My Tehran for Sale

My Tehran for Sale is an internationally acclaimed 2009 Australian-Iranian feature film, written and directed by avant-garde poet turned filmmaker Granaz Moussavi, produced by cyanfilms and starring Marzieh Vafamehr.

Officially selected by Toronto, Rotterdam, Pusan and several other international film festivals, this debut art-house film explores the contemporary Tehran and its underground modern art scene focusing on a life of a young actress who has been banned from her theatre work. Struggling to express herself secretly in a socially repressed environment Marzieh gets involved in some unexpected situations where she finds herself at a dilemma regarding her survival and identity.

My Tehran For Sale is the winner of Independent spirit Inside Film Awards 2009. It won the jury award for best feature Film at the TriMedia Film Festival in 2010. Apart from various festivals and universities the film was screened at Moma (Museum of Modern Art) in New York as well as Paris Cinematheque.

Made gorilla-style with several shaky handheld camera shots the film reflects the chaotic nature of current life in Tehran. My Tehran For Sale is edgy and daring in its form and narrative. Alternative Music is employed through out the film presenting Namjoo -Iran's Bob Dylan-according to New york Times. The film confuses documentary and fiction in many scenes using a non-linear narrative with an open ending closure. The alternative movie has dared to breakaway from the norms of Iranian movies and sneaked into the reality of the lives of many forced underground and wasted in drugs and other traps which has never portrayed before in iranian cinema.

My Tehran For Sale is an official selection to Toronto International Film Festival (Sep 2009), Vancouver International Film Festival , Pusan International Film Festival (Oct 2009) and International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg (Nov 2009), The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) New York (Jan 2010), International Film Festival Rotterdam (Jan 2010), International Film Festival Prague - Febiofest, 2010 Cinema Novo Film Festival Brugges, 2010 CPH:PIX Copenhagen International Film Festival, 2010 Guadalajara International Film Festival Mexico , Sydney Travelling Film Festival, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival, HRAFF 2010, Fukuoka International Film Festival 2010 , Global Lens USA 2010 and Dialogue of Cultures Film Festival New York 2011.

Controversy surrounded the film when unauthorized copies of the film hit the black market in Tehran extensively. In July 2011, Iranian authorities arrested Vafamehr, reportedly for acting in the film. She was sentenced to one year in prison and 90 lashes, but an appeals court later reduced her sentence to only three months imprisonment. She was released in October 2011.^[1]

The irony of this incident is that the plot of the film is as follows: "Marzieh is a young female actress living in Tehran. The authorities ban her theatre work and, like so many young people in Iran, she is forced to lead a secret life in order to express herself artistically. At an underground rave, she meets Iranian born Saman, now an Australian citizen, who offers her a way out of her country and the possibility of living without fear." ^[2]

References

1. ^ Kenneally, Tim (28 October 2011). "Iranian Actress Freed From Prison on Reduced Sentence". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/28/idUS302409815520111028. Retrieved 28 October 2011. 
2. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1368864/plotsummary