Concurrent with the 26th Fajr International Theater Festival, the festival’s charter has been prepared.
Speaking in a news conference on the eve of the festival on Tuesday, Majid Sarsangi, the festival’s secretary told ISNA that an emphasis on capabilities and moral values of theater artists is among the objectives of the charter drawn up in cooperation with the Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry’s Department for Dramatic Arts.
“Following the ministry’s approval, this would be the country’s first official document for theater,“ he said.
Referring to the activities of the festival’s secretariat, he said, “The secretariat has been operating for about one year during which period it has tried to upgrade the level of the festival to make it a leading event in the Middle East.“
Over 710 performances, 14 seminars and workshops are being held at the event, and 16 titles of books will be published on the sidelines, he added.
Asked about the week participation of foreign theater troupes in the festival’s street plays section, he said that a number of foreign troupes, including those from Peru and Poland have refrained from taking part due to the weather conditions.
Turning to the funds for the festival, Sarsangi said, “Fortunately, there is no concern about this, since the ministry has allocated six billion rials and the remainder will be provided by the private sector.“

Contentment is an asset which will never diminish.

One-day seminar titled ’Contemporary Theater, Contemporary Critics’ attended by deputy minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance for artistic affairs, Mohammad Hossein Imani-Khoshkho and Majlis deputy Amir Reza Khadem opened in Artists’ House on Monday.
Addressing the inaugural ceremony, Imani said that Fajr Theater Festival, as one of the important international events, has been able to attain the status it deserves, reported ISNA.
Noting the significance of critics in art, he further said that critics promote interaction between art and science and, thus, are able to forge an effective communication with the audience.
In societies where questions are considered essential, criticism has a special function, he said, adding that since theater signifies cultural life of a country, it can serve as the best criterion for developing a cultural understanding of that state.
Criticism aims to provide a proper understanding about an artwork and serve as a bridge between the performing group and the audience, he said.
Imani said that criticism weighs up rationality of any society and the critic should have a good grasp of various fields so as to be able to influence the cast and audience.
Khadem, for his part, also referred to veracity of art and culture in the country and said that the seventh Majlis has insisted on those involved in the theater industry to take into account close interaction with the people.
“First of all, we should think about a suitable ambience for criticism so that we will be able to gain the desired results,“ he concluded.

Iranian-religious music concert performed by Tehran Symphony Orchestra conducted by Saeed Zehni will be held in Tehran’s Vahdat Hall from February 16-25.
According to ISNA, the program titled ’Crescent of Caravan’ is to be sponsored by Fadak Cultural Artistic Institute and Arts Department of Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry.
The program will include performances by Choral Group, Daf players, Qur’an reciters as well as leading instrumentalists of the orchestra.
At the event, instrumentalists such as Siavash Zahireddini, Homayoun Rahimian, Nasser Rahimi and Alireza Khorshidfar will perform along with a 30-people choral group.

An exhibition of photos and books is underway in London as part of the ’Ten-Day Dawn’ celebrations to mark the anniversary of the victory of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. The event will end on Friday.
In a press release faxed to Iran Daily, Public Relations Department of Islamic Culture and Relations Organization noted that Iranian cineastes Ali Nasirian, Hossein Yari and Golshifteh Farahani are attending the event, which is sponsored by the Iranian Cultural Office in that country.
On the sidelines of the event, the artists will also lecture on the development of Iranian cinema and changes in it since the victory of the Islamic Revolution.
The films ’Odor of Joseph’s Shirt’ directed by Ebrahim Hatami-Kia, ’M for Mother’ by the late Rasoul Molla-Qolipour and ’Sun Shines Same for All’ by Abbas Rafei will also be screened at the event.
The photo section of the exhibition features works by renowned Iranian photographers on Iranian tourism attractions and Islamic Revolution as well as the participation of Iranian women in various fields.
Persian and English books and CDs on the same subjects will also be available at the event.

Farhang Sharif

Noted Iranian musician said that he will perform a evaluative concert in Berlin at the invitation of the city’s Cultural Artistic Center.
Speaking to MNA, Farhang Sharif added that following that he will undertake programs featuring the Iranian new year ’Norouz’ in France, Belgium and Sweden.
“Earlier, I performed a evaluative concert on the features of Iranian music in London which was well received by the audience,“ he said.

A general view shows art works by Picasso during a media presentation at Madrid's Reina Sofia museum February 4, 2008.

Madrid’s Reina Sofia museum is about to open one of the most extensive Picasso exhibitions as it hosts works on loan from the National Picasso Museum in Paris to add to those already on view in the Spanish capital.
Beginning on Wednesday, the Reina Sofia will show more than 400 paintings, sculptures, engravings, drawings, notebooks, ceramic art and even 20 photographs ranging from the legendary Spanish artist’s first portraits at the end of the 19th century to work from late 1972, shortly before his death in 1973, reported Reuters.
The Reina Sofia contemporary art museum has been able to add to its stock of works by Pablo Picasso due to building work at the Musee National Picasso in Paris. A Spanish government grant of 3.5 million euros ($5.2 million) also made the exhibition possible.
The museum will house the loaned exhibits in three halls usually dedicated to temporary exhibitions and alongside works in the permanent collection such as ’Guernica’, the emblematic painting depicting the horrors of Spain’s 1936-39 civil war.
“This is the only one (exhibition) which shows his work from start to finish and across the range of works,“ Anne Baldassari, director of the Picasso Museum in Paris, told journalists on Monday.
“It presents a previously unseen concept of Picasso,“ she added. “It has not been done before and will never be able to be done again.“

The fourth edition of transcripts of interviews conducted by late Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci has been published by Ofoq Publishing House.
According to Fars news agency, Gholam Reza Emami has selected and translated the interviews which were originally published by Corriere della Sera, the major national newspaper in Italy.
The book includes interviews, with famous political figures, namely the father of the Islamic Revolution the late Imam Khomeini, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and former Polish president Lech Walesa.
Fallaci (1929-2006) was a former partisan during World War II. She had a long and successful journalistic career and was twice the recipient of St. Vincent Prize for journalism.

Music Band ’Dastan’ will perform a concert in London today (Wednesday).
Announcing this, Saeed Farajpouri, a composer who will take part in the presentation, told MNA that the group’s first concert was in Italy and the performance was followed by programs in Frankfurt and Stockholm. It also has several concerts on its agenda in Holland and Belgium.
Describing the concert as Shajarian’s first independent cooperation with Dastan Group, he said that the presentations of the band were warmly welcomed.
Farajpouri further said that one of the positive aspects of the music band is the workshops it conducts on Iranian music for students of respective country after any program.
Dastan will perform in two sections, the first of which will feature pieces by noted Iranian classical and contemporary poets including Hafez, Sa’di and Shafiei-Kadkani to music composed by Hamid Motabassem.

Writers guild members picket outside Paramount Studios in Los Angeles Monday.

An agreement to end the three-month-old Hollywood writers strike could be ready in time to avoid disrupting the Oscars but studios and the union are still haggling over the precise language, two people familiar with the talks said.
According to AP, the Writers Guild of America bargaining committee and board of directors received updates on the status of informal talks with studio executives, the pair said Monday.
They were not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity. One of the people has said a formal deal is possible by the end of this week.
There was significant progress toward a proposed agreement last week on the toughest issues concerning compensation for projects distributed via the Internet.
While specifics of the negotiations were not disclosed, the proposal agreement is believed to include significant increases in the residuals that writers get for online use of movies and TV shows.
Last month, studios reached a tentative deal with the Directors Guild of America that included increased residuals for some paid Internet downloads and for ad-supported streaming of programs.
The informal talks are essentially a substitute for the formal negotiations between writers and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers that broke off on Dec. 7. Writers struck on Nov. 5.