The festival is underway in the three cities of Boston, Houston and Washington, DC.

The lineup showcases exciting new movies by talented directors from Iran’s film industry. They include “Bandar Band” by Manijeh Hekmat, “African Violet” by Mona Zandi-Haqiqi, “Careless Crime” by Shahram Mokri, “Dance with Me” by Sorush Sehat and “The Slaughterhouse” by Abbas Amini.

“Bandar Band” is about some Iranian women singers who are going to enter an unofficial competition in a coffee shop in Tehran.

“African Violet” is about the middle-aged Shokuh who finds out that her elderly ex-husband Fereidun has been placed in a nursing home by their children. With her second husband Reza, she decides to remove Fereidun and take care of him in their own home.

“Careless Crime” goes back to forty years ago, during the uprising to overthrow the Shah’s regime in Iran, when protestors set fire to movie theaters as a way of showing opposition to Western culture. Many cinemas were burned down. In one tragic case, a theater was set on fire with four hundred people inside, most of whom were burned alive. Forty years have passed and, in contemporary Iran, four individuals also decide to burn down a cinema. Their intended target is a theater showing a film about an unearthed, unexploded missile.

“Dance with Me” is about Jahangir who invites his friends to his birthday party at his home. Everybody knows he is sick and dying, but the situation at the party makes his friends think about their own lives.

“The Slaughterhouse” tells the story of Amir, who has recently been released from jail and finds himself in a difficult situation when his father, who works at a slaughterhouse, calls on him to help him cover up a crime that has happened there.

In addition, Mokri is scheduled to attend a free virtual conversation on February 4.

The festival will be running until February 7. This year, the MFAH is collaborating with the Department of Time and Space in Boston and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, DC.

Source:Tehran Times