Women Without Men follows the story of four different women in Iran during the summer of 1953 when the Anglo-American coup overthrew the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh. Munis (Shabnam Tolouei) does not want to meet the suitor her brother, Amir Khan (Essa Zahir), has invited over; and, in fact, she does not want to marry at all. Munis’ friend Faezeh (Pegah Ferydoni) does want to get married—to Amir; but he is engaged to another. The prostitute Zarin (Orsolya Toth) appears to have reached the end of her tether when her latest john appears as just a faceless man, prompting her to flee the brothel. And the middle-aged Fakhri (Arita Shahrzad) faces her decaying marriage when her old lover returns to her life.
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- 1/24/2014
- by John Keith
- JustPressPlay.net
On Wednesday the Sundance Film Festival unveiled the films competing in late January 2010. Yesterday they announced the rest of the line-up of independent films vying for attention for industry types and the curious public.
The entire list of 53 films is below, but here are a few that stood out to me from the premieres alone:
Mumblecore directors the Duplass Brothers, have a new, untitled movie starring an unusually high-profile cast compared to their usual improvisational crew. John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill, and Catherine Keener. Reilly and Keener are actually in two films at the 2010 festival.
The Company Men, starring Ben Affleck, Kevin Costner, Maria Bello, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper, Rosemarie DeWitt about corporate downsizing.
Rodrigo Cortes’ Buried, starring Ryan Reynolds as a man buried alive in a coffin. I’ve read the script and its great. More on that as soon as I can.
The Runaways, the...
The entire list of 53 films is below, but here are a few that stood out to me from the premieres alone:
Mumblecore directors the Duplass Brothers, have a new, untitled movie starring an unusually high-profile cast compared to their usual improvisational crew. John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill, and Catherine Keener. Reilly and Keener are actually in two films at the 2010 festival.
The Company Men, starring Ben Affleck, Kevin Costner, Maria Bello, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper, Rosemarie DeWitt about corporate downsizing.
Rodrigo Cortes’ Buried, starring Ryan Reynolds as a man buried alive in a coffin. I’ve read the script and its great. More on that as soon as I can.
The Runaways, the...
- 12/5/2009
- by Jeff Leins
- newsinfilm.com
We are 49 days out and counting down to Sundance 2010. Yesterday, we unveiled the list of competition films for the upcoming festival. Today, we have your list of out-of-competition films which include Premieres, Spotlight, New Frontier, and, my personal favorite, Park City at Midnight, which has featured past entries like Black Dynamite, The Descent, and Saw.
Check out next year’s lineup for the out-of-competition films:
Premieres
To showcase the diversity to contemporary independent cinema, the Sundance Film Festival Premieres section offers the latest work from American and international directors as well as world premieres of highly anticipated films. Presented by Entertainment Weekly.
Abel / Mexico, USA (Director: Diego Luna; Screenwriters: Diego Luna and Agusto Mendoza)–A peculiar young boy, blurring reality and fantasy, assumes the responsibilities of a family man in his father’s absence. Cast: Jose Maria Yazpik, Karina Gidi, Carlos Aragon, Christopher Ruiz-Esparza, Gerardo Ruiz-Esparza. World Premiere
Cane Toads:...
Check out next year’s lineup for the out-of-competition films:
Premieres
To showcase the diversity to contemporary independent cinema, the Sundance Film Festival Premieres section offers the latest work from American and international directors as well as world premieres of highly anticipated films. Presented by Entertainment Weekly.
Abel / Mexico, USA (Director: Diego Luna; Screenwriters: Diego Luna and Agusto Mendoza)–A peculiar young boy, blurring reality and fantasy, assumes the responsibilities of a family man in his father’s absence. Cast: Jose Maria Yazpik, Karina Gidi, Carlos Aragon, Christopher Ruiz-Esparza, Gerardo Ruiz-Esparza. World Premiere
Cane Toads:...
- 12/4/2009
- by Kirk
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
In addition to the competition titles which were announced yesterday, Sundance has announced the remainder of their line-up and it includes some titles we’re already familiar with along with a huge number of premieres.
Also on the docket are two new series: Next which showcases low/no budget films and Spotlight which highlights films which festival programmers deem worthy of extra love including Enter the Void (review) and Lourdes (the trailer for which I really liked).
I’m particularly excited to see some of the titles in the New Frontier program but overall, the line-up is an impressive one but the Kristen Stewart fan in me is excited to see her turn as Joan Jett in The Runaways and I think it’s fair to say we’re all dying to see Vincenzo Natali’s hotly anticipated Splice (trailer).
In the Midnight section, Adam Green's Frozen is sounding mighty find,...
Also on the docket are two new series: Next which showcases low/no budget films and Spotlight which highlights films which festival programmers deem worthy of extra love including Enter the Void (review) and Lourdes (the trailer for which I really liked).
I’m particularly excited to see some of the titles in the New Frontier program but overall, the line-up is an impressive one but the Kristen Stewart fan in me is excited to see her turn as Joan Jett in The Runaways and I think it’s fair to say we’re all dying to see Vincenzo Natali’s hotly anticipated Splice (trailer).
In the Midnight section, Adam Green's Frozen is sounding mighty find,...
- 12/3/2009
- QuietEarth.us
Sundance released their slate for 2010. It includes:43 documentaries on the Middle East12 films about friends who 'discover' something33 movies about people you've never heard about1 comedyHopefully the lineup this year is strong but it doesn't look that way compared to last year. Last year we had Push (Precious), that Lil Wayne documentary that never went anywhere, Mystery Team which might make my top ten, Moon, Mike Tyson documentary, Cold Souls. Just so much last January that was excellent. I hope I don't go out therer and freeze my tail off just to see...I don't know, a documentary about a former Pakistani prime minister or something silly like that.Here's the lineup so far: Premieres To showcase the diversity to contemporary independent cinema, the Sundance Film Festival Premieres section offers the latest work from American and international directors as well as world premieres of highly anticipated films. Presented by Entertainment Weekly.
- 12/3/2009
- LRMonline.com
"The Day I Became a Woman" is an engrossing triptych of women's lives in Iran and, by extension, many Middle Eastern societies. In this astonishing first film, director Marzieh Meshkini presents three short stories, which are eventually linked in the final story. Each catches a woman at a different stage of life -- a child, a young adult and an old woman. And each suffers from the emotional trauma -- no, that's not too loaded a word -- of being a woman in that society.
Opening Friday in key markets as part of the Shooting Gallery's spring film series, "Day" might possess staying power in art house venues. Every bit as powerful as Jafar Panahi's "The Circle" -- another blunt statement about the social oppression of Iranian women -- this film catapults Meshkini into the "Someone to Watch" category.
The stories take place on an Iranian island called Kish. In the first episode, a girl (Fatemeh Cheragh Akhtar) awakens one morning to the bewildering insistence by her mother and grandmother that today, her ninth birthday, she has become a woman -- which in this traditional Moslem society means that she can no longer go outside to play with boys.
Learning she was born at noon, which is yet another hour away, she makes a bargain with her mother so that she can go outside as a girl until that time arrives. She is given a long stick, which, when placed in the sand, throws a shadow that gradually shortens as the noon hour approaches.
The second episode sees a young woman (Shabnam Toloui) in a billowing full-length chador competing in a women's bicycle race. First, her husband gallops after her on horseback, demanding that she return home. When she refuses, he returns with a mullah to divorce her on the spot. She is then pursued by the men in her family, then the village elders and, finally, her two brothers.
The final episode turns surreal. An old woman (Azizeh Seddighi) arrives at Kish Airport and hires an army of local boys to help her on a buying spree. In a modern shopping complex, she purchases all sorts of major household appliances and furniture -- things she has always wanted but never had in her life. Wrapped around her fingers are bits of fabric, each to remind her of a major purchase.
She and her young coolies then head for the beach, where, in a scene that would not feel out of place in a Fellini movie, she sets out all her gadgets and appliances on the sand but has no idea how to use them.
In the final moments, when characters from the first two episodes wander through the old lady's bizarre household-by-the-sea, Meshkini reinforces the idea that what we are witnessing is in fact three phases in the same woman's life. The girl cannot understand her sudden loss of freedom. As a young woman, her determination to reclaim part of that freedom comes at a cost. Then, in old age, she has, in a sense, regained that freedom but no longer knows how to use it.
Meshkini, who developed each episode from stories created by her producer Mohsen Makhmalbaf -- who is also her husband and mentor -- finds distinctly visual means to express the key element in each story: the rapidly disappearing shadow of the stick, like sand running out of an hour glass; the galloping horses contrasted with the steadily churning bicycle in the "chase" sequence; and the absurdity of enormous boxes and large consumer goods wheeling through city streets, then winding up on a beach and later on makeshift barges heading to a ship at sea.
"Day" plays like an old silent movie with scant dialogue and such expressive sounds as horses's hooves and bicycle gears. This visual austerity -- the paucity of camera setups and the use of editing to achievement movement -- powerfully conveys the film's emotional content. The director is aided by contributions from cinematographers Ebraheem Ghafouri and Mohammad Ahmadi and editors Shahrzad Pouya and Makhmalbaf as well as folk music that flavors the island's scenic locations.
The actors appear to be mostly nonpros, but what eloquent faces they have. Even those in minor roles bring tremendous energy to this awesome landscape of deprivation.
THE DAY I BECAME A WOMAN
Shooting Gallery
Makhmalbaf Film House
Screenwriter-producer: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Director: Marzieh Meshkini
Directors of photography: Ebraheem Ghafouri, Mohammad Ahmadi
Production designer: Akbar Meshkini
Music: Mohammad Reza Darvishi
Editors: Shahrzad Pouya, Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Color/stereo
Cast:
Girl: Fatemeh Cheragh Akhtar
Woman: Shabnam Toloui
Old Woman: Azizeh Seddighi
Boy: Hassan Nabehan
Husband: Cyrus Kahouri Nejad
Young Boy: Badr Irouni Nejad
Running time -- 78 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Opening Friday in key markets as part of the Shooting Gallery's spring film series, "Day" might possess staying power in art house venues. Every bit as powerful as Jafar Panahi's "The Circle" -- another blunt statement about the social oppression of Iranian women -- this film catapults Meshkini into the "Someone to Watch" category.
The stories take place on an Iranian island called Kish. In the first episode, a girl (Fatemeh Cheragh Akhtar) awakens one morning to the bewildering insistence by her mother and grandmother that today, her ninth birthday, she has become a woman -- which in this traditional Moslem society means that she can no longer go outside to play with boys.
Learning she was born at noon, which is yet another hour away, she makes a bargain with her mother so that she can go outside as a girl until that time arrives. She is given a long stick, which, when placed in the sand, throws a shadow that gradually shortens as the noon hour approaches.
The second episode sees a young woman (Shabnam Toloui) in a billowing full-length chador competing in a women's bicycle race. First, her husband gallops after her on horseback, demanding that she return home. When she refuses, he returns with a mullah to divorce her on the spot. She is then pursued by the men in her family, then the village elders and, finally, her two brothers.
The final episode turns surreal. An old woman (Azizeh Seddighi) arrives at Kish Airport and hires an army of local boys to help her on a buying spree. In a modern shopping complex, she purchases all sorts of major household appliances and furniture -- things she has always wanted but never had in her life. Wrapped around her fingers are bits of fabric, each to remind her of a major purchase.
She and her young coolies then head for the beach, where, in a scene that would not feel out of place in a Fellini movie, she sets out all her gadgets and appliances on the sand but has no idea how to use them.
In the final moments, when characters from the first two episodes wander through the old lady's bizarre household-by-the-sea, Meshkini reinforces the idea that what we are witnessing is in fact three phases in the same woman's life. The girl cannot understand her sudden loss of freedom. As a young woman, her determination to reclaim part of that freedom comes at a cost. Then, in old age, she has, in a sense, regained that freedom but no longer knows how to use it.
Meshkini, who developed each episode from stories created by her producer Mohsen Makhmalbaf -- who is also her husband and mentor -- finds distinctly visual means to express the key element in each story: the rapidly disappearing shadow of the stick, like sand running out of an hour glass; the galloping horses contrasted with the steadily churning bicycle in the "chase" sequence; and the absurdity of enormous boxes and large consumer goods wheeling through city streets, then winding up on a beach and later on makeshift barges heading to a ship at sea.
"Day" plays like an old silent movie with scant dialogue and such expressive sounds as horses's hooves and bicycle gears. This visual austerity -- the paucity of camera setups and the use of editing to achievement movement -- powerfully conveys the film's emotional content. The director is aided by contributions from cinematographers Ebraheem Ghafouri and Mohammad Ahmadi and editors Shahrzad Pouya and Makhmalbaf as well as folk music that flavors the island's scenic locations.
The actors appear to be mostly nonpros, but what eloquent faces they have. Even those in minor roles bring tremendous energy to this awesome landscape of deprivation.
THE DAY I BECAME A WOMAN
Shooting Gallery
Makhmalbaf Film House
Screenwriter-producer: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Director: Marzieh Meshkini
Directors of photography: Ebraheem Ghafouri, Mohammad Ahmadi
Production designer: Akbar Meshkini
Music: Mohammad Reza Darvishi
Editors: Shahrzad Pouya, Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Color/stereo
Cast:
Girl: Fatemeh Cheragh Akhtar
Woman: Shabnam Toloui
Old Woman: Azizeh Seddighi
Boy: Hassan Nabehan
Husband: Cyrus Kahouri Nejad
Young Boy: Badr Irouni Nejad
Running time -- 78 minutes
No MPAA rating...
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