The Film Society of Lincoln Center announces
ASGHAR FARHADI’S IRAN
April 6-8 

Film series will celebrate work of this year’s Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning director of A SEPARATION

New York, NY, March 7, 2012 – The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced details today for Asghar Farhadi’s Iran (April 6-8). Screening at the Walter Reade Theater (165 West 65th Street), the film series will shine a light on the work of the recently-minted Academy Award-winning director (A SEPARATION).

Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Associate Director of Programming, Scott Foundas said, “Asghar Farhadi is a master storyteller whose films have gone largely unrecognized in the U.S. for far too long. The brilliant narrative construction, sure hand with actors and sharp attention to class differences that distinguished A SEPARATION are already strongly evident in these earlier works.”

Prior to his Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning marital drama A SEPARATION, Asghar Farhadi had received notice and critical acclaim for his four previous films including 2003’s DANCING IN THE DUST which won prizes at the Moscow and Pusan film festivals, and ABOUT ELLY (2009) for which he won the Berlin Film Festival’s Silver Bear Award for Best Director. Farhadi’s films offer an acute, perceptive gaze into the realities of contemporary domestic life in Iran, from the margins of the working class to the relative comforts of the bourgeoisie. Although widely traveled and acclaimed on the festival circuit, where they established Farhadi as one of his country’s most vital cinematic voices, these films have been rarely seen in North America.

Born in Isfahan in 1972, Farhadi began making 8mm and 16mm short films as a teenager, before earning a BA in dramatic arts from Tehran University and an MA in theater directing from Tarbiat Modarres University. During his studies, he wrote and directed student plays, while also writing plays for national radio and directing for television (including episodes of the hit series Tale of a City). He started in feature films as a screenwriter, co-writing the hit 2002 film LOW HEIGHTS, before making his directorial debut in 2003 with DANCING IN THE DUST, followed by BEAUTIFUL CITY (2004), FIREWORKS WEDNESDAY (2006), ABOUT ELLY (2009) and A SEPARATION (2011). 

Tickets go on sale both at the box office and on-line Thursday, March 29. Discounts are available for students, seniors and Film Society members. Read more about The Film Society of Lincoln Center. Screenings will be held at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater (located at 165 West 65th Street, between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway).

PRESS SCREENING (AT THE WALTER READE THEATRE)
RSVP to [email protected]

MONDAY, MARCH 19
10:00AM BEAUTIFUL CITY (101min)

Films, Descriptions and Schedule

ABOUT ELLY (2009) 119min
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Countries: Iran/France
Farhadi’s ABOUT ELLLY is a classically structured, brilliantly acted melodrama set during the seaside vacation of a group of old college friends. The group arrives at a ramshackle beach house, mending broken windows and doors while rekindling old friendships and rivalries. The lone interloper in the group is Elly (Taraneh Alidoosti), a teacher invited along by the enterprising Sepideh (Golshifteh Farahani), who wants to pair Elly with her newly divorced friend Ahmad (A SEPARATION star Shahab Hosseini), who’s flying in from Germany for the weekend. Then, one afternoon, Elly abruptly vanishes, setting into motion an escalating series of deceptions and disquieting revelations concerning both the missing woman and those around her.
Screens Friday, April 6 at 8:30PM, Saturday, April 7 at 6:45PM, and Sunday, April 8 at 1:30PM.

BEAUTIFUL CITY (Shah-re ziba) (2004) 101min
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Country: Iran
BEAUTIFUL CITY begins in a juvenile detention facility, as 18-year-old Akbar (Hossein Farzi-Zadeh) awaits execution for the murder of his girlfriend when he was 16. Meanwhile, outside the prison walls, paroled petty thief Ala (Babak Ansari) offers to help Akbar's sister, Firoozeh (Taraneh Alidoosti), secure clemency from the dead girl’s vengeful father. As Ala and Firoozeh navigate a complex gauntlet of legal and emotional red tape, they find themselves growing unexpectedly close–a tentative romance skillfully woven into the film’s life-or-death narrative.
Screens Friday, April 6 at 4:00PM, Saturday, April 7 at 4:30PM, and Sunday, April 8 at 8:15PM.

DANCING IN THE DUST (Raghs dar ghobar) (2003) 95min
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Country: Iran
Farhadi’s enormously impressive debut feature, DANCING IN THE DUST begins with Azarbaijani emigre Nazar (Yousef Khodaparast) being forced by family and friends to divorce his beloved bride Reyhaneh (Baran Kosari) after rumors suggest that her mother is a prostitute. Soon, Nazar finds himself working double shifts to pay off his wedding debts and provide some restitution to his ex- (for whom he still pines). Then, on the run from a creditor, he hides in the back of a van belonging to an elderly snake hunter (Faramarz Gharibian) and winds up transported to the middle of the desert, where he haphazardly tries to corner a piece of the old man’s business.
Screens Friday, April 6 at 2:00PM and Sunday, April 8 at 6:15PM.

FIREWORKS WEDNESDAY (Chaharshanbe-soori) (2006) 102min
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Country: Iran
Farhadi’s sophisticated urban drama, FIREWORKS WEDNESDAY takes us on a journey through the complex relationships of contemporary urbanites in Tehran, set against the backdrop of the chaotic firework celebrations of the coming New Year. Rouhi (Taraneh Alidoosti), a young freelance maid who will be married in two days, is sent by her agency to the middle class home of a couple in the throes of a marital meltdown. Mojdeh (Hedye Tehran) is convinced her husband Morteza (Hamid Farokhnezhad) is cheating on her with the next-door neighbor. She employs Rouhi as a spy, thrusting her into the center of the maelstrom.
Screens Friday, April 6 at 6:15PM, Saturday, April 7 at 9:15PM, and Sunday, April 8 at 4:00PM.

Public Screening Schedule

Screening Venue:
The Film Society of Lincoln Center – Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65 Street, between Broadway & Amsterdam (upper level)

Friday, April 6
2:00PM DANCING IN THE DUST (95min)
4:00PM BEAUTIFUL CITY (101min)
6:15PM  FIREWORKS WEDNESDAY (102min)
8:30PM ABOUT ELLY (119min)

Saturday, April 7
4:30PM BEAUTIFUL CITY (101min)
6:45PM ABOUT ELLY (119min)
9:15PM FIREWORKS WEDNESDAY (102min)

Sunday, April 8
1:30PM ABOUT ELLY (119min)
4:00PM FIREWORKS WEDNESDAY (102min)
6:15PM  DANCING IN THE DUST (95min)
8:15PM BEAUTIFUL CITY (101min)

Film Society of Lincoln Center
Under the leadership of Rose Kuo, Executive Director, and Richard Peña, Program Director, the Film Society of Lincoln Center offers the best in international, classic and cutting-edge independent cinema. The Film Society presents two film festivals that attract global attention: the New York Film Festival, currently planning its 50th edition, and New Directors/New Films which, since its founding in 1972, has been produced in collaboration with MoMA. The Film Society also publishes the award-winning Film Comment Magazine, and for over three decades has given an annual award—now named “The Chaplin Award”—to a major figure in world cinema. Past recipients of this award include Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, and Tom Hanks. The Film Society presents a year-round calendar of programming, panels, lectures, educational programs and specialty film releases at its Walter Reade Theater and the new state-of-the-art Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.

The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from Royal Bank of Canada, American Airlines, The New York Times, Stella Artois, the National Endowment for the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts. For more information, visit www.filmlinc.com.

For Media specific inquiries, please contact:
John Wildman, (212) 875-5419
[email protected]

David Ninh, (212) 875-5423
[email protected]