#maryam moghaddam

[chez-mimich]

IL MIO GIARDINO PERSIANO

Immaginate una situazione in cui mostrare i capelli o avere un amore sia vietato o comunque moralmente non accettabile. Fate fatica ad immaginarvela? Non credo, poiché ancora oggi, in molti luoghi del mondo, per una donna mostrare i capelli è proibito e spesso è anche deplorevole avere una compagnia maschile. Prima che questo accada anche nel nostro mondo, e non sorridete, perché alcuni inquietanti prodromi ci sono già e sono sotto gli occhi di tutti, quindi, prima che questo avvenga, conviene non solo avere la capacità di indignarsi, ma avere anche quella di dire no, di ribellarsi. Ce lo ricorda con una minimale, soave delicatezza un gioiellino di film di due registi iraniani, Maryam Moghaddam e Behtash Sanaeeha con il loro “Keyke Mahboobe Man”, ovvero “Il mio giardino persiano”. In concorso alla “Berlinale 2024”, dove il film non è potuto essere presentato dai suoi autori, per il semplice motivo che ad entrambi il governo di Tehran aveva ritirato il passaporto facendo pensare ad un film dai contenuti sconvolgenti. Si tratta invece di una narrazione quasi domestica che racconta della vita piatta e grigia di Mahin (interpretata da Lily Farhadpour), donna settantenne di estrazione borghese, che vive sola nella sua casa con un grande giardino nella periferia di Tehran. Una vita fatta di abitudini quotidiane, sempre uguali, come la sporadica frequentazione di un gruppo di anziane amiche e pochissimo altro. La vita di Mahin, si anima solo quando incontra Faramarz, un taxista anch’esso settantenne. Ma quando l’invadenza pervasiva di un regime politico toglie qualsiasi libertà, tutto diventa difficile e nello stesso tempo trasgressivo. Due esseri umani che si amano sotto un regime oppressivo, potrebbero ricordare tante altre vicende cinematografiche, ma per grazia e levità Mahin e Faramaz mi hanno ricordato due altri amanti occasionali, oppressi da un regime spaventoso, Antonietta e Gabriele, i protagonisti di “Una giornata particolare” capolavoro di Ettore Scola del 1977. Certo la casa di Mahin è più intima del razionalista (e brutalista) Palazzo Federici a Roma, ma bisogna pur convenire che l’oppressione del regime talebano non è molto diversa da quella del regime fascista del film di Scola. Un film probabilmente non tanto semplice da intercettare nelle sale cinematografiche, ma che merita di essere visto.

[oldfilmsflicker]

new-to-me #512 - My Favourite Cake

[nuovocparadiso]

کیک محبوب من: My favourite cake (2024).

Dir. Maryam Moghaddam, Behtash Sanaeeha.

[whileiamdying]

My Favourite Cake review – charming portrayal of a 70-year-old Iranian’s appetite for romance

⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

Heroine Mahin (Lily Farhadpour) is fiercely determined to revitalise her mundane existence and taste a better life

As well as everything else, this wonderfully sweet and funny film will contribute to the debate about whether repressive regimes are the nursery of artistic greatness. The Iranian government has prevented the film’s two directors, Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, from travelling to Berlin to attend their own premiere; six months ago, their production offices were raided and computers and hard drives confiscated. But, fortunately, the film-makers had a copy stored in another country, and the film’s gentle humanity is a compelling rebuke to this fatuous, clumsy repression.

The authorities had apparently got wind of scenes in which women show their hair, and do not wear the hijab with enough modesty; the morality police drive around Tehran intimidating them with self-important purpose. The 70-year-old heroine – who wistfully remembers a time when hijabs were not required at all – stands up to these uniformed bullies and rescues a woman from their clutches.

This is Mahin (a lovely performance from Lili Farhadpour), whose story is a meditation on love and loss, loneliness and old age, and on the price at which long-term married happiness is bought. It is a meditation on how women come to terms with the destiny of widowhood, of knowing that they will almost certainly outlive their husbands. Mahin is herself a widow whose daughter and grandchildren live abroad, and her muted existence alone in her apartment is revealed in a series of tremendously composed tableaux. There are FaceTime phone calls with her daughter which somehow never allow for a proper talk. She has difficulty getting to sleep and doesn’t get up before noon. She waters the plants in her garden, goes shopping and occasionally hosts lunches for her female friends, at which the dominant theme is everyone’s various ailments, discussed at hilarious and explicit length.

But the conversation turns to whether it is possible to find romance again at their age. Why not? And so Mahin, without quite admitting it to herself, expands and modifies her aimless daytime schedule with a secret end in view: to meet a man. Mahin hangs out in the bakery queue, at the park, at a fancy hotel coffee shop and finally at a modest restaurant where pensioners’ food vouchers can be redeemed. And she finds herself meeting cute with Faramarz (Esmaeel Mehrabi), a modest, personable single man of her age. He is a cab driver and military veteran, who himself is of Mahin’s independent cast of mind: he got into trouble with joyless authorities for playing a musical instrument in a wedding band.

And so Faramarz and Mahin have their moment together at her apartment, where she offers to bake him her favourite cake. It is a moment of emotional connection for which they have saved up all their thoughts and feelings since becoming single – as if the entirety of their late-life inner existences are now being poured out to each other. There is something quietly magnificent in it. Moments like these in life are poignantly brief – but many never have them at all. It’s a lovely film.

My Favourite Cake screened at the Berlin Film Festival and is in UK cinemas from 13 September.

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: IMustBe Leonardo

IMustBe Leonardo is a Berlin-based songwriter who has been making his oddball songs since around 2016. His latest album, Not To Be Scared of Weekend, is a self-recorded delight, entirely unfettered by commercial considerations — with one song that asks the eternal question, “Why should...you need god…when you have Kim Gordon?” Writing about it, Jennifer Kelly said, “About half the tracks are hand-made rock songs, bolstered by clicky drum tracks and ravaged guitar tones. The other half are the maddest, most surreal campfire songs you ever heard, gently strummed but extremely odd.” Leonardo wrote us one of the nicest — and longest — thank you notes we’ve ever received at Dusted, so of course we asked him for a Listed.

Nina Simone — An Artist's Duty

What she says in these 51 seconds, the way she asks that question at the end — everything is there.

Typhoon — Sympathetic Magic

This album was released in January 2021. Kyle Morton is a poet and a great songwriter. His notes to the album tell all you need to know: “The songs are about people — the space between them and the ordinary, miraculous things that happen there, as we come into contact, imitate each other, leave our marks, lose touch. Being self and other somehow amounting to the same thing.” He played a solo gig in Berlin, on June 17, 2023. I asked him to play my favorite song, “And So What If You Were Right.” He did it. He said it was the first time he played it in public. That was a gift.

Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha — Ballad Of A White Cow

There is almost only love in this movie, and all that love leads only to suffering. It terrifies me to see how often “doing the right thing” and well-intended lies destroy good people’s lives.

Emma Ruth Rundle — Engine of Hell

This album is a pulsing heart in the shape of a songwriter sitting in front of us, playing piano or classical guitar, and singing her story. “I wanted to be close to the listener and be whispering to you. I wanted to be close on an emotional level. Because I wanted to connect with myself on an emotional level, ” she said about this record. It takes courage to do this. It also takes a little bit of courage to stay in front of her and look at her fragile, invincible grace. Sonny Diperri, who recorded and produced this terrific record, is a great sound engineer and a lucky guy.

Christian Petzold — Undine

Art is proof that people can find infinite ways to create beauty, as long as they believe they truly need to love. Undine is a work of art. It not only is a truly original, touching movie about love. It is an act of love, made by people who can’t stand living in a society willing to humiliate and lose it.

Vic Chesnutt — At The Cut

Maybe one day our species will ignore what anguish is, and we will not even be allowed to mention the word. Someone will consider this “progress.” I don't see any progress in not feeling moved by what Vic Chesnutt — and every person involved in those sessions — did in this album.

Aki Kaurismaki — Ariel

I love Kaurismaki's cinema. I’m mentioning Ariel here just because it is probably my favorite... today. (For the record, it contains the best bank robbery scene in the film history.) If I ask myself why I love his movies so much, one reason I can put into words is that all his characters are condemned to the tragic and funny punishment of knowing what truly makes human beings happy. They are such stuff as the Tramp is made on.

This Mortal Coil — Blood

I put this album in my CD player recently, after several years, and started listening to it with the state of mind of someone who’s going to meet an ex-lover and is scared of not feeling anything. I was wrong. It still asks me the same beautiful question: “Did you really think you knew which kind of songs you like?”

Hirokazu Kore-eda — Shoplifters

I see Kore-eda as a sort of photo reporter who goes around and, almost by mistake, takes poetic pictures of fragments of happiness that — tomorrow — will not be there anymore. Laws were supposed to be instruments by which people pursued well-being. This movie shows how society rules are sometimes not ready to handle real life. They can end up killing what they should preserve, and it looks like a frighteningly stupid scenario.

New Pollution — Kiss The System

New Pollution is not just a band — it’s a no-filter attitude. They're the most contemporary group I know. I cannot imagine someone attending a New Pollution gig and not getting captured. There is spontaneity and freedom in everything they do — on stage and online. They keep releasing whatever they record (concerts, demos, soundtracks, studio sessions) and mocking all the show business rules. Nowadays musicians — indie ones more than others — are like bank clerks, each one with their daily plans: x hours of social media, x hours emails to labels, x hours emails to magazines... Music seems to be the last thing you should care about — and you're supposed to be a musician! New Pollution they don't care. “Revolution was your spare time,” they sing. I think Patrick Jessop has an instinctive awareness of how ephemeral existence is and I hope he never loses it.

[clemencepoles]

Clemence’s Top Ten Films of 2024

No Other Land dir. Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal

My favourite Cake dir. Maryam Moghaddam & Behtash Sanaeeha

All We Imagine as Light dir. Payal Kapadia

Dahomey dir. Mati Diop

In His Own Image dir Thierry de Peretti

Cent Mille Milliards dir. Virgil Vernier

Hard Truths dir. Mike Leigh

Miséricorde dir. Alain Guiraudie

The Fall Guy dir David Leitch

Bird dir. Andrea Arnold

*My diary of 2024 films can be found HERE.

**Notable mentions: 

DJ Mehdi : Made in France dir. Thibaut de Longeville (Not exactly a film, but this 6-part documentary series is definitely one of my favorite watches of the year.)

Good One dir. India Donaldson

[warningsine]

what are some good iranian films? i've seen persepolis and a girl walks home alone at night

This is such a vast question, because Iranian cinema is heterogenuous and huge.

From Ali Hatami to Khosrow Sinai (In the Alleys of Love) to Hajir Darioush (Serpent's Skin) to Abbas Kiarostami (Where Is the Friend's Home?) and Jafar Panahi (The Circle) to Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, The Salesman).

But seems like you are interested in works by women directors?

The House is Black (Directed by Forugh Farrokhzad who was also a poet)

Divorce Iranian Style (1998, Kim Longinotto & Ziba Mir-Hosseini)

Two Women (1999, Tahmineh Milani)

Daughters of the Sun (2000, Mariam Shahriar)

The Day I Became a Woman (2000, Marzieh Meshkini)

The Hidden Half (2001 , Tahmineh Milani)

Women's Prison (2002, Directed by Manijeh Hekmat)

Joy of Madness (2003, Hana Makhmalbaf)

The Fifth Reaction (2003, Tahmineh Milani)

Women Without Shadows (2003, Mahnaz Mohammadi)

Gilaneh (2004, Rakhshān Banietemad)

One Night (2005, Niki Karimi)

Cease Fire (2006, Tahmineh Milani)

On a Friday Afternoon (2006, Mona Zandi Haghighi)

Buddha Collapsed out of Shame (2007, Hana Makhmalbaf)

Three Women (2008, Directed by Manijeh Hekmat)

Travelogue (2008, Mahnaz Mohammadi)

We Are Half the Iran's Population (2009, Mahnaz Mohammadi)

Green Days (2009, Hana Makhmalbaf)

Tehran Without Permission (2009, Sepideh Farsi)

The City trilogy (Rakhshān Banietemad)

From Tehran to London (2012, Mania Akbari)

Hush! Girls Don't Scream (2013, Pouran Derakhshandeh)

Tales (2014, Rakhshān Banietemad)

Disappearance (2017, Farnoosh Samadi)

Silence (2017, Maryam Pirband)

The Invincible Diplomacy of Mr. Naderi (2018, Maryam Moghaddam)

16 Women from Teheran (2018, Bahar Ebrahim)

The Old Road (2018, Manijeh Hekmat)

When the Moon Was Full (2019, Narges Abyar)

African Violet (2019, Mona Zandi Haghighi)

Son-Mother (2019, Mahnaz Mohammadi)

180° Rule (2020, Farnoosh Samadi)

I Am Trying to Remember (2021, Pegah Ahangarani)

The Football Aficionado (2022, Sharmin Mojtahedzadeh & Paliz Khoshdel)

1001 Nights Apart (2022, Sarvnaz Alambeigi)

Colonel Soraya (2023, Leili Aaj)

Where Is the Friend's Home? (Short 2023, Amina Maher)

[hotnew-pt]

“O Perdão” em exibição no atmosfera m Lisboa #ÚltimasNotícias #lisboa

Hot News Não perca a exibição do filme iraniano “O Perdão” (Ballad of a White Cow) dos realizadores Behtash Sanaeeha e Maryam Moghaddam (Irão, França, 2020), com Maryam Moghaddam, Alireza Sani Far e Pouria Rahimi Sam. Um retrato poderoso de uma mulher na sociedade iraniana atual e que foi selecionado para a Berlinale (Festival Internacional de Cinema de Berlim), Tribeca Film Festival e Stockholm…

[abcexpresspk]

Meeting of Iranian Ambassador Dr. Raza Amiri Moghaddam with Maryam Nawaz and Nawaz Sharif, agreement - ...

[lemagcinema]

My Favourite Cake de Behtash Sanaeeha ,Maryam Moghaddam

Un film de Behtash Sanaeeha ,Maryam Moghaddam

Retrouvez l'article complet ici https://lemagcinema.fr/microcritique/my-favourite-cake-de-behtash-sanaeeha-maryam-moghaddam/

[sszeemedia]

Berlinale Film Festival shocked as Iranian filmmakers face travel restrictions

The Berlinale Film Festival issued a statement after learning that Iranian writers/directors Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha have been banned from travelling, have had their passports confiscated, and face a court trial concerning their work as artists and filmmakers. “The Berlinale is a festival fundamentally committed to freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the arts,…

[moviemosaics]

Ballad of a White Cow

directed by Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghadam, 2020

[penelopedavilla]

Ballade von der weißen Kuh (2020)

[deprotagonisten]

Ballad of a White Cow

Recensie Ballad of a White Cow ★★1/2 - vanaf 1-11 te zien op @LeidenIFF en @PAFF en vanaf 4-11 in de bioscoop Het einde zorgt voor de aangename verrassing. Gelukkig maar, want deze film is, los van het fraaie camerawerk, traag en saaiig.

De dramafilm Ballad of a White Cow gaat over Mina, wiens man onterecht is geëxecuteerd. Ze gaat de strijd aan, met behulp van een oude vriend van haar man. Of is het toch iemand anders? Wat wij van Ballad of a White Cow vinden, lees je in onze recensie. (more…)