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Film Screening, December 5 - 6, 2003.

The Asia Society and Ilex present four films from the annual Festival of Films from Iran at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Highlights include some of the latest dramas that the explore struggles and relationships in a changing Iran. Programmed by Bo Smith, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and sponsored by Ilex Foundation. All films in Farsi with English subtitles.

Friday, December 5, 6:30 p.m.

Letters in the Wind (Ali Reza Amini/2001/73 min./35mm)

First-time director Amini eloquently captures the tedium and harshness of army life for raw conscripts from the rural provinces drafted to do their national service. The two young characters negotiate their way through a harsh military training offering an insight into how Iranian society is evolving as the younger generation enters the adult world.

Friday, December 5, 8:30 p.m.

The Fifth Reaction (Tahmineh Milani/2003/106 min./35mm)

Milani's provocative film is a well-plotted drama features Niki Karimi (Two Women) as Fereshteh, a widowed high school teacher who tries to escape with her children from the dictates of her wealthy, autocratic and disapproving father-in-law Hadji (Jamshid Hashempour). With the help of her women friends, Fereshteh starts off across Iran with the kids, pursued by every truck driver in the country. Milani, who's outspoken feminism has landed her an international audience but also in jail, continues her exploration of women living in a theocracy and their conflicts in contemporary Iran. "Impassioned and suspenseful." Los Angeles Times.

Saturday, December 6, 2:00 p.m.

The Twilight (Mohammad Rassouloff/2002/79 min./35mm)

With realism and emotion depth, this authentic drama blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction by casting prisoners, their families, the guards, and the warden as themselves, reenacting a real-life event. When a well-intentioned warden decides to conduct his own brand of prison reform by facilitating a marriage between a male and female inmate, he inadvertently complicates their already sad, hard lives. Shot on location in the western Iranian province of Loristan, the film combines the new Iranian cinema's hyper-realism with a powerful sense of melodrama.

Saturday, December 6, 4:00 p.m.

Deep Breath (Parviz Shahbazi/2002/86 min./35mm)

In present-day Tehran, two young men from different backgrounds are best friends, university student Kamran and casual thief Mansour.They ramble through life aimlessly until one day, cruising around in a stolen car, the two offer a lift to Ayda, a student whose free and easy spirit capitvates Mansour. A spark of hope brightens his empty life, even as Kamran continues to descend into destructive self-pity.

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