Iranian-American filmmaker Marjan Tehrani chronicles her brother's return to Iran as he travels with his American wife to have a Persian wedding ceremony and explore his lost heritage.
Special Note: The event has been rescheduled for this Sunday, Sept. 7, starting at 8 PM.
*Venue: on the lawn at Firefighter's Field on Roosevelt Island
*Directions: F train or the tram to Roosevelt Island. Please note this MTA advisory: if coming from Manhattan, you must take either the Tram or take the F train to Roosevelt Avenue and then come back 3 stops to Roosevelt Island. Once on the island, walk South (if coming from subway) or North (if coming from Tram) to East Rd. Walk East on East Rd to the field and you will see our screen set up. MAP
Rain: In the event of rain the show will be held the next day, September 7th, at the same location.
8:30PM: Live Music
9:00PM: Films
Admission: FREE!
Preview: See short films from this and other programs at www.IFC.com
Presented in partnership with: IFC.com, New York magazine, City Council Member Jessica Lappin & The New York City Council Manhattan Delegation & the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation
PROGRAM NOTES:
Arusi: Persian Wedding (Marjan Tehrani | New York, Iran | 1:02:00)
Iranian-American filmmaker Marjan Tehrani chronicles her brother's return to Iran as he travels with his American wife to have a Persian wedding ceremony and explore his lost heritage.
Using dynamic historical footage and weaving it with the couple's personal story, Arusi Persian Wedding explores the history and impact of the broken relationship between Iran and America. Behind the curtain of political tension, the film offers rare glimpses of both modern and traditional Iran, displaying a vibrant and complex country that is sealed off to much of the West.
Brooklyn filmmaker Marjan Tehrani and her brother Alex were born in America to Iranian parents in the mid 1970’s. They grew up in the U.S. during the Iranian Islamic Revolution, when the Shah was expelled and anti-American sentiment exploded to the surface, resulting in the infamous hostage crisis of 1979 and setting in motion decades of miscommunication, threats and vitriol between Americans and Iranians. Some of their earliest memories of “being Iranian-Americans” involve their classmates and schoolyard bullies acting out the aggressions of their angry and misinformed parents.
Marjan and Alex’s father had a deep love for his country but had emigrated to the U.S. in the 1970’s to find his fortune. But following the revolution, complications with visas prevented him from bringing his children with him on his frequent return trips to Iran. But in 2005, in the midst of the Iraq war, Alex and his American wife Heather announced that they were going to journey to Iran to have a traditional Persian wedding--an Arusi. Marjan immediately knew it was time for her to return to her native country to document this very relevant and personal story. Her father had hoped his whole life that his children would return to Iran as adults and experience the country as it really is—poetic, complex, beautiful and dramatic—and now they would all return together for a huge family reunion and a traditional celebration in their home town.
Of course, it would not be so simple as that. Heather’s parents are born again Christians, very patriotic, and deeply mistrustful of Muslim culture in general, so much so that her father fails to make a distinction between Iran and Iraq, despite the fact that the two nations have been in a perpetual state of conflict for decades. The matter was made that much more complicated when Heather’s parents realized that she would have to convert to Islam in order to get a visa to travel with her new husband to Iran. Alex and Heather’s young union consists of some strange trials, including quite vocal conflicts between the couple’s families, the nearly surreal obligatory marriage negotiations they must perform in the company of an imam in the U.S., and the complications involved in traveling to a Muslim nation in the middle of the war.
Tehrani’s film is many things at once, simultaneously telling the story of a couple in love, of a family being reunited, and of a country at odds with itself and the world. Iran itself is a character in the story, a proud figure looming over every scene, but once the Tehrani’s make it to Iran, the shadow this character casts is a surprisingly soothing shade against the glare of inflammatory rhetoric and prejudice. After seeing dozens of Iranians encircle Alex and Heather in a Park in Tehran to wish the young couple good luck, it is impossible to think of the conflict in the region in the same way again.
Preceded by:
The Tourists (Malcolm Sutherland | Montreal | 3:00)
Another transient day at the beach.
A l’ombre du voile (The Shadow of the Veil) (Arnaud Demuynck | Belgium | 9:00)
An elegantly animated alternative view of life as it is seen from behind the veil.
A Different Color Blue (Melanie Levy | Palo Alto, CA | 4:00)
Meet Charles Curtis Blackwell -- poet, artist and activist who, at the age of 20, lost his eyesight. Despite being unable to see fully, he continues to work through visual medium, creating pieces of beauty and remarkable spirit.
www.adifferentcolorblue.com
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