Tehran Has No More Pomegranates Premiers In Five U.S. Cities A documentary that tells the never before heard story of a big city
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Bita Milanian
(310) 795-4967
bitam@sociarts.com
Tehran Has No More Pomegranates Premiers In Five U.S. Cities
A documentary that tells the never before heard story of a big city
February 12, 2009 - New York, NY- Willow Films, in association with SoCiArts Productions and various local cultural and educational organizations present TEHRAN HAS NO MORE POMEGRANATES' premiere release in five cities throughout the U.S., starting February 18 through March 5, 2009. This award winning feature-length documentary film is a post-modern portrait of Iran's capital city, Tehran; a documentary telling the story of a nation's encounter with modernity and the social, urban and political changes.
Directed by Massoud Bakhshi, made over the span of five years, TEHRAN HAS NO MORE POMEGRANATES is a comic and sarcastic narrative about Tehran's transformation from a small village into a huge modern megalopolis. Using an energetic mix of never-before-seen archival footage from the past 120 years, modern images of Tehran, and sometimes asynchronous music and sound, the aesthetic and cultural values of old and new Tehran are brought to life. In the process, director and crew embark on a self-discovery, realizing that while they belong to a drastically transformed Tehran, being a "Tehrani" is a timeless state of mind.
The tour is scheduled as follows:
1. SAN DIEGO: Feb 18 & 19 The Landmark; La Jolla, CA
2. CHICAGO: Feb 25 & 26 The Landmark; Cinema Century Shopping Center-Chicago, IL
3. HOUSTON: Feb 25 & 26 River Oaks Theatre; Houston, TX
4. WASHINGTON DC: March 4 & 5 The Landmark E Street Cinema; Washington, DC
5. SAN FRANCISCO: March 4 & 5 Embarcadero Center Cinema; San Francisco, CA
TEHRAN HAS NO MORE POMEGRANATES has received many critical acclaims, festival nominations and awards, including; Official Selection HOTDOCS, IDFA, Full Frame, Rotterdam Film Festivals; Winner, Best Director, 25th International Fajr Film Festival, Winner, Best Director, 11th House of Cinema Film Festival, Winner, AVINI Prize, Best Documentary of the year 2007 and Winner, Audience Award, CINEMA VERITE International Documentary Film Festival.
Variety recognized the film by reporting, "an imaginative and engaging history of Tehran, TEHRAN HAS NO MORE POMEGRANATES uses a petulant, barbed humor to show how the city has undergone a sea change to become the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Young documaker Massoud Bakhshi doesn't make any earth-shaking revelations, instead delivering a steady stream of irony about his drastically transformed society, where even such an apparently harmless topic as change is subject to state censorship."
For more information about the above scheduled screenings, please visit www.sociarts.com/thnmp.
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About Willow Films
Willow Films is an international sales agency and distribution company for films from the Middle East.
About SoCiArts Productions
SoCiArts is a grassroots, virtual community dedicated to artists from around the globe to share their work, blog their ideas and send their message out to a broader audiences. SoCiArts believes that artists are architects of life; they know how to break the old conservative boundaries and build remarkable new ideas. SoCiArts encourages artists to create a positive impact in the world through art by sharing their work in this forum and elevate their society, community, family and audience to a higher level of consciousness. For more info visit: www.sociarts.com.
