Gilaneh by Rakhshan Beni-Etimad and Mohsen Abdolvahab. Iran, 84 min, 2005, Beta SP
The year is 1988, Iraqi bombs rain down on Tehran while Iranians celebrate the New Year. Gilaneh, a peasant widow whose son Ismaeel has gone off to war, travels with her pregnant daughter Maygol to Tehran. Terrified and uncertain of what they will find there, mother and daughter make the perilous trip into the capital city, just as its inhabitants are fleeing in the opposite direction.
Fifteen years later, the United States attacks Baghdad. Ismaeel has long since returned from the earlier war, his body devastated by chemical weapons. A weathered Gilaneh cares for him day and night. The television flashes with scenes of the new war in which Iraq is now the invaded and not the invader, but Gilaneh is too estranged from world affairs to pay attention. She has sacrificed everything for her children, but her own hopes and dreams have been aborted by war and she is marked with bitterness and regret. In Persian w/English subtitles
Feb 14, 6:30 pm @ Cantor Film Center, 36 E. 8th St, New York NY 10003
Advanced tickets available @ www.arteeast.org or call 718.282.5938
General: $10, Student/Senior: $8
From: ArteEast
Panel discussion: War in Iranian Cinema
Moderated by Shouleh Vatanabadi (Prof. of Global Cultures, General Studies, Arts & Sciences, NYU)
Discussants:
Pari Shirazi (Associate Dean Tisch school of Arts, NYU)
Amir Mossavi (Middle East Studies Department, NYU)
Asal Shakeri, series curator
FREE
Feb 14, 8:30 @ Cantor Film Center, 36 E. 8th St, New York NY 10003
For more info: www.arteeast.org or call 718.282.5938
From: ArteEast