Iranian Actor Babak Karimi on Trump’s Defeat and Working With Sophia Loren (EXCLUSIVE)

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentStrand Releasing has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Majid Majidi’s “Sun Children,” which competed at Venice and represents Iran in the international feature film race at the 2021 Academy Awards.Represented in international markets by Hengameh Panahi’s Celluloid Dreams, “Sun Children” has been critically acclaimed in the festival circuit, and its young leading actor Ruhollah Zamani won Venice’s Marcello Mastroianni Award for best young actor.

In the final weeks of the Trump administration, Iran is confronting growing pressure amidst concerns over the recent assassination of its top nuclear scientist and continued US financial sanctions “Iran, as stated before as our definite policy, will independently give a matching response to those who ordered and committed this with maximum pain for those who did this,” said Saeed Khatibzadeh, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, of the assassination Friday of Iran’s top nuclear scientist.

Iran’s parliament Tuesday advanced a bill that would end U.N. inspections of its nuclear facilities and require the government to boost its uranium enrichment if European signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal do not provide relief from oil and banking sanctions.

Christopher Vourlias Vadim Perelman’s “Persian Lessons” will represent Belarus in the best international feature film race at the 2021 Oscars, Variety has learned.The WWII drama, which world premiered in the Panorama strand of the Berlin Film Festival this year, stars Nahuel Perez Biscayart (“Beats Per Minute”) as a Belgian Jew who narrowly avoids execution by a Nazi firing squad when he claims to be Persian.

An elegantly composed mosiac of real events and artfully restaged memories, Iranian director Firouzeh Khosrovani's stylized documentary Radiograph of a Family is a personal passion project with rich political and cultural resonance.

Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar on Sunday and journalist Glenn Greenwald traded barbs on Twitter after Greenwald said Omar defended former CIA Director John Brennan and the Logan Act.

Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday vowed to retaliate with “definitive punishment” after the slaying of the country's leading nuclear scientist, with some officials blaming Israel for the apparent assassination. The Israeli government, suspected of assassinating Iranian scientists a decade ago amid tensions over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, has yet to comment on the killing Friday of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

Israel Defense Forces have been preparing for the possibility that the U.S.

Emiliano De Pablos Stefan Kloos’ Rise and Shine World Sales agency has picked up all world rights excluding The Netherlands to Sergej Kreso’s musical documentary “Here We Move Here We Groove.”Making its world premiere as part of IDFA’s Dutch Competition, “Here We Move,” produced by Amsterdam-based Doxy Films, represents a stirring and hopeful musical story about building bridges via music.It follows DJ Robert Soko, who fled from the war in Yugoslavia as a teenager, and used Western music and

Pablo Sandoval Producer-director Kristina Konrad’s Berlin-based Weltfilm has boarded “Amateur,” the feature debut of Spaniard Martin Gutiérrez which won the top Malaga Festival Prize for best Spanish film at this Spring’s Malaga WIP pix in post competition.Konrad, one of the jury members for Spanish titles at Malaga WIP, along with Berlin Panorama director Paz Lázaro and Gijón Film Festival programer Ricardo Apilánez, signed up to co-produce “Amateur” after the Malaga WIP showcase.Written by

Marta Balaga In her new documentary “Radiograph of a Family,” which has its world premiere at IDFA, Iran’s Firouzeh Khosrovani turns to her own family for answers about the country’s divided society.