Wars with and without an end and the love for cinema by Italo Spinelli

“Medium of love” is a documentary on the mullah Ali Afhsari, who gives cinema lessons to high-level religious people in the holy city of Om, in Iran. During his lessons Ali tries to show that violent movies are useful for understanding violence and overcoming it, using scenes from “Natural Born Killers,” a film by Oliver Stone. This message is not understood, however, and Ali is forced to stop the lessons. Elli Safari, a young Iranian director who lives in Holland, filmed the documentary. Both Afhsari and Safari, guests of the fourth edition of the Encounters with Asian Films, paid a price for their love of the “medium of love”, cinema.

The love for cinema is also the subject of the silent film “Haji Agha, Actor-e cinema” (Aaji Agha, film actor), realized in Iran in 1932. It is the story of a profoundly religious Iranian who tries to understand his son-in-law’s career choice, to be a film actor. “Cinema has a fundamental role in the economic, ethical and literary development of all countries of the world. Why shouldn’t it have the same role in here?” asks the son-in-law in the last title of the film. Directed by the Armenian Ovanes Ohanians, this is the first Iranian film of which the Film Archives of Tehran still have a copy.

“Haji Agha, Actor-e cinema” introduces the section “Focus on Tehran,” which includes works by Mohsen Makhamalbaf, Massoud Kimiai and Dariush Mehrjui, some of the most well known contemporary Iranian directors. Also presented at the fourth edition of the festival, in collaboration with the Iranian cultural institute in Rome, is Majid Madidi, Iranian director of “The Color of Paradise,” and “Children of Heaven.” Born in Teheran in 1959, Madid started as an actor before realizing films, which have been awarded at a major international film festival and have been nominated for an Oscar.

This year, in addition to Iranian cinema, the Asiaticafilmediale presents works coming from Indonesia, China, Korea, India, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. The festival, which takes place at the Capranica cinema, in the center of Rome, includes a retrospective of the Indonesian director Garin Nugroho, guest of the event. Born in 1961 and a graduate of Cinema Studies from the Jakarta Institute of the Arts, Nugroho began his career in feature films after having carried out a long series of documentaries, including “Love on a slice of bread,” which won him the best young director award at the Asia Pacific Festival in 1993. At the seminar four feature films and two documentaries are projected from this Indonesian director and journalist, including “Icon,” a documentary on the contrasts between local and global icons.

The documentary “Burning dreams,” by the Taiwanese director Wayne Peng, also compares, in a certain sense, local and global realities through the description of a dance school in the heart of Shangai. The story tells of an old but spirited dancer in love with Broadway musicals and Fred Astaire movies who teaches tap and jazz to eager young dancers. Also “Dance with farm workers,” by the Chinese director Wu Wenguang, involves dancers and a group of thirty farmers from one of the poorest areas of the Sichuan province, filmed while trying out for a musical in a former textiles factory.
Other works that portray China in transformation are “Blind Shaft,” by the director Li Yang, a story of murder and innocence in the difficult world of miners, and “Chen Mo e Meiting” by LiuHao, the love story of a provincial boy and a city girl, filmed in a sort of Cassavetes style on the streets of Peking. Finally, there is “Enter the Clowns,” digitally filmed by the director Cui Zi En that speaks of transgressive sexuality and the loneliness of the young Chinese generation.

Sexuality, solitude and violence are themes also addressed by the young director from Calcutta, Subhadro Chowdury, in his film “In the course of time,” awarded Best Film this year at the International Film Festival of India. Another Indian film presented at the festival is “Mr. and Mrs. Iyer” by the famous Indian director Aparna Sen, daughter of celebrated historian, critic and director, Chidananda Dasgupta. It is the story of a journey through the religious conflicts between hindu and muslims, photographed by the famous director Goutam Ghose. “Devdas,” also presented, is a film that represents the ultimate wave of “Bollywood” productions, the popular commercial cinema of Bombay. The book from which the film is inspired has already been the subject of countless movies.
From Japan, the festival screens the film “Bright future” by Kyoshi Kurosawa and “No one’s ark” by Yamashita Nobuhiro, both focusing on the preoccupations of the young Japanese generation. The documentary “Hibakusha – At the end of the world” shows the effects on the survivors of nuclear radiation and uranium used as weapons of mass destruction on the civilian population from the Second World War in Japan to the war in Iraq.

From Sri Lanka this year, the Asiaticafilmediale presents “The mansion by the lake,” by the father of Cingalese cinema Lester James Peries, nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film, and “August sun” by Prasanna Vithanage, another guest of the festival.
In “Resurrection of the Little Match Girl”, of the Korean director Jang Sun Woo, there is no distinction between the real world and the world of cyber games. The real images of the present we are living are caught in the just completed documentary of the Iranian-Curd documentary “War is over..!”, which shows the total armed anarchy in Iraq streets and how far is still the country from obtaining peace and stability.