Directed by Shirin Neshat in collaboration with Shoja Azari
Winner of the Silver Lion for best director at the 2009 Venice Film Festival, Shirin Neshat’s feature-film debut represents an assured shift from the gallery-based moving images for which she is known, to the grand screen of the cinema. Devotees of Neshat’s earlier work will recognize her signature visual virtuosity and narrative grace in the story of four women in early 1950s Iran, played by Pegah Ferydoni, Arita Shahrzad, Shabnam Tolouei, and Orsi Toth. Then as now, the ambitions and actions of these women from across the spectrum of Iranian society inform and affect the course of events—public, private, and often political. With history as a backdrop, and imagination extending the limits of lives lived under oppressive conditions, Neshat offers an exquisitely framed window onto these women’s world. An Indiepix release.
2009. Germany/Austria/France. 97 min.
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Tue Mar 30: 6:15 (MoMA)
Wed Mar 31: 9:15 (FSLC)
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:
Known for her hauntingly beautiful explorations of Islam and gender relations, Iranian-born visual artist Shirin Neshat is perhaps the most famous contemporary artist to emerge from that country.Over the past 15 years,she has created provocative expressions drawn on her personal experiences in exile, and on the widening political and ideological rift between the West and the Middle East. Neshat is the winner of numerous awards, including the Lilian Gish Prize (2006), the Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art Peace Award (2004), the Grand Prix of the Kwangju Biennial in Korea (2000), and the Golden Lion Award, the First International Prize at the 48th Venice Biennale (1999).
