Vida Ghahremani Movies
Thespian Vida Ghahremani qualified for years as the most preeminent actress in late 20th and early 21st century Iran. She entered Persian film during adolescence, debuting in 1958 with a role in the Farsi-language picture Storm in Our Town, and went on to work in a diverse array of genres. Ghahremani achieved international crossover success as a middle-aged performer with a supporting role in director Wayne Wang's gentle, thoughtful slice-of-life drama A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (2007). ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
Director Cyrus Nowrasteh teams with screenwriter Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh to illuminate the dangers of religious fundamentalism, gender apartheid, and mob rule with this fictionalized adaptation of Freidoune Sahebjam's best-selling novel centering on a true-life tragedy. The story takes place in 1986, just as Khomeini is coming into power in Iran. Undercover French journalist Freidoune Sahebjam (Jim Caviezel) is traveling though a small southwestern village when his car breaks down. Surrounded by strife but left with little choice other to wait until his car is repaired, the anxious Freidoune is soon approached by persistent local Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo), who convinces him to follow her into the courtyard behind her home. There, she reveals to him that she has just borne witness to a most heinous crime. Just the previous day, Zahra had watched the men or her town stone an innocent woman to death. That woman was Soraya (Mozhan Marnò), long-suffering wife of abusive tyrant Ali. Soraya wed Ali in an arranged marriage, never realizing the horrors that she and her children would endure under her husband's heavy hand. When Ali requested a divorce so that he would be free to marry a 14-year-old girl, Soraya boldly refused, knowing that she and the children would most certainly starve to death without a husband to support them. Ali was too poor to return Soraya's dowry as custom dictates in a divorce, but he found another way out of the marriage. Under Shariah law, adultery is a crime punishable by death if the accused is unable to prove her innocence. Scheming with the newly installed, counterfeit mullah, Ali accused his wife of adultery. In order to ensure that she had no chance of defending herself, he blackmailed several male villagers to testify on his behalf. A tribunal was quickly called, and Soraya's fate forever sealed. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shohreh Aghdashloo, Mozhan Marnò, (more)
- 2007
- NR
- Add A Thousand Years of Good Prayers to QueueAdd A Thousand Years of Good Prayers to top of Queue
Wayne Wang's intimate drama A Thousand Years of Good Prayers stars Henry O as Mr. Shi, a Chinese man who, after the death of his wife, decides to travel to the United States in order to see his estranged daughter for the first time in over a decade. Their time together is awkward at first, seeing each other only at dinner when he cooks for her. Shi spends his days taking in the strange culture, improving his language skills, and making a friend in an Iranian woman. Eventually his persistent attempts to forge a connection with his daughter lead to some buried issues bursting forth between the pair. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- 1989
A U.S./Netherland co-production, Guests of the Hotel Astoria is set in an Istanbul hotel that functions as a transit point between Iran and the Outside World. Shohren Aghadashloo and Mohsen Marzban play a young married couple hoping to secure exit visas to Cuba. Because the woman (Aghadashloo) has a brief affair with a terrorist at the Hotel Astoria, she is detained by the Turkish police. Both the man and the woman suffer horribly before they finally arrive in New York, but one final ironic blow awaits them. Director Reza Almaehzadeh, himself an Iranian refugee, knows whereof he speaks in the depressingly credible Guests of the Hotel Astoria. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shohreh Aghdashloo, Mohsen Marzban, (more)
