Mideast Film

Pakistan's Movie-Makers Dig Deep To Revive Film Industry

On the fifth take, everything appeared to have come together. The script monitors confirmed that the two actors had got their lines right, the woman in charge of the set was pleased with how the crumbling apartment in a Karachi slum had been dressed, and the camera operator was content with the shot.

READ MORE AT The Guardian

Shohreh Aghdashloo, From Tehran To Hollywood

Iranian American actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, who earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in "House of Sand and Fog" (2003), writes about her life journey from Tehran under siege to Hollywood in her new memoir, "The Alley of Love and Yellow Jasmines," which hits bookstores on Tuesday.

READ MORE AT The Los Angeles Times

Argo Reviews Reveal Generational Divide Amongst Iranians

Ben Affleck's 2012 political thriller "Argo," about the 1979-1981 Iran hostage crisis, reached the streets of Tehran, Iran via the black market soon after its theatrical release in the US. The film's depiction of the historical event and its portrayal of Iranians at the time and its winning the coveted Academy Award for Best Picture, drew mixed emotions from residents of Tehran. These reactions are notably different across generations of Tehranis due to their respective familiarity with Iran at the time of the Hostage Crisis.

Sara, a 21-year-old accounting major, explains, "It all depends on how you look at the film. If you want to want to look at it from an artistic point of view, (then) it was a very beautiful film. However, because they wanted to appeal to the audience's emotions there were a lot of exaggerations. It's true that at the beginning of the Revolution, revolutionaries and the Basiji did not do good things. However, 'Argo' doesn't provide a collective image of Iran's population ... It only depicts the revolutionaries and the people that were against the Shah."

A Halal “Hangover”: Lena Khan’s “Tiger Hunter” and Re-framing Muslim-American Narratives

Katie Couric suggested we need a Muslim Cosby Show. We say a Muslim Seinfeld. Like other minorities in the past 50 years, normalizing Muslims in mainstream media comes not from pointing out cultural differences, but from finding empathy- even humor- in the eccentricities and neurosis that every society shares, and the shared experiences of being seen as an American who happens to belong to a particular culture or faith. Hollywood likes labels- it thrives on defining its characters within stock categories. But film’s most enduring personalities are those who defy boundaries, who stay in our heads because we can’t cleanly classify them.

“The negative perception of Muslims is fueled in part by the media,” remarks director and UCLA grad Lena Khan. “Whereas we see every other group normalized by film and television, we [Muslims] are still missing. In this film, we are telling an entertaining story that happens to have a Muslim character.”

No Hatred, No Cry: Short Film Admissions Screenwriter on Violence, Forgiveness and Mideast Peace

“You can’t want hell for other people without being in hell yourself.” If there were an Academy Award for one-liner delivery, John Viscount’s award-winning 2011 short film Admissions should have clinched it. With 21 minutes, four actors and a single set, Viscount lays out a modern-day parable where the stakes are high to find the wisdom required to learn true forgiveness in a world where “the ones who find it hardest to love need love the most.”