Today, Dec 20, 2010, the BBC reported that the director, Jafar Panahi, has been sentenced to six years in prison for “working against the Iranian system…. He has also been banned from making films, writing any kind of scripts, traveling abroad and talking to local and foreign media for 20 years.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12045248

I saw “Dimka” when it was released in this country in the early 1960s, and wish I could see it again. A small boy, being under the impression that his mother didn’t have enough money left to buy a father after buying him, plays hooky from kindergarten and sets out to rectify the omission.

A simple story about a little girl whose parents fail to pick her up after school, so she tries to get home on her own. The filmmakers’ ingenuity was tested when the child actress walked out 20 minutes into the film. They followed her as she really did try to get home on her own. A most unusual film.

oops, double posted

“Sara” is an modern Iranian version of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House.” Illuminating cross-cultural perspective.

(According to my son, the director has also made an Iranian version of Salinger’s “Franny and Zooey”, which can’t be shown outside Iran for copyright reasons.)

A Russian remake of “Twelve Angry Men” with fascinating cultural differences.