Wednesday, 19 August 2015 00:00 |
"Today" at the Fifth Art-House Film Festival, Kyrgyzstan, 28.08.2015
Bishkek, Cinema House, 11am Film Screening, discussions “Today” by Reza Mirkarimi (Iran). Master-class by Igor Guskov
TODAY / Iran / 2014 / 87 min. Synopsis. Youness, an ageing taxi driver, takes a young woman to hospital at the end of his working day, not knowing what awaits him there.
Reza Mirkarimi, director
Reza Mirkarimi, director: “I wanted to make a film about people who help others without knowing them and whose anonymity remains once help has been rendered; an anonymity which also exists for the cinema audience. Such a dimension is built on a minimum of dialogue, as speech is often a source of misunderstanding. Saint-Exupéry feared war, but for me it’s my society’s moral crisis I fear the most. If “Night Flight’s” pilot ever became a taxi driver in Tehran’s megapolis, would he be able to remain silent confronted by all the slings and arrows of an exasperated society? Would he be able to take a pretty little flower to his world of solitude?”
Tehran Times, 22.09.2014 : Iran's "Today" heading to Oscar
Reza Mirkarimi's social drama "Today" was selected to be Iran's submission for the best foreign language film category at the 88th Academy Awards. The film is about a Tehran taxi driver, who becomes the impromptu protector of a pregnant woman after her rushes to hospital.
Dreamlab Films, a French film studio, is the international distributor of the film, which was screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section in the Toronto International Film Festival that was held from September 4 to 14.
Mirkarimi's "So Close, So Far" and "A Cube of Sugar" were Iran's entries to the Oscar in 2005 and 2013. However, "A Cube of Sugar" missed the event after Iran's former minister of culture and Islamic guidance to boycott the Academy Awards over an amateur anti-Muslim video, which was released on the Internet.
"I officially announce that we will avoid next year's Oscars as a serious response to the intolerable insult to the Prophet of Islam (S)," Hosseini said at the time and added, "Since the insulting film has been made an American in The Unated States and no comment has been made about the film by the officials of the Academy Awards, we have decided to boycott event."
Iranian director Majid Majidi's "Children of Heaven" recieved a nomination at the Academy Awards and director Asghar Farhadi's "A Separation" won the 2012 Oscar for best foreign film for Iran.
Tehran Times, 22.09.2014
Today
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