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The UCLA Film & Television Archive is proud to continue its long tradition of bringing the best cinema from Iran and the Iranian diaspora to Los Angeles. Mindful of the present moment, this year’s program celebrates individual films by emerging and established filmmakers, while acknowledging the resilience and courage of Iranian mediamakers, artists and activists, in general. This year’s selections give voice through cinema to the struggles of women and other marginalized communities in Iran against the systems, political and cultural, that continue to oppress them.
We are thrilled to open this year’s series with the powerful new documentary by director Mandana Biscotti, The Voice of Dust and Ash (2022), about the life of one artist, legendary Iranian classical singer Mohammad Reza Shajarian, who devoted his art to the cause of freedom. We also dedicate a night of programming, curated by filmmaker and activist Roya Rastegar, to works that speak directly to and about the issues driving the ongoing protests. The Archive is also thrilled to include this year the six finalists from the 2022 Farhang Foundation Short Film Festival. The power of the moving image to connect people otherwise distanced by cultural, political and national divides and to lift them up in times of crisis, has been embodied nowhere more profoundly over the last several decades than in the humanism, artistry and courage of Iranian filmmakers. The Archive is honored to highlight their work, again, at the Billy Wilder Theater.
Program generously funded by the Farhang Foundation.
