Iranian ensemble to perform in France

Iran’s renowned Nour music ensemble is scheduled to perform medieval songs at the Conques and Moissac festivals in southern France.

Led by the celebrated Iranian composer Christophe Rezai, the ensemble will perform pieces from their first album, ALBA, along with their Cantigas de Santa Maria repertoire.

The Cantigas de Santa Maria (songs to the Virgin Mary), composed of 420 poems written in Galician-Portuguese, are considered one of the largest collections of monophonic (solo) songs from the Middle Ages.

The Conques and Moissac music festivals are held every summer in southern France, where international participants present baroque and medieval music.

The Nour ensemble consists of Iranian and French artists. The group’s works are a combination of traditional Persian and European music.

TE/HGH/HAR

Iranian vocalist to perform in Paris

The French capital Paris will play host to classic and mystic performances by one of Iran’s most prominent vocalists of Persian poetry.

Paris Theatre de la Ville has invited the Iranian vocalist Shahram Nazeri to perform at the valediction ceremony of the director of the theater Gérard Violette.

Paris Theatre de la Ville will witness a 10-minute performance of Iranian traditional music by Nazeri at the event, Mehr News Agency reported.

A number of artists from Germany, India, the US and some African countries will also perform at the ceremony.

Violette, who has been the director of Theater de la Ville since 1985, will hand the helm over to Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota this month.

In September 2007, Nazeri received the French Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres Medal for his significant role in advancing traditional Persian music.

Nazeri, popularly known as the ‘Persian Nightingale’, is scheduled to perform in Paris Theater de la Ville on June 12.

NAT/GM

Poland awards Iran’s Bald Hero

Iran’s Bald Hero puppet show has received the best puppeteer award of the 2008 VALISE International Theatre Festival in Lomza, Poland.

Director Samaneh Mirhosseini received the best puppeteer award and the honorary diploma of the festival, which was held from June 3 to 6, 2008.

Iran’s Apple Tree group performed the Bald Hero show on June 1st, 2008 in Warsaw to commemorate the international children’s day. The group re-performed the play for Polish orphans on June 2.

Bald Hero has participated in many international events and has won numerous awards including the Golden Mermaid award of Italy’s Dawn of Storytelling festival.

TE/HGH/AA

Berlin subway to exhibit Iranian cartoon

A German online cartoon community is to display a cartoon by an Iranian award winning artist throughout the Berlin subway system.

Toonpool.com has scheduled to display Firing by Javad Alizadeh on 4,000 monitors throughout the Berlin subway system all day on June 19, ISNA reported.

Toonpool, a website where cartoonists can upload their art, is a central location to display, browse and share cartoons and caricatures.

The public can find more details about the artist and samples of his artwork on www.javadalizadeh.com.

NAT/MR/GM

Ancient, Islamic sites found in Iran

Archeological excavations in Iran’s southwestern city of Dena have yielded 120 sites dating back from the prehistoric to Islamic eras.

“33 historic, 15 prehistoric and 72 Islamic sites were discovered during a two-month excavation project in the city’s northern and eastern parts,” said director of the Dena excavation team, Mohammad Javad Jafari.

“The historic sites mostly belong to the Sassanid era. Some of the prehistoric sites have been buried under sedimentary layers and are impossible to unearth,” he added.

Archeologists have found two Bronze Age cemeteries and two prehistoric caves which were probably used by shepherds in ancient times.

The newly found Islamic sites date back from the 5th and 6th centuries to the Safavid and Qajar eras.

Iranian archeologists had earlier found the ruins of a post-Achaemenid era palace in Sisakht, near the city of Dena.

TE/HGH/AA

Marseille filmfest to screen Life

The 19th Marseille International Documentary Film Festival will be the venue for a screening of Life by Iran’s Mahmoud Kiyani Falavarjani.

The semi-fictional documentary is the only representative of the Iranian cinema to be screened as part of the French festival’s international program.

Life depicts the daily routine of an elderly photographer who passes the time by going to local parks and taking photographs. The man eventually begins to snap images of a certain young woman in his ‘mind’s eye’ only to believe the images have come to life during an illness.

This year, the festival celebrates the ‘marriage’ between documentary and fiction aesthetics.

“Marriage projects confident union, the preservation of diversities, and an increase of wonderful complexities,” said festival director Jean-Pierre Rehm on the festival’s official website.

The 2008 Marseille International Documentary Film Festival runs from July 2 to 7 and its international program will include 33 documentaries from 19 countries.

NAT/MR/GM

Iran makes Hossein Nouri documentary

The Iranian filmmaker Panahbarkhoda Rezaee has made a documentary about the life and works of the prominent painter, Hossein Nouri.

Song of the Light depicts the physically disabled painter’s style, his artistic portrayal of religious themes using bright colors and the recurrence of butterflies in his works.

Nouri had painted a portrait of the Virgin Mary in front of Denmark’s embassy in Tehran during protests over the publication of insulting cartoons about Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) in Danish papers.

Panahbarkhoda Rezaee, who has made some 30 short films and documentaries, has participated in numerous international events including Ireland’s 52nd Corona Cork Film Festival.

The Old Manand the Rail and A Light in the Fog are among his better-known works.

TE/HGH/AA

13 Iranian films at Austrian filmfest

Austria’s 36th Festival of Nations in the city of Ebensee will serve as the venue for 13 short films from the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The films representing Iran will compete with more than 900 entries from 50 countries.

Among the films to represent Iran at the international festival are Scarecrow and Visit by Nasser Nasserpour, Escape by Salman Bahonar, Mr. Stalin’s Beloved by Nima Baqeri and Empty Fish Bowl by Atefeh Khademolreza.

The festival jury consists of filmmakers from Austria, Belgium, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.

Austria’s 36th Festival of Nations will run from June 15 to 21.

NAT/MR/BGH

Safavid coins found in charity box

Five silver coins belonging to the Safavid era have been found in a public charity box and were handed over to authorities in Tehran.

No one knows just how these antique coins ended up in the charity box, which makes the discovery all the more amazing, but wherever they came from the coins have now ended their journey and are in the hands of Cultural Heritage officials who will preserve them as relics of Iran’s great Safavid era.

Elsewhere in Tehran another sixteen silver and bronze Sassanid, Safavid and Parthian coins have also been found and turned over to the Culture and Heritage society.

FBA/MMN

Japan to screen Kiarostami’s films

The Euro Space cinema is slated to screen and review seven films by the celebrated Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami in Tokyo, Japan.

The Traveler, Where Is The Friend’s Home?, Bread and Alley, Homework, Close-Up, Life and nothing More and Ten will be screened during the one-week event.

A world-famous director, screenwriter and producer, Abbas Kiarostami has made over forty documentaries, feature-length and short films.

Kiarostami has received numerous international awards including an honorary doctorate of the University of Toulouse in 2007, and the Akira Kurosawa Award and the Prince Takamatsu Nomia medal from Japan.

Kiarostami has written a number of books including Cahiers du Cinema Livres and Walking with the Wind (Voices and Visions in Film).

TE/HGH