Film Festival Season in 2013

By Gary Berg-Cross

Spring is not yet here, but film festival time in DC has started. The cultural stretching 17th annual Iranian Film Festival is on at the Freer and Sackler Galleries (co-curated with the Carter Long of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Marian Luntz of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.) The films are in Persian but with English subtitles. Rhino Season (a haunting love story spanning three decades is next up Friday, February 1, 7 pm and you can the trailer.

The series kicked off with an award winner called  “Modest Reception: (Paziraie Sadeh ) The latest work of director/actor Mani Haqiqi  who also stars with Taraneh Alidoosti.

Here is a bit of a Synopsis:  

Mysteriously tasked with giving away huge sums of money by whatever means possible, Kaveh and Layla drive through the remote, war-torn and poor mountains of Iran with a trunkful of cash which they lie about and  throw at every poor and unfortunate person they meet.  They are deeply troubled by it all and complicate the lives of others with their own manipulations seemingly aimed purely at degradation.

Perhaps the message is about the destructive possibilities of wealth without wisdom in a world that need both. What begins as a seemingly harmless game soon reveals itself to be a twisted bout of charity as the power, humiliation, and shame inherent in their act plays out between the privileged couple and the impoverished villagers.

The Film won the Free Spirit Award at the Warsaw Film Festival in last October as a film with unique structure, strong ideas, various mixes of Islam and secularism colliding and excellent performances, if a bit puzzling.

DC Filmfests- Humanist Treats

by Gary Berg-Cross

March has snuck up on me. I didn’t know that it was World Water Day March 22nd until it was upon me. Lots of events in DC around the same week. The DC Water For People group helps people in developing countries improve quality of life by supporting the development of locally sustainable drinking water resources, sanitation facilities, and hygiene education programs organized. They have a new video here and an info page too!

In celebration with this year’s Environmental Film Festival (ongoing till March 25^th) they are premiering Last Call at the Oasis at the film festival on Wednesday, he 21st.

Which brings me to DC's annual 20^th Environmental Film Festival (EFF). It is just one of several film festivals we have that make the area a real film going pleasure. The 26th Annual Filmfest DC is April 12 – 22 and Silverdocs is June 18-24. Many of them offer secular and humanistic gems that advance public understanding of things like the environment through the power of film. And they often are shown in culturally interesting venues such as the National Geographic Society, the Carnegie Institution for Science, National Building Museum, various universities and embassies. There’s something for everyone with topics on water, sustainability, architecture, nature. I’d love to see Happy, IN ORGANIC WE TRUST or BIOPHILIC DESIGN: THE ARCHITECTURE OF LIFE shown as part of the multi-day, multi-venue Health and the Environment Film Series. The summary for BIOPHILIC is catching:

Embark on a journey from our evolutionary past and the origins of architecture to the world’s most celebrated buildings in a search for the architecture of life. The film showcases buildings that connect people and nature...

LIFE: CHALLENGES OF LIFE is another one:

Capturing the extraordinary things animals and plants must do to survive and reproduce, this film documents the actions of an array of creatures. Witness amazing behavior, captured at 1,000 frames per second...

And its being shown with BROKEN TAIL: A TIGER'S LAST JOURNEY, ELSA: THE LIONESS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD, HELGOLAND: ISLAND IN THE STORM and MY LIFE AS A TURKEY

Too many good things to catch them all. That’s one reason I was excited to see that SnagFilms is presenting select documentary films from the festival online. Bravo.