Eastwood
- IRAN / 2021 / Persian / Color / Digital File / 72 min
Director, Script, Research, Producer: Alireza Rasoulinejad
Photography: Mohammadreza Teimouri
Editing: Arash Zahedi-Asl
Sound: Shahin Pourdadashi
Narration: Arash Khosronejad
Source: The Documentary & Experimental Film Center (DEFC)
Contact: defcapp.ir/en/Movie/2558/Eastwood
A picture in an old newspaper sends director and film enthusiast Alireza Rasoulinejad on a mission to the Iranian city of Sirjan to find the Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood. Wearing a motorcycle helmet and embarking on his impossible journey like an Iranian Don Quixote, he lets his cinephile dreams be his guide to the dusty desert landscapes, which seem straight out of A Fistful of Dollars—if we didn’t know better. But maybe Clint is actually out there? All the locals are on first name terms with him anyway in Rasoulinejad’s deadpan satire of Hollywood’s cultural dominance, not just of the West, but all the way out in the Iranian villages.
Alireza RasoulinejadBorn in 1975, he produced and directed his first short film, Adagio, in 2000. He ran the Cine Club at the Center for Arts and Culture from 2000 to 2003, where he organized programs on film history, including “Different Cinema: Ups and Downs.” He published and served as editor-in-chief of the quarterly magazine “Filmkhaneh”, and continues to present experimental works such as Minor/Major (2010), Exteriors (2014), and Scenes from the Life of a Detective (2017).
A Bunch of Amateurs
- UK / 2022 / English / Color / Digital File / 94 min
Director, Photography: Kim Hopkins
Editing: Leah Marino
Sound: Margareta Szabo
Music: Terence Dunn
Producers: Margareta Szabo, Kim Hopkins
Production Company: Labor of Love Films
World Sale: MetFilm Sales
Bradford, an industrial city in the north of England, was the first city to be designated as a UNESCO Creative City of Film, in 2009 (Yamagata City was designated in 2017). Founded in 1932, Bradford Movie Makers is one of the oldest amateur filmmaking clubs in this town of independent productions and screenings. Its members gather every Monday to discuss movies over a cup of tea, but their numbers are dwindling due to their increasing age, and it is financially difficult to maintain their club and building. As if things weren’t bad enough, the pandemic strikes. This film quietly and humorously depicts people desperately clinging to both their dreams and their bonds with one another. Won the Audience Award at the Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival 2022.
Kim HopkinsBorn in Yorkshire, England, she graduated from the National Film and Television School (NFTS) in the UK, and spent ten years directing, shooting, and producing for the BBC, Channel 4, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, and Al Jazeera before founding the documentary production company Labor of Love Films. Her feature length films include the music documentary Man in the Sand (1999), Wanted (2002), which focuses on Native American police officers on reservations, and Hotel Folly: Folie a Deux (2013), about the banking crisis and its victims. She teaches filmmaking at St. John’s University and helped establish the documentary department at the International FIlm and TV School of San Antonio de los Baños.