A frame from 'Hamoun and Darya'

Director of the film ’Hamoun and Darya’, which is among the entries at the 26th Fajr International Film Festival, said the film highlights indigenous elements.
Ebrahim Forouzesh, who was speaking in a session to review the film at the festival, told ISNA that ’Hamoun and Darya’ is based on a story having the same title by Abbas Jahangiran.
Describing national and indigenous elements as the key traits of his films, he said that ’Hamoun and Darya’ features desert landscape and traditional Iranian music.
The director, who chose Torbat-e Jam and Torbat-e Heidarieh, Khorasan Razavi province as the filming location, added that he has picked his cast from among local villagers.
Commenting on the international screening of the film, he said, “I hope the film would attract its own particular audience.“
Forouzesh criticized the sound system in Sahra Hall where the film is being screened. He said that despite efforts to present the film in the best manner, the quality of sound is low.
The film is about two young lovers Hamoun and Darya who live in a village. Hamoun plays the traditional Iranian string instrument ’Dotar’, and falls in love with his cousin Darya, who weaves carpet.
Meanwhile, the 11th Fajr Film Market is being held at the Artistic Creations Center of the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (IIDCYA).
Amir Esfandiari, director of the market said that countries with independent cinema industry, for example Mos Film of Russia, are participating in the event this year.
The first-timers include Brazil, Nigeria, Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, he added.
Esfandiari stated that 35 Iranian and 61 foreign companies are taking part in the event.
The market is open to the public from 4:00 p.m. until 11:00 p.m.

Persian-English version of selected poems by contemporary Iranian poets titled ’Beyond Dance of Snows’ will be published soon.
According to ISNA, the book translated by Abbas Mehr-Pouya includes poems by Nima Youshij, Mehdi Akhavan-Saales, Ahmad Shamlou, Sohrab Sepehri, Fereydoun Moshiri and Forough Farrokhzad.
Commenting on the book, he said that he translated the works of poets who are not alive. “It took me three years to compile and translate the book,“ he noted.
Mehr-Pouya had earlier translated another book ’Earth’s Appearance Is Not Seen’, which includes poems by Parviz Rouzakhsh. The book, which was published two years ago in Iran, includes more than 50 poems.
According to the translator, a new style of translation has been used in the book for which an in depth preface has been provided.
Abbas Mehr-Pouya was born in 1972. He was selected as the top translator at the Tenth Student Book of the Year for his rendering of the book ’Muhammad (PBUH) in Europe’. He is currently teaching in Hamadan universities.

Third ’Children’s Films for Children’ Festival named ’Dandelion’ opened on Saturday and will continue until Tuesday.
According to a press release faxed to Iran Daily by the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (IIDCYA), the event features 200 animations created by children aged six to 16.
Children were given a free hand in the selection of topics for their films, each of which lasted for one to eight minutes.
The panel of jury includes Vajhollah Fard-Moqaddam, Gholamreza Heidarnejad, Hadi Yaqinlou, Farkhandeh Torabi and Morteza Ahadi.
The top works will be awarded in a ceremony on Tuesday.
A number of workshops on directing, scriptwriting, lighting effects and acting have been organized on the sidelines of the festival.

The film ’Song of Sparrows’ directed by Majid Majidi will take part only in the Iranian cinema competition section of the ongoing Fajr International Film Festival due to its participation in the international section of Berlin Film Festival, known as Berlinale.
According to MNA, the film was excluded from the international section of the event at the request of head of Berlin Film Festival Dieter Kosslick and approval of secretary of the Fajr Festival Majid Shah-Hosseini.
Thus, the latest work by Majidi will be screened only in the Iranian cinema section of Fajr festival.
Based on Berlinale’s regulations, films participating in other international events cannot take part in the festival’s official competition section.
The film is scheduled to be replaced by ’Wind Whirls in Grass’ by Khosrow Masoumi in the international competition section of Fajr Festival.
The 26th Fajr International Film Festival is underway in Tehran and will continue until February 11.

Current edition of Fajr Poetry Festival is focusing on works of young poets, said director general of Iran’s Book House.
Speaking to MNA, Ali Shojaei added that one of the sections of the event has been devoted to the youth in recognition of the talents of youngsters.
The first collection of poems by the youth will be published and made available to enthusiasts.
In general, such events blend culture and imagination, which can help upgrade the level public culture, he added.
Commenting on the status of books in the country, Shojaei said, “An improvement in the figures pertaining to the publication of books should not lead us to think that the situation is desirable and there is no room for concern.
“Book reading should emerge as a necessity for the people so that we will be able to achieve cultural objectives.“
The people will show greater interest in book reading if their quality and accessibility are improved, he said.
Books should be delivered on doorsteps, Shojaei concluded.
Fajr Poetry Festival opened in Mashhad, Khorasan Razavi province on January 31 and will continue for ten days in several provinces. The winners will be announced on February 21 in a ceremony in Tehran. The festival is sponsored by the Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry’s Culture Department and Book House.

Keyhan Kalhor

Noted Iranian musician and instrumentalist, Keyhan Kalhor, will perform a concert on September 27 at Hollywood Bowl, USA to commemorate Iranian poet and mystic Molana Jalaleddin Rumi.
Kalhor, who specializes in ’Kamancheh’, a traditional Iranian string musical instrument, will be accompanied by the finest Iranian
musicians, famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma as a special guest and whirling dervishes of Syria.
Kalhor has not yet announced who will recite Molana’s poems in the concert, wrote Persian daily ’Iran’.
Born in 1963 Tehran, Kalhor took up music when he was seven under his master Ahmad Mohajer.
By the age of thirteen, Kalhor was playing in the National Orchestra of Radio and Television of Iran.
Kalhor later worked with the Silk Road Project ensemble, where his music has been arranged by Stephen Prutsman and Lev Zhurbin. He later moved to Rome and Ottawa to study Western classical music.
Kalhor has composed many works for famous Iranian vocalists such as Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Shahram Nazeri.
’Night Silence Desert’, ’In the Mirror of the Sky’ and ’The Wind’ are among his albums.

The exhibition ’The Great Little Ones’, which is the only remaining periodical event from a series of ten displays, will be held in Iran’s Photographers House on February 16.
According to Fars news agency, the entity has organized a total of 10 periodical and 18 peripheral exhibits in the year to March 2008.
’Souvenirs of Khorramshahr’, ’Sureh Photo Agency’, ’Exhibition of Hajj Photo’ and ’We Can’ are among the periodical exhibits while peripheral events include ’Works of Neishabour Photographers’, ’Biodiversity Photo Exhibit’, ’India’, ’Lebanon’ and ’Children’.
Reducing the duration of exhibits, diversity in themes and topics of the events and attracting more visitors are among the features of this year’s exhibitions.

In 1999, best-selling author Paulo Coelho, who wrote ’The Alchemist’, was failing in Russia. That year he sold only about 1,000 books, and his Russian publisher dropped him. But after he found another, Coelho took a radical step. On his own website, launched in 1996, he posted a digital Russian copy of ’The Alchemist’.
With no additional promotion, print sales picked up immediately. Within a year he sold 10,000 copies; the next year around 100,000. By 2002 he was selling a total of a million copies of multiple titles. Today, Coelho’s sales in Russian are over 10 million and growing. “I’m convinced it was putting it up for free on the Internet that made the difference,“ he said in an interview at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, reported Fortune.
Coelho, whose fiction explores universal themes of spiritual aspiration and brotherhood in unpretentious language, has been a star of the Forum for 11 years. Coelho explained why he thinks giving books away online leads to selling more copies in print: “It’s very difficult to read a book on your computer. People start printing out their own copies. But if they like the book, after reading 30-40 pages they just go out and buy it.“
He spends about three hours online every day, interacting with readers who send him over 1,000 e-mails and messages daily. A fulltime staff of six helps manage his manifold Net activities, and the entire operation costs him $15,000 each month, which he pays out of his own pocket.