A scene from Willow and Wind directed by Mohammad Ali Talebi

Seven Iranian films will be screened in Madrid International Film Festival, which opened on Monday and will continue until November 17.
According to www.sourehcinema.com, the films are ’Child Poet’ directed by Qasem Razi, ’Paper Missile’ by Farhad Mehranfar, ’Boot’ and ’Willow and Wind’ both directed by Mohammad Ali Talebi, ’Migrating Goose’ by Sirous Hassanpour, ’Naneh Lala and Her Children’ by Kambozia Partovi and ’Scabies’ by Abolfazl Jalili.
’Child Poet’ will be screened in the non-competition section of the event while the others will be shown in the section to review the Iranian cinema industry.
Meanwhile, the short documentary ’Behind That Snowy Hill’ will be featured in the German Kassel Film Festival, which will be held from November 13-18.
According to the film by Ramtin Lavafipour narrates the story of an old woman living in an abandoned and remote village. Mysterious rumors were spread about her.
The Iranian film ’That’s Winter’ directed by Rafie Pitz won golden award of feature films at the 15th Damascus International Film Festival.
The film had earlier received Golden Spike Award at 51st Valladolid Festival in Spain as well as the first prize at the future cinema section of Paris Festival.
Moreover, a ceremony to review the works by Ali Reza Raeisian will be held at Calcutta International Film Festival in India.
His latest work ’Havana Case’ will be screened in Boston, Washington and Houston Museum of Contemporary Arts. Earlier, ’Abandoned Station’ attracted the intrest of US audience.
Also, secretary of the Production of Council of the Union for Film Producers and Distributors said that Iran and Kyrgyzstan plan to produce five joint films.
Gholam Reza Mousavi said that a contract to that effect has earlier been signed.
In another development shooting the film ’Mouse’ directed by Shahed Ahmadlou will begin soon to have it ready for screen it in the upcoming 26th Fajr Film Festival.
The movie which is about terrorism in Iraq will be filmed in both Iran and Iraq.

The Second Children Photo Festival titled ’Mirrors of Spirituality’ opened in Tehran on Sunday at Palestine Museum of Contemporary Arts.
Out of 3,000 photos, submitted to the festival’s secretariat by 540 Iranian, French, German and Afghan artists, some 70 photos were selected for display at the event, the museum’s Public Relations Office reported.
The event takes one back to childhood moments with all its entire beauty and innocence.
The second edition of the event, which has witnessed remarkable qualitative growth, has attracted more foreign participants.

Following international congresses on Molana Jalaleddin Rumi and Shams Tabrizi, two well-known Iranian prominent mystic figures, other countries will also hold programs to commemorate Molana.
According to Fars news agency, concurrent with Molana’s eighth birth centenary in 2007, which was designated as the ’Year of Molana’ by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), programs featuring Molana will be held in other countries in cooperation with Iran.
A program titled ’Molana Shining Star Among Poets’ will be held in Armenia next week. The event which will be attended by the country’s culture minister is to deal with various aspects of his personality.
A seminar on Molana will also be held at Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi in collaboration with Iranian, Turkish and Afghan embassies.
A congress on Molana will also be organized in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on December 1. The country’s president is scheduled to attend.
European countries will also organize seminars in the field. Similar programs will be held in Sofia, Bulgaria and Moscow, Russia on November 19.
Greece is also scheduled to host a seminar in commemoration of Molana, to be attended by Sadeqi-Reshad, translator of Molana’s works into Greek.
The same source also said that Iranian and Arab instructors last week in Syria discussed the role of Molana in Arab world in a seminar titled ’Molana, From Konya to Syria’.

Some 16 puppet plays will be performed in Ahvaz, Khuzestan province, during the 11th Puppet Festival of Cultural and Artistic Centers of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, which is currently underway and will continue until November 13.
According to a press release by the Public Relations Office of the institute faxed to Iran Daily, 16 puppet groups from 11 provinces will perform in the branches of the institutes nationwide.
The plays were selected from among 350 urban and 90 provincial performances to compete in two open section and members’ section in Ahvaz.
Three local groups will also stage plays for children.
A total of 12 plays such as ’Old Man and Sea’, ’Around Story City’, from East Azarbaijan, ’Land of Sun’ from Ardebil, ’Ax’ from Bushehr, ’Moses and Shepherd’ and ’Heavenly Wish’ from Tehran, ’Wooden Horse’ from Khorasan Razavi, ’Rise Early’ from Khuzestan, ’Boy Who Wished’ from Qom, ’Tale of Mr. Mahmoud and His Wife’, from Kermanshah, ’Blockhead Safar’ from Lorestan and ’Sweeter Than Grapes’ from Markazi province will be staged in the members section.
The plays ’Cage’ from Khuzestan province, ’One Tale’ from Lorestan province, ’Prince Morad’ from Markazi province and ’Trilogy of Imagination’ will be staged in the open section of the event.
The plays ’Cage’, ’Moses and Shepherd’, ’Sweeter Than Grapes’ are inspired by tales from Masnavi (a masterpiece by Molana Jalaleddin Rumi, well-known Iranian poet and mystic).

Austrian and German pianists will give a series of concerts at Tehran’s Vahdat Hall from tonight.
Austrian pianists, Roland Batik and Ulrich Hoffmeyer will perform a duet on Bosendorfer piano tonight and tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m., while German pianist Florian Krumpock will give a recital on Bluthner piano on November 18, said a press release faxed to Iran Daily by Roudaki Foundation.
The event will be held in cooperation with Roudaki Cultural and Artistic Foundation as well as the cultural institute Honar-e Ayandegan-e Parseh.

Circulation of newspapers and journals in Iran is very low in proportion to its population, observed an instructor of communications sciences.
Speaking to IRNA at the 14th International Press and News Agencies Festival, Hossein Qandi, also deputy director of the Persian daily Jaam-e Jam, added that a total of 2,000 publications are currently available in two million copies.
Given its population of 70 million, of whom nearly 40 million have higher education, Iran should have a circulation of 10 million.
In Japan, the daily Yomiuri is published in two shifts in 24 million copies while Asahi is released in 18 million copies. This is while Turkey publishes newspapers with circulation of over seven million.
Stating that the press and news agencies have special responsibilities, he further said that the main job of the press is to write news, reports and articles but the news agencies are duty-bound to release the news. Therefore, these media should have plurality and diversity, he added.
Meanwhile, executive director of Georgia’s Media News said that the festival has properly paved the way for exchange of views among foreign journalists.
Appreciating the Iranian government for supporting the event, Tamari Grazava said that it provided foreign media with an opportunity to become acquainted with Iranian media and nation.
Some 10 news agencies are operating in Georgia, which are ready to exchange news with their Iranian counterparts, she said.
Editor of Kuwaiti ’An-Nahar’ newspaper noted the involvement of a large number of Iranian women in journalism.
Hossein Al-Fazli also called on the organizers of the festival to expand the international section to enable more countries to participate in the event.

Javad Alizadeh

Iranian caricaturist who won the title of ’Ambassador of Laughter’ has been selected to lecture at Istanbul’s Fifth International Caricature Festival, slated for next week.
According to ISNA, Javad Alizadeh, also director of Satire and Caricature Magazine, will visit Turkey at the invitation of the organizers of the event.
The event will be sponsored by the association Yeni Yuksek Tepe, which is a non-governmental philosophical and cultural institute seeking to create understanding and friendship among nations and help foster international awareness about the threats to the environment.
It has selected art and caricature, in view of their influence, as a means to achieve its goals.
’North and South’, ’Life and Water and Global Warming’ were among the topics of discussion in the earlier rounds of the festival while this year’s event will deal with ’Intercultural Tolerance’.
Tan Oran, noted Turkish caricaturist heads the selection board and panel of jury of the festival in Kadikoy.

Baghdad will host an international film festival next month, the first major cinematic event in the war-ravaged capital in more than two years, an Iraqi film director said on Sunday.
Films for the Baghdad International Film Festival will be submitted mainly from Egypt, Jordan and Iran. Egypt alone plans to submit 27 movies, director Abdul Basit Salman told AFP by telephone from Cairo, where he is now based.
The event is being staged by the Association of Iraqi Filmmakers Without Borders and will run from December 16 to 19 at a venue still to be decided.
A highly popular festival of short films was held in 2005 at the Al-Mansour Hotel in central Baghdad but the venue has been ruled out for this year’s event after a suicide bomber attacked a meeting of tribal leaders in the hotel’s foyer in June, killing 12 people.