Booye kafoor, atre yas
Iran,
2000, 93 min
Shown in 2001
CREDITS
- dir
-
Bahman Farmanara
- prod
-
Morteza Shayeste
- scr
-
Bahman Farmanara
- cam
-
Mahmoud Kalari
- editor
-
Abbas Ganjavi
- mus
-
Ahmad Pezhman
- cast
-
Bahman Farmanara, Roya Nonahali, Reza Kianian, Valiyollah Shirandami, Hossein Kasbian
- source
-
New Yorker Films, 16 West 61st Street, New York, NY 10023. FAX: 212-307-7855
-
COMMENTS
Screened with The White Station. Bahman Farmanara in person.
OTHER
Using the story of a filmmaker who makes a film about his own death after being banned from working for 20 years, Bahman Farmanara offers a personal account of the radical changes transforming Iranian society over the past two decades. Farmanara himself was kept from filmmaking for 20 years, due equally to his ten-year self-exile after the revolution and the government’s refusal to allow him to work for another ten years. Farmanara is right at home dealing with his favorite subject, death. But, while his previous films like Tall Shadows of the Wind painted death with a grim brush, here he uses plenty of humor, a fast pace and top-notch craftsmanship to enliven the proceedings. The film proved to be a triumphant comeback—it swept the awards of the 2000 Fajr International Film Festival in Tehran and went on to highly enthusiastic receptions in Toronto, New York and Berlin. Farmanara, who received training as an actor early in his career, cast himself as his own anxiety-ridden alter ego—not an easy task given his presence in almost every scene. The result is a very satisfying surprise. Elvis Mitchell of the New York Times found his performance impressive enough to call him an Iranian Woody Allen!
—Jamsheed Akrami
FACTOID #336
Bing Crosby was invited several times for an onstage tribute at the Festival, reports then-director Claude Jarman, but declined the honor. “Nobody wants to see those little things that I used to do,” he modestly replied. He did attend though, with wife Kathy and their friend, Rita Hayworth.
