Film screening and blog meeting

During the Verzió Film Festival of Budapest, they will screen on next Friday at 8:15 p.m. in Toldi Cinema the recent (2014) film of the young Iranian director Ayat Najafi, entitled in English No Land’s Song. In the twenty minutes following the screening I will talk to the director about the film, and the audience can also ask him.

And once it happened so, before the film we will have a blog meeting at 6 p.m. in a nearby café, where we will also speak about our recent Iranian journey and about our tours planned for the next year. The place depends on how many of you will come. We also have to know how many places we have to reserve for you in the cinema. Therefore, I ask you that if you plan to come to either place, please write me at wang@studiolum.com until the day after tomorrow, Monday 12:00 noon. If you are still uncertain, you’d better write, because it is more useful to count with more space than not to have enough. And write me also if you cannot come, but want to welcome those who could. I will publish here the exact location on Monday evening.

U.I. Fortunately many of you wrote back, so it was not easy to find a good place big enough for all of us. The winner – in style with our Eastern travels – is the Turkish restaurant on the corner of Bajcsy and Báthory Streets, just a few blocks from Toldi Cinema, with lots of tables to be pushed together, and with fantastic and cheap food. Unfortunately they don’t serve alcohol, but if beer is for you an indispensable part of a blog meeting, you can buy it next door, and I don’t think they forbid you to drink it from the pomegranate glass. And in the cinema they encouraged us that each of us reserve his/her ticket on the internet at http://toldimozi.hu/filmek/12-verzio-dalok-senkifoldjerol.

Ayat Najafi’s movie is about how his sister Sara, a composer, tries to stage in Iran the songs of the pre-revolutionary generation, and women’s solo singing, which has been banned since 1979. The original Persian title of the film – Morgh-e sahar, Dawn bird – also refers to one of the most popular pre-revolutionary songs. A couple of years ago I have written in detail about this song, that sounds several times in the film, sometimes in archival recordings, and sometimes sung by the Iranian and French musicians performing in it. You are advised to read it for a better understanding of the context. Below we hear it in the performance of Parisa, one of the most famous pre-revolutionary woman soloists. The visual backdrop is offered by the Qajar-era tiles of the Golestan Palace, deliberately neglected since the revolution.


Parisa: Morgh-e sahar (Dawn bird)