Second Iranian Film Festival in New York; A Fusion of Classic Cinema and Works by Young Directors

The second Iranian Film Festival in New York will begin on Thursday, January 25, at the IFC Center in the city. This festival, which was first held in 2019, has not been organized in recent years due to issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic and internal conditions in Iran. Twelve feature films will be screened in the second edition of the festival, with four works being shown for the first time in the United States and six films premiering for the first time in New York. This collection includes films from Iran's classic artistic cinema and bold works by young Iranian directors that address fresh and unique topics. The festival will open with the screening of 'Night, Interior, Wall' directed by Vahid Jalilvand, which had a successful screening at the Venice Film Festival. The main program will feature three films by Mani Haqiqi titled 'Subtraction', 'The Dragon is Entering', and 'A Simple Reception', which will be screened in the presence of the Iranian filmmaker, who will answer questions from the audience. Other films in the festival include 'Empty Tours' by Behrouz Karami Zadeh, 'Dark Matter' directed by Karim Lakzadeh, and the documentary 'Kiarostami at Work' by Seyfollah Samadian, along with works by Reza Mirkarimi, Parviz Shahbazi, Faezah Azizkhani, and Reza Jamali. The Iranian Film Festival in New York will honor the renowned filmmaker Dariush Mehrjui in a special program on Tuesday, January 30, who was recently murdered in Iran along with his wife, Vahideh Mohammadi Far. This section will first screen a documentary about Mehrjui's film 'The Cow', directed by Bahman Maghsoudlou, in his presence. Following this, a restored high-quality version of 'The Cow' will be shown, and finally, an excerpt from the documentary 'Mehrjui: A Forty-Year Legacy' by Mani Haqiqi will be screened, accompanied by a discussion on the legacy of this late filmmaker. The festival is organized by Armin Miladi from the Daricheh Cinematic Group and Godfrey Cheshire, an art critic. In an article about this year's festival on the Roger Ebert website, Cheshire also addresses the challenges facing Iranian cinema under current conditions. He discusses the widespread protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in custody of the morality police and the 'Women, Life, Freedom' movement, which has been met with 'brutal government repression'. Cheshire also points out the pressure from the government on the cinematic community, which has seen the arrest of dissenting filmmakers like Jafar Panahi and female actors who removed their headscarves in support of the protests against mandatory hijab. According to him, these conditions have led many prominent figures in Iranian cinema to halt their new productions, but there are young and emerging filmmakers who are demonstrating that an underground cinema exists in the country that circumvents the government's censorship restrictions.