Director General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Koichiro Matsuura has sent a message to all countries notifying them of the decision by the entity’s General Assembly to designate 2008 as the ’World Year of Languages’.
Part of the message reads that while understanding the challenges which may face humanity in the future, the organization plans to focus on languages next year.
Language denotes the identity of a nation and is also considered the most important factor in developing communications between nations, said the message, according to MNA.
Cultural diversities are more related to lingual differences, which has been discussed among various circles. However, 50 percent of 7,000 languages used in the world are on the verge of extinction, it said.
Only one-forth of the figure are spoken and taught in educational centers, but thousands of languages are not used in educational spaces and publishing field.
“We are now planning to encourage all the communities to use their mother tongue in their educational systems alongside national and international languages,“ he said.
Therefore, UNESCO invites all governments, nations and educational centers to increase their activities in promoting all the languages, especially those facing extinction.

A frame from 'Taste of Cherry'

The film ’Taste of Cherry’ will be screened in Florida’s Daytona Beach Museum on December 5 as part of the ongoing program featuring the works of noted Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, which will continue until January 30.
The program, which opened with the screening of ’Close-up’, has so far featured ’Life and Nothing Else’ and ’Under the Olive Tree’, according to www.cinemaema.com.
’Wind Will Take Us’ and ’ABC Africa’ will be shown on January 16 and January 30 respectively.
An exhibition of photos marking the achievements of his 30-year career of photography, is also underway concurrently in the museum
“I wanted to eternalize happy and sorrowful moments through photography,“ said Kiarostami about his works.
Kiarostami’s collections of photos which are on display in the museum are ’Roads’ (1973-2003), ’Snow’ (1978-2003), ’Trees’ (2006), ’Rain’ (2006-2007) as well as four video arts.
Meanwhile, Iranian Women Cineastes Week will be held in Sofia, Bulgaria on January 7.
The films ’Lineless Paper’, ’Eternal Children’, ’Candle in Wind’, ’Lost Time’ and ’Mother’ are participating in the event which will be sponsored by Iranian Embassy’s Cultural Office in Bulgaria.

An exhibition of photos by the editor of Middle East Photo Section of Associated Press Office in Cairo began at Artists’ House on Sunday and will continue until Thursday.
According to ISNA, the event titled ’Tired of War’ features 35 color and black/white photos which were taken by Ben Curtis.
The exhibit, which is the first by the 34-year-old artist, deals with wars in Somalia, Liberia and Lebanon.
Photos about Lebanon are in black and white while the rest are in color.
Curtis is a law graduate but after a photo was published in a newspaper, he developed interest in photojournalism and took up the work in earnest.
Curtis, who has won World Press Photo Award, is currently in Tehran to judge First Soureh Photojournalism Competition. He also believes that a photojournalist must expose reality to the public.

Iranian poet and mystic Molana Jalaleddin Rumi was commemorated in a ceremony in Zagreb, Croatia.
The ceremony, inaugurated by Iranian ambassador to Croatia, was part of programs held in a theater hall in central Zagreb featuring a play titled ’Ascent’, reported Fars news agency.
Inspired by Masnavi tales, namely ’Parrot and Merchant’, ’Moses and Shepherd’, the play was welcomed by the Croatian audience.
The event, organized by Iranian Cultural Center in Croatia and the capital’s Pereporot Cultural Complex, intended to introduce Molana’s identity and thoughts to the world in 2007, which has been designated by UNESCO as the ’Year of Molana’ to mark the eighth birth centenary of the literary figure.

Iranian music group ’Ave Maria’ will perform a classical duet in Tehran’s Roudaki Hall on December 6-7.
The performance will be held in two sections with the first part presenting a violin-guitar duet and the second a duet for violin and piano, reporting Fars news agency quoting Roudaki’s Public Relations Office.
The band, including Amir Fathi on violin, Mehdi Nejati on guitar and Mehrdad Moradi on piano, will perform pieces by classical composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach, Brahms, Paganini and Astor Piazzolla.
Meanwhile, a concert of traditional music ’Yes, Unanimously . . . ’ composed by Pouria Shivafard will be performed to the accompaniment of Arjang Seifizadeh in the main hall of Niavaran Cultural Complex today and tomorrow.
The concert, which was recorded during 2005-2007, includes songs titled ’Angel’s Message’, ’Desert Crazy’ and ’Way of Wealth’.
The concert involves 12 instrumentalists including Asghar Arabshahi (on the ’Tar’), Golnoush Salehi (’Tar’), Razieh Nazari (’Tar’), Sadaf Amini (Dulcimer), Noushin Pasdar (’Oud’), Shiva Abedi (’Kamancheh’). The instruments are traditional.

Director of Archeological Station of Shahr-e Sukhta (Burnt City) in Zabol, Sistan-Baluchestan province said that an artificial eyeball which was discovered at the site last year will undergo expert studies.
Mansour Seyyed Sajjadi told IRNA that the eyeball, belonging to a sturdy woman aged between 25 to 30 years, was unearthed in the tenth round of excavations at the site, adding that skeletal remains of the woman were found in grave number 6705 of Burnt City’s cemetery.
He added that the 11th round of excavations began on November 10 at the site to determine the materials used in the eyeball and make a moulage of it for further testing. Commenting on other objectives of this round of excavations, he said: “We will measure the exact size of the cemetery in Burnt City and conduct further research on residential units and monuments at the site.“
Sajjadi further stated that 20 experts from Italian National Research Center, The National Museum of Oriental Art in Rome and Newcastle University in England are participating in the current round of excavations.
Located 57 kilometers from the city of Zabol in Sistan-Baluchistan province, southeast Iran, Burnt City is one of the most important prehistoric sites of the country which thrived during the third millennium BC.

Second International Dictionary Illustration Exhibition is underway in Tehran at the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and the Young Adults (IIDCYA).
According to ISNA, the exhibition, themed ’House’, will be organized by the artistic group ’Period’.
The display provides an opportunity for artists to feature their interpretation of the word ’House’, since organizers of the event believe that words have meanings beyond what is explained in dictionaries.
The exhibition will run until December 13.

A photo exhibition by Fardin Vaezi is underway at Mirmiran Gallery in Tehran’s Artists House.
The artist, who specializes in digital photography, is displaying 26 black and white news photos about Afghanistan.
The exhibition will run through December 6.
Meanwhile, an exhibition of photos by Amin Talachian opened on Friday at CafŽ 78 Gallery. The exhibition features 10 black and white photos measuring 50x70 centimeters.
CafŽ 78 is located on Azodi Street, Karim Khan-e-Zand Avenue.

Concurrent with the 50th anniversary of animation in Iran, Iran’s national animation seminar will be held from February 24-26.
According to ISNA, the event will be sponsored by the Center for Development of Documentary and Experimental Cinema, Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry’s Department for Cinematic and Audiovisual Affairs, ASIFA (Internationale du Film d’Animation) and Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB)’s Faculty and Arts Academy.
The event seeks to promote the academic and research bases of animation in Iran and create conditions for interaction between the Iranian animation community.
Articles to be presented at the event will focus on cultural and sociopolitical issues, education and technology, economy and production as well as the audience and children.
All instructors, artists and experts on animation have been invited to submit abstracts of their articles to the seminar secretariat not later than December 21.
The secretariat is located in Center for Development of Documentary and Experimental Cinema, #17, Martyr Qandi Square, North Sohravardi St., Tehran.
Meanwhile, the animation ’United Nations’ produced by Noureddin Zarrin-kelk, who is the father of Iranian animation, will be complete by March.
Commenting on his film, Zarrin-kelk said that the 15-minute film depicts UN as an assembly of heads of government. “I have made the animation out of my own expenses and have not yet presented it anywhere,“ he concluded.