Pamela Z website
Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
Tag Archives: culture
Link TV feature – Kayhan Kalhor: Songs of Hope
Posted by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
Photo by Todd Rosenberg
Filmed in Karaj, Iran and New York City, “Songs of Hope” explores the life and music of Kayhan Kalhor, a master of the kamancheh, or Persian spike fiddle.
The love he showed for the instrument as a child led him to the life as a prodigy who left Iran in 1981 after the 1979 Islamic Revolution so he could continue his musical studies. He is renowned as a soloist and composer and as a founder and member of several ensembles, including Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, with which we see him rehearsing one of his compositions in the film. In 1997 he returned to Iran to renew his connections to his homeland and to teach a new generation of musicians, while establishing a life with his wife. His existence was that of a prolific, peaceful, globetrotting musician.
Introducing Zohreh Shayesteh’s (Iran) documentary film “Picking Apples, Drinking Tea”.
About this documentary film
Abyaneh is a historical and ancient village in Iran where time has stood still and its people are as old as the place itself.
Two years ago, filmmaker Zohreh Shayesteh visited the village and took pictures of its women. She returned in 2006 with a video camera. While searching for the women in the photos she met Keshvar, a blunt and feisty woman who became the physical and spiritual guide for the filmmaker in this journey of self-discovery. Thanks to Keshvar and the unexpected friendship that developed between these two women, what was to be a simple video documentary about a village and its people becomes a spiritual journey to a place the filmmaker once called home.
Bando Tamasaburo – the most popular and celebrated “onnagata” currently on the Kabuki stage!
Film – Akira Kurosawa Centennial at Film Forum!
Text by flavorpill NY
Ahead of Akira Kurosawa‘s centenary on March 23, Film Forum more or less runs through the auteur’s consummate filmography (on queue: Ikiru, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo) in six action-packed weeks. Two masterpieces also bracket this domo-arigato series: Stray Dog, an early, naturalistic film about a detective and the search for his missing gun in postwar Tokyo, and Ran, Kurosawa’s superlative, late-career translation of King Lear to the feudal East and its tragic, color-specific daimyos. The former stars Toshiro Mifune and the latter Tatsuya Nakadai, two Japanese icons who reappear throughout a canon that incorporates everything from pulp to Noh theatre, Shakespearean tragedy to the almighty Bushido code.
Filmography
