets Mahin (Lily Farhadpour) a 70-year-old retired nurse who sleeps late, whose late husband is late by 30 years, and who is beginning to wonder if her loneliness might become untenable as late-life gets later still. But the question could also be asked of “My Favourite Cake” itself, which after leaning into Farhadpour’s ample charisma and the lovely, whimsical chemistry she strikes up with co-star Esmail Mehrabi, takes a strangely bitter turn in its home stretch, like a spongy confection whose dangerously high sucrose levels you are only just getting used to, when an unwelcome bit of grit chips a tooth.

Berlinale, which looks to be one of the most politically charged editions in recent history. Several filmmakers have already canceled their participation to the festival in protest of Germany’s attitude towards Palestinian voices, while more than 50 Berlinale workers have signed an open letter this week demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and asking that the festival leadership take a “stronger institutional stance” on what the statement calls “the current assault on Palestinian life” and calling on the festival to take a stance that is “consistent with those taken in response to other events that have struck the international community in recent years.” The war in Gaza followed Hamas’ attacks on Israel on Oct.

Iranian filmmakers Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghadam’s new feature My Favourite Cake world premieres at the Berlinale on Friday but the directors are not at the festival having been slapped with a travel ban by Iran’s authoritarian Islamic Republic regime.

Ellise Shafer Directors Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeh were banned by Iranian authorities from traveling to this year’s Berlin Film Festival, where their film “My Favourite Cake” is premiering in competition. At the film’s press conference on Friday morning, actors Lily Farhadpour and Esmail Mehrabi delivered a powerful message from the directors in the form of a letter as a photo of the two was propped up besides their empty seats. “Today, a film which we have spent three years of our lives making will be shown here, unfortunately, without our presence.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Iranian director duo Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha were recently banned by Iranian authorities from traveling to this year’s Berlin Film Festival, where their drama “My Favourite Cake” is premiering in competition. The film is about a 70-year-old woman named Mahin who has been living alone in Tehran ever since her husband died and her daughter left for Europe. Suddenly an incident prompts Mahin to break her solitary routine and revitalize her love life.

Naman Ramachandran The late Pema Tseden‘s “Snow Leopard” (China) won the top prize, the Golden Cyclo, at the Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema on Tuesday. The film, which previously won awards at the Tokyo and Hainan festivals, also won Vesoul’s National Institute of Oriental Languages ​​and Civilizations (INALCO) jury prize and actor Tseten Tashi scored a jury special mention. Pema Tseden (aka Wanmacaidan) died in May last year, age 53.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Paris-based sales and production outfit Totem Films has closed a slew of sales ahead of the Berlinale premieres of their Competition title “My Favourite Cake,” and the Panorama opening film “Crossing.” Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha‘s “My Favourite Cake” sold to Cherry Pickers for Benelux, Camera for Denmark, Arizona for France, Triart for Sweden, Cineworx for Switzerland and BIR for Turkey. Levan Akin‘s “Crossing” sold to Imagine for Benelux, New Story for France, Lucky Red for Italy, Avalon for Spain and Cineworx for Switzerland. As announced previously, a multi-territory deal was also signed with Mubi.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The 26th Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival has revealed the lineup of the International Competition section, which includes “A New Kind of Wilderness,” winner of the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema – Documentary section of Sundance Film Festival. Thessaloniki Documentary Festival runs from March 7-17.