Date: Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Time: 7pm to 9pm
Venue: Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Ave, New York, NY 10003)
Ticket: $10
Every last Wednesday of every month, Docunight will screen a documentary about, around, in, made by Iran or Iranians. The screenings will take place on the same night across several cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Toronto, Dubai, New York (the list of locations is growing). Docunight films will be diverse in subject and will run the gamut. All films will have English subtitles. Tomorrow they will feature Mehran Tamadon‘s Bassidji.
For three years, Mehran Tamadon immersed himself into the very heart of the most extremist supporters of the Islamic republic of Iran (the Bassidjis) to understand their ideas. Mehran Tamadon writes:
“In a dessert, on a hill, men, women in chadors along with small children wander the large open air ‘museum’ which stands in the memory of the martyrs of the Iran-Iraq war. It is Persian New Year and we are close to the Iraqi border. My guide is a man; big and charismatic – his name is Nader Malek-Kandi. For nearly three years, I have chosen to penetrate the depth of the world of the most avid defenders of the IRI (The Basijis), to develop a better understanding of the paradigm that motivates them.
We are from the same country, and yet, we are complete opposites: Iranian living in France, atheist, the child of militant communists under the shah; I have everything required to knock down the convictions of those who respect the dogmas of the regime. Nevertheless, a dialogue binds us together. But between the games of seduction and rhetoric, within the real and sincere moments of the political and religious system that they defend, are our respective convictions ready to take a back seat so that we can come to understand one another?”
About the film read here: http://dafilms.com/film/8173-bassidji/
