Bita (Hatami), a successful lawyer specializing in championing the cause of women’s rights in divorce cases, is blind to the trouble brewing in her own marriage. A snatch of gossip and a problem client with an unwanted pregnancy unexpectedly bring Bita’s problems home. (Gene Siskel Film Center)
Divorced man
Bita (Hatami), a successful lawyer specializing in championing the cause of women’s rights in divorce cases, is blind to the trouble brewing in her own marriage. A snatch of gossip and a problem client with an unwanted pregnancy unexpectedly bring Bita’s problems home. (Gene Siskel Film Center)
2014-02-01
5.9
'Resident of the Middle Floor' tells the quirky tale of a depressive writer (Shahab Hosseini) struggling for inspiration. He immerses himself into each new idea, playing the roles of his characters before our eyes. Slowly, these fantasies begin to intersect with his own life, blurring the line between his stories' worlds and his own failing existence. Will he ever be able to figure out the story he wants to tell? A throughly entertaining character study that is reminiscent of Walter Mitty's world.
A short comedy spoof about Universal Monsters and their everyday unconventional work done at their very own talent agency for their movies.
Guru Chela is a heartfelt short film celebrating the timeless bond between a teacher Guru and student Chela. The story revolves around a young Chela who invites his Guru to attend his Bratabandha ceremony, a significant event in Nepalese culture marking a boy's transition into adulthood and spiritual maturity. The ceremony takes place at the Southall Temple in the United Kingdom, bringing together tradition and diaspora life. The Bratabandha combines choodakarma tonsure and Upanayana samskara, symbolizing a promise vrata and a sacred bond bandhana. It is a moment of reflection on cultural identity and spiritual growth. As the Guru blesses the Chela during the rituals, the film delves into their profound relationship. The Guru, representing the source of wisdom and guidance, imparts teachings on life and spirituality, while the Chela demonstrates respect and gratitude for his mentor's influence.
Spago restaurant maître d’ Bernard Erpicum hosts this program featuring Hollywood stars as they share tips for choosing the best wine for any occasion. Dudley Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Steven Seagal, and Peter Weller are among the guests. Added advice is provided by Robert Loggia, Kelly LeBrock, Herbie Hancock, and Shelley Hack. Other topics covered include quickly ordering from a restaurant's lengthy wine list and selecting the proper stemware for home entertaining.
Young single mother Leyla is financially strained with her two daughters. As a team they try to defy the attached adversities in especially creative ways. Over time, they have developed elaborate tricks in order to participate in social life. While performing their trick at the wrong ice cream parlor, their enjoyment takes an unexpected turn. The survival artists are forced to improvise in order to not get caught.
A rock star falls in love with a common pickpocket without any personal history. But soon she finds herself in a contraband of drugs and both try to escape it.
From his anxiety regarding his health when he sought a neurologist after knowing that he was waking up wrong for 30 years to his speech issue, Abhishek Upmanyu in his first stand-up special is personal and hilarious at the same time.
Tsai Ming-Liang, the artisan of cinematography approaches virtual reality, pushing the boundaries of VR film. The Deserted stripped away traditional film techniques and is presented in 360 degrees, like a theatre. The viewer is placed in the scene and is allowed to look freely at the construction of the environment. And immersed in the handcraft of the scenes.
There's something strange happening inside Buffalo Central Terminal. A group of urban explorers find more than they bargained for.
A corrupt young man somehow keeps his youthful beauty, but a special painting gradually reveals his inner ugliness to all.
Two friends try to re-unite by going on a road-trip to the forests and mountains. Their attempt to reconcile does not go easy due to the secrets they hold, and a shocking revelation ends their journey.
Professor Senbei finds a videotape of his deceased father providing instructions on how to create a love potion. The main ingredient is a tear of the evil Gyaasuka Daimao who lives at the Wonder Island. To retrieve it, Senbei takes Arale and Gatchan on a wacky adventure.
Faith and fear. Duck and cover. One response to 9/11. Official Selection, Toronto International Film Festival
Banda Eva Ao Vivo is the fifth and first live album from Banda Eva, released in 1997, when Ivete Sangalo was the lead vocalist.
THE BRIGHT DAY weaves a story that has its roots in the complexity of Iran’s draconian laws governing capital punishment. A kindergarten teacher hopes to aid the father of one of her young students, a man accused of manslaughter, by convincing each of seven reluctant witnesses to come forward. No one lacks a hidden agenda in this drama in which shades of truth collide with self-interest and the specter of payback. (Gene Siskel Film Center)
A transparent look into the life of Iranian immigrants in America. Sholeh and her husband Nasser carry out their evening routine in a ritual they are both accustomed to but nonetheless deeply grateful for.
A Tehran mullah-in-training struggles to take care of his ailing wife and their children in this profoundly moving melodrama. A film of near-universal appeal, it puts a human face on Iran's Muslim clergy with its unusual tale of a man forced by hardship to become a better husband and father. Seyed Reza has just moved with his family to Tehran so he can study the Koran, and he relies on his lovely wife Zahra to look after their two young children and weave the intricate rugs that earn them a living. But one evening Zahra collapses and is taken to the hospital, where she's diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Scarcely able to process the tragedy, Seyed is left to cook, change diapers, walk his daughter to school and take his toddler son with him to his classes, where peers and elders treat him with scorn. But Seyed eventually learns to cope, his prayers and devotional studies taking on deeper meaning as he attends to the hard nightly work of rug weaving, getting through with a heavy ...
Behzad, who has been in prison for manslaughter for a long time, has a son who does not know about him. When he is introduced, the son goes through a conflict. Then, as a family, they go to the victim's family seeking consent so Reza would be released.
Behrani, an Iranian immigrant buys a California bungalow, thinking he can fix it up, sell it again, and make enough money to send his son to college. However, the house is the legal property of former drug addict Kathy. After losing the house in an unfair legal dispute with the county, she is left with nowhere to go. Wanting her house back, she hires a lawyer and befriends a police officer. Neither Kathy nor Behrani have broken the law, so they find themselves involved in a difficult moral dilemma.
Two homicide detectives investigates the murder of a woman ...
A 15-year-old Somalian boy meets a 40-year-old Iranian man in a refugee camp in Skåne, in the south of Sweden. With the threat of deportation hanging over them, they decide to take their faiths in their own hands and together they go on a journey in the Swedish summer.
The uneasy relationship between a mother and daughter is made all the more turbulent by drug abuse in this downbeat drama from Iranian filmmakers Rakhshan Bani-Etemad and Mohsen Abdolvahab
Youssef, a blind university professor, is suddenly diagnosed with a fatal disease and must undergo treatment in France. Back home, will he find the life he had before?
Spanning 18 years in an Iranian women's prison, this follows two women: the new prison warden, a tough as nails devout Muslim who has served in the army on the Iraqi front, and a young midwife, Mitra, who is serving her sentence for killing her mother's abusive husband. In the early years, Mitra is repeatedly punished as the warden tries to break her. This includes punishment for delivering a baby in the prison cell while all of the prison staff has taken shelter during an Iraqi bombing. The warden's attitude starts to change after 8 years, when Mitra tries to protect a new inmate from rape at the hands of her older cellmates. When the baby comes back in 1991 as a 17 year old delinquent, Sepideh, the warden respects Mitra enough to protect the girl.
Bahman, Mahtab, Ramin and Donya Mehdipour are enjoying a perfect summer in a small Finnish town. Their routines are fractured by a negative decision on their application for asylum by the Finnish Immigration Service. But life must go on and the 13-year-old Ramin is about to enter an entirely new school, junior high. The Mehdipours use their last chance to appeal but continue their everyday lives, fuelled by their exceptionally positive outlook and attitude.
Forough is a middle aged woman whose husband has temporarily married with another woman. Even though that was kept secret from her, but his action is considered legal in Iran. Now the husband is in prison, due to not being able to pay second wife’s “Mehrieh” (the bride’s marriage portion).The second wife intends to receive her Mehrieh by asking the court’s permission to sell his house. Forough, the first wife, in order to not lose her home, intends to sell all she has to pay for her husband’s debt and release him from the jail.
A married couple are faced with a difficult decision - to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer's disease.
Sahar, an Iranian girl who has recently broken up with her fiancé, has decided to spend some time by herself in Antalya, Turkey. Leaving a club late at night, assuming that she is rich, she gets kidnapped and held in a remote basement. The kidnappers go greedy on the ransom, but little they know is that the whole setup has been a misunderstanding from both parties in the first place.
A sharp-edged look at people who live outside the constraints of Islamic law.
An official is sent from his home in Tehran to hear the final appeal of a woman sentenced to death, a political prisoner. The official's wife of nearly 20 years, Fereshteh Samimi, writes him a letter to read when he reaches the hotel - the story of her student days during the revolution of 1978. We see the story in flashbacks as he reads: she leaves her province on scholarship, joins a Communist youth group, avoids arrest, and comes under the sway of a suave older man, Roozbeh Javid, a literary-magazine editor. As she tells her husband about the hidden half of her life, Fereshteh asks that he listen to the woman facing execution, a woman and therefore one of Iran's hidden half.
Olfat is raising her children in hardship. She has one daughter and one son called Yonos who works in Kerman copper mine. One day, she finds a note at home with this massage "My friends and I are going to enter the war as soldiers". After reading this note, Olfat and his friend's parents got worried about their sons. When operation Valfajr failed, they received news about Yonos's friend. Olfat is waiting for her son too. As she finds out that the Iraqi radio announces the Iranian captives' names, she ties a radio on her back and carries it everywhere.
Jafar Panahi's short film, shot with one uninterrupted long take, about siblings trying to sell a carpet in need of money.
Nahal is around thirty and in her fourth month of pregnancy. During a routine check-up she learns that her baby has died and she now faces a curettage abortion in two days’ time. When she tries to address the subject, neither her mother nor her husband give her a chance to speak.