The Iranian Paralympic delegation arrives in London.

Chinese Contest Awards Iranian Cartoonists

Two Iranian cartoonists have been awarded at the 2012 edition of Asian Youth Animation and Comics Contest (AYACC) held in Guiyang, China.
Mahmoud Azadnia won the first prize of the event’s cartoon section and Alireza Pakdel received the first prize of the caricature section, Mehr News Agency reported.
Zlatkovsky Mikhail (Russia), Rolf Heimann (Australia), Antonius Toni Masdiono (Indonesia), Terry Mosher (Canada) and Chen liqing (China) judged this year’s cartoons and illustrations.
The AYACC 2012 was held on the theme of ‘Green Cartoon, Creative Future’ from August 17-19, presenting animations, comics and illustrations from over 70 countries.
Various high level forums and lectures were held on topics such as production of animation and comics and the trend of development in these fields.
Organized by Guiyang Industry & Information Technology Committee, People’s Government of Baiyun District, People’s Government of Gaoxin District, People’s Government of Xiaohe District, and Guiyang Bureau of Culture, AYACC 2012 aimed to create a complex platform for animation and cartoon, expand the scale of international copyright trade, hold international cartoon camp, and focus on youth.

French Theaters to Screen Kiarostami’s Latest Movie

Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami’s latest production ‘Like Someone in Love’ is to hit French movie theaters in fall.
The Japanese-language drama will be screened in France starting from October 20.
Co-produced by France’s MK2 and Japan’s Eurospace, the film features a “contemporary relationship in today’s Japan” and premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, Press TV said.
Like Someone in Love will also be screened in the Netherlands from January 10, 2013.
Shot in Tokyo and the nearby city of Yokohama, the film depicts the unusual relationship between a student and a brilliant, elderly academic with a thematic concern in an impressive atmosphere.
The Japanese cast features television star Rin Takanashi as the young student and veteran actor Tadashi Okuno as the retired professor.
The USD 4.8 million Like Someone in Love is Kiarostami’s second production outside Iran after his successful Certified Copy, which was also produced by the French company MK2.
‘Certified Copy’ was filmed in the Chianti countryside in Tuscany, Italy and premiered at the 2010 Cannes Film festival, where it won the Best Actress Award of the French festival for its lead actress Juliette Binoche.
As a filmmaker, painter, designer and photographer, Kiarostami has received many prestigious international awards, including the 1997 Cannes Golden Palm award and the 2008 Glory to the Filmmaker award of the Venice Film Festival.
He has also held a photo exhibition at Beijing’s Imperial City Art Museum.

‘Xerxes’ Available in Persian

A Persian translation of ‘Xerxes’, a book about the king of the Persian Empire, has hit bookstores across the country.
Released by Qoqnus Publications, ‘Xerxes (Ancient World Leaders)’ is written by Dennis Abrams and has been rendered into Persian by Sara Hashemi, Mehr News Agency reporetd.
The book tells the thrilling tale of one of the most storied battles in ancient history and reveals how the war’s ramifications altered the course of Western civilization.
Xerxes I became king of the Persian Empire upon the death of his father, Darius I, in the year 486 BCE. His kingdom extended from present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan in the east to Egypt and Libya in the west and was the largest empire of the classical age.

Harvard University to Review ‘A Separation’

Art & Culture Desk

Iranian movie ‘Nader and Simin, A Separation’ will be reviewed in a session at Belfer Center of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
‘A Separation’ narrates the story of a married couple faced with a difficult decision: to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer’s disease. The event is co-sponsored by the Outreach Center at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

‘Expendables 2’ Poised to Repeat At Box Office

The dog days have arrived at the summer box office.
There are no new superheroes, sequels or kids films. The weekend’s two widest openers--Sony’s ‘Premium Rush’ and ‘Hit and Run’ from Open Road--are not expected to mount a challenge for the top spot. There’s even a chance that a documentary, ‘2016 Obama’s America’, will crack the top ten.
Last week’s No. 1 film, ‘Expendables 2’ will keep the top spot with around $14 million, industry analysts say, Reuters said.
After that, it will be a scramble between “’Bourne Legacy’, which is in its third week, the two new wide openers and ‘ParaNorman’ for the next several slots. All are projected to be in the $10 million range for the three days.
‘Hit and Run’, which opened Wednesday to $625,000, is expected to gross around $8 million. Dax Shepherd’s comedy cost $2 million excluding marketing costs.
‘Premium Rush’, which Sony is rolling out on 2,100 screens, is an intriguing offering. The plot couldn’t be much simpler: A bicycle messenger, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is chased around New York City by a dirty cop who wants an envelope that the messenger is carrying.
It’s directed by David Koepp, who teamed with John Kamps on the screenplay. Koepp is best known as the writer behind a number of blockbusters, including ‘Jurassic Park’, ‘Mission Impossible’ and ‘Spider-Man’. He’s also a part of the writing team on Paramount’s upcoming and still untitled Jack Ryan project starring Chris Pine and Keira Knightly.
‘Premium Rush’, however, has more in common with another film written by Koepp, 2002’s ‘Panic Room’. In that one, directed by David Fincher, Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart star as a mother and daughter who take refuge in a safe room during a break-in.
For Gordon-Levitt, coming off his ‘Dark Knight Rises’ supporting role, ‘Premium Rush’ provides an opportunity to establish himself as a box office force. Michael Shannon, Dania Ramirez and Jamie Chung co-star.
Tom Ortenberg’s Open Road is opening the romantic action comedy “Hit and Run” on 2,700 screens, making it the weekend’s widest opener.

Picasso and Duchamp on Show At Moderna Museet

With the exhibition Picasso/Duchamp ‘He Was Wrong’, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm sets two giants, Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, up against each other for the first time.
They are often regarded as the two most influential artists of the 20th century--Picasso, who personified the modernist painter, and Duchamp, the indifferent ironist and chess genius, who challenged painting and transformed art into a maze of intellectual amusements, ArtDaily said.
Now, visitors to the Moderna Museet have a unique opportunity to witness this battle of giants and see where it leads. They may appear incompatible when contrasting the purpose of painting, and the eye versus the mind, “If only we could pull out our brain and use only our eyes.”--Pablo Picasso “I was interested in ideas, not in visual products. I wanted to put painting again in the service of the mind.”
Marcel Duchamp Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp are often seen as contraries. And admittedly, although they were often in each other’s immediate surroundings and shared many patrons and collectors, they nevertheless appear to have maneuvered in totally different worlds.
They were so different that their respective ideas on what art should be and can be seem irreconcilable, and yet from their extreme positions they simultaneously exerted incalculable influence on the destiny of modernism. Indeed, the author Octavio Paz once wrote, ‘Perhaps the two painters who have had the greatest influence in this century are Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp.

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH):

The wisest person is one who shows more tolerance towards others.