A joint film of Iran, Germany, and Canada, ‘Metamorphosis in the Slaughterhouse,’ directed by Javad Daraei, won Best Film Award and Best Sound Design Award (Hossein Qourchian) at the 8th Veracruz World Film Festival in Mexico.
The film narrates the story of a family who must move from their village, ifilmtv.ir reported.
Shadi was a little girl when her parents were accused of murdering a girl and thus killed by the villagers. She was then adopted by her uncle and grew up under his care. Now, Shadi must face the problems caused by the village residents.
Fariba Talebi, Saeed Ahmadi, Fariba Torkashvand, Farahnaz Manafi-Zaher, Rahmat Shekarkhandeh, Foujan Ahmadi, Mahshid Khosravi, Iman Sarraf, Arezou Balali-Dehkordi, Sarina Yousefi, Mohammad Eqlimi, Amir-Abbas Qazaee, and Avin Kouhzadeh are among the film’s cast.
The film has been screened in several international film festivals including the International Children’s Film Festival Bangladesh, the International Film Festival Cyprus, the Salerno International Film Festival and the Efebo d’Oro, the International Prize for Cinema and Narrative, both in Italy.
The Veracruz World Film Festival accepts independent films made with very small or even no budget movies, which have no strong support.

 

The official Instagram account of British actress Emma Watson expressed solidarity with Palestinians in a new post, eliciting widespread support from pro-Palestine users but also drawing strong criticism from Israeli officials.
The account of the film star, known for her role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, shared a picture from a pro-Palestinian rally with the phrase, “Solidarity is a verb”.
The picture was originally posted in May last year by the Bad Activism Collective after Israel carried out an 11-day deadly offensive on the besieged Gaza Strip. At the time, a number of celebrities had weighed in on the conflict, with figures such as Bella Hadid and Susan Sarandon posting messages in support of Palestinians, reported aljazeera.com.
In the caption, there is a quote from British-Australian activist Sara Ahmed, saying: “Solidarity does not assume that our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain, or that our hope is for the same future.
“Solidarity involves commitment, and work, as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common ground.”
The post, which by Tuesday had nearly one million likes and more than 89,000 comments, was hailed by pro-Palestine social media users. Many thanked Watson for her support, while some added the hashtags #FreePalestine and #PalestineWillBeFree to their comments.
On the other hand, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, criticised the post.
“Fiction may work in Harry Potter but it does not work in reality,” he wrote on Twitter.
His comments followed those of former Israeli ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon.
“10 points from Gryffindor for being an antisemite,” Danon tweeted.
Several social media users slammed Danon for his comments.
Leah Greenberg, the co-executive director of Indivisible Project, a non-profit organisation founded in 2016 in response to the election of Donald Trump as United States president, dismissed Danon’s accusations, saying they were “a perfect demonstration of the utterly cynical and bad-faith weaponisation of antisemitism to shut down basic expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people.”
Palestinian journalist and activist Mohammed El-Kurd, who played a crucial role in raising international awareness about the forced eviction of Palestinians in the occupied East Al-Quds neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, responded saying that Watson’s “simple statement” had left “Zionists everywhere … in a
frenzy”.

By Hasti Roshani*

“So stupid to put all your hopes in a promise that was never made,” said Kate Winslet in the ‘Revolutionary Road’. That’s almost what happened with the social media for the youth my age. Almost. A promise was made, at least implicitly. A promise to facilitate life, to make communication easier and more effective, to lead a more productive career. To make living safer and more secure.
“You can get to know people from the comfort of your privacy without having to meet in public,” says Niloufar, 20, a student of medicine.
Another testimony comes from Elena, 13, a high school student: “Instead of laboring for hours in old-fashioned libraries, a quick search in the web can provide me with a lot of information within minutes.”
And, of course, there were perceived advantages of e-learning, especially in the time of the coronavirus: “The pandemic made home-staying kids use the new technologies to catch up with their schoolwork,” says Linda, 42, mother of two.
The distance, of course, lends enchantment to the view. In practice, such promises are only half-delivered, if not broken altogether. There are obvious cases of frustration.
“Lack of physical evidence makes it harder to trust people,” said Raha, 25, master of business administration, who lost some serious money to a fraudulent Instagram shop.
“I ordered a beautiful dress to wear at my sister’s engagement party. I paid 35 dollars in advance. And what I got was so horrible that could only be worn at a tacky party.”
And there are more hidden costs to bear. To begin with, there is the issue of wasted time.
“On many occasions, I have suddenly noticed that I have spent many hours wandering about aimlessly in the web,” said Elena.
That lost time often translates into wasted money, especially for the net bandwidth which the users unconsciously spend while browsing the web for god-knows-what as they lose focus. Explaining its adverse effect on e-learning, Linda lamented, as is expected of mothers of the new generation, “When they are meant to study, the kids frequently use their cellphones to check social media, like Instagram photos, or chat with their friends.”
And the users tend to lose other valuable things usually taken for granted.
“Lacking face-to-face contact, teachers and students cannot make an easy connection as they just look at a screen. It just doesn’t click between them!” said Leila, 40, a high school teacher.
Such ebbs and flows of collective hopes and frustrations in dealing with a new technology are especially interesting to me, both as a student of history, and as an 18-year-old, who is admittedly somehow dependent on the new media. That said, I welcome taking any new tool with the proverbial grain of salt. Call me a half-empty kind of gal. That’s fine by me. The glass is indeed half empty.

*Hasti Roshani is a guest contributor based in Tehran.

 

 Arts & Culture Desk

Iran’s prominent painter, visual artist, photographer, and vocalist Ataollah Omidvar died at the age of 75 after several months of disease. He was 75.
Painter Ali-Akbar Sadeqi announced the death of the artist on his Instagram page, IRNA wrote.
Born in 1946 in Kerman Province, he was interested in music from his early age and achieved the first rank among high school students of the country.
In 1966, he entered the University of Tehran and was graduated in 1972 in architecture.
He had the experience of reciting azan in different dastgahs including Nava, Homayoun and Chahargah.
The word dastgah in the Persian language means “system”, as well as “equipment”. The suffix “-gah” signifies a place of doing something. Here, dastgah is used in two different senses: First, dastgah signifies the totality of melodies of a certain musical system, for example, dastgah-e Shur. Second, the word refers to the frets on a stringed instrument. Dast means “hand”, hence dastgah literally denotes “the place of the hand.”
He also made a number of short films which were screened at Tak Cinema in Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art and Iran’s Artists House.
Abbas Kiarostami said that “Omidvar’s works are up to date and those who do not want to understand his films are like those in the past who did not understand the printing industry.”
Omidvar began painting in 2000, and his artworks were displayed in several exhibitions in Iran and Paris.
Omidvar was also active in terms of photography, especially in taking portraits.  
 

Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.