Screening of Grass, plus book signing in Toronto
Posted by By ifvc at 25 April, at 14 : 52 PM Print
The Daricheh Foundation, with the collaboration of Toronto-based magazine Shahrvand, sponsored a screening of the feature documentary Grass: A Nation’s Battle For Life and a book-signing for Bahman Maghsoudlou’s new book Grass: Untold Stories on Saturday April 25 at the Paria Cultural Center in Toronto. The film was made by Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack and Marguerite Harrison in 1924 in southwest Iran and portrays the migration of a tribe called the Bakhtiari. It was released in the USA by Paramount and was the first feature-length film to be shot in Iran. The film is 71 minutes long and has been selected as the second best feature documentary by film critics and film historians after 1921’s Nanook of the North by Robert Flaherty. Grass, which was selected for the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, now contains an extra facet of poignancy in as much as it depicts a way of life that no longer exists in Iran.
After a short introduction by Mr. Bahram Bahrami of the Daricheh Foundation, the film was screened. Then Bahman Maghsoudlou, spoke about his newly published book, Grass: Untold Stories, a chronicle of how the film was made and the adventures that led up to it, followed by an hour-plus Q&A with the eager audience.
Copies of the book, recently published by Mazda Publishing of Los Angeles, and the DVD of Grass released under The Milestone Collection were available for sale after the presentation and were all sold out by the end.
During his talk, Maghsoudlou also thanked Mr. Hassan Zerehi, the editor-in-chief of the prestigious Shahrvand, for the magazine’s support of the program, and also Iran Star, another weekly magazine in Toronto, for the support they have given him over the years.
