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Abbas Kiarostami: “A Report” released on DVD

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kia-rostamiAbbas Kiarostami: A Report was released on DVD by Pathfinder Home Entertainment in North America on November 11, 2014.

This is the fifth film in the Renowned Iranian Artists series that Bahman Maghsoudlou has directed and produced. The previous entries are: Ahmad Shamlou: Master Poet of Liberty, Ahmad Mahmoud: A Nobel Novelist, Iran Darroudi: The Painter of Ethereal Moments, and Ardeshir Mohasses: A Rebellious Artist.

Abbas Kiarostami: A Report was premiered at Montréal World Film Festival in 2013 and since has been selected for various film festivals around the world, screening successfully in Toronto, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco and London.

This feature documentary is an analysis of the style and vision of Abbas Kiarostami, the world’s most iconic Iranian filmmaker, through the lens of his earliest work, including his first short film (Bread & Alley, 1970) and, particularly, his first feature, The Report. This early example of Kiarostami’s work gives insight into his poetic, humanistic tendencies, combining allegorical storytelling with a documentary, neo-realist sensibility, and often exploring the very nature of film as fiction, that have pervaded his work ever since, including such recent international sensations as A Taste of Cherry and Certified Copy. Exclusive interviews with film critics, historians and scholars (including the late great Andrew Sarris) and those directly involved in the making of The Report provide a look at how the career of this master independent auteur began and was shaped

The film has also been selected for Cineteca Nazionale in Rome, Italy on November 15, and the Middle East Studies Association of North America Film Festival (MESA) on November 22 in Washington DC.

Crystal Awards and World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2014

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WEFThe 44th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting took place in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, from 22 to 25 January under the theme, The Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business. This year over 2,500 people from nearly 100 countries attended the meeting. They included 300 public figures, 1,500 business leaders and representatives from civil society, academia, the media and arts.

Watch the video here.

At the opening session, Hilde Schwab, Chairperson and Co-Founder of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, presented the 2014 Crystal Awards, which honor artists who use their “creativity to push the limits and show us new ways of living our professional and personal lives”.

This year, the Forum recognized three exceptional cultural leaders: the Academy Award-winning actor and humanitarian Matt Damon, who co-founded the non-profit organization, Water.org, with Mr. Gary White; opera tenor and artist, Juan Diego Flórez, founder of a poor people’s symphony in Peru; and film-maker Shirin Neshat.

Flórez, who founded the Sinfonía por el Perú foundation, which created a network of orchestras and choirs to help vulnerable youth, said that music is a powerful vehicle for change.

Neshat, a film-maker has made a number of short films and documentaries on gender issues.

Watch  the video here