Sunday February 28, 2010, at 6:30 PM

SPECIAL PROGRAM:

IN MEMORIAM OF FORUGH FARROKHZAD

FILM SOCIETY CELEBRATES
THE INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY WITH TWO FILMS BY
SHIRIN BAZLEH, AN ACCLAIMED IRANIAN WOMAN FILMMAKER

Special Guests:

Pari Amini: Painter

Reza Badiyi: Director

Shirin Bazleh: Producer, Director and Film Editor

Mojdeh Habibi: TV Host and Artist

MOTHER TERESA:
INTIMATE PORTRAIT

In English

Lifetime’s Intimate Portrait Series takes you into the lives of the exceptional women who have made a difference in the world.

Mother Teresa, an Intimate Portrait, a Gracie Award winning documentary, was produced a year before Mother Teresa’s death in 1997. The documentary follows the life of Agnes Bojaxhiu, the youngest of three children born in the former Yugoslavia, and her journey to distant India where she became one of the most powerful and recognizable faces of the 20th century for changing the world, one person at a time.

Against the backdrop of a densely populated Calcutta, the filmmaker was given unprecedented access to Mother Teresa’s Homes, including the Lepers Colony, Home of the Dying and the Disabled, and others. Together with Mother Teresa’s personal biographer, Navin Chawla; Historian, journalist Bachi Karkari; and Actor, Humanitarian Martin Sheen, and Mother Teresa herself, we get a comprehensive and intimate portrait of one of the most fascinating and admirable women of our time.

Agnes left her mother, her friends and family at 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto in Ireland who were the only missionaries serving the poor in India. In 1928 she arrived in Calcutta where she became Sister Teresa teaching geography to local underprivileged children within the walls of Loreto Compound. In 1939 after taking her final vows, she became Mother Teresa.

Starting in 1942 Mother Teresa witnessed religious warfare and famine tear India apart. Calcutta’s streets teemed with destitute war refugees, abandoned children and lepers. She was no longer satisfied with her life as a cloistered nun and during a six week retreat to Darjeeling, Mother Teresa received what she called “Call Within a Call”: God wanted her to forsake her life at Loreto, and serve the poor. She made an unimaginable and shocking request from the Catholic Church, to leave Loreto Order for an uncertain future to serve the poor on the streets.

The documentary explores the hardships and challenges that Mother Teresa endured in order to answer her Calling and form The Missionaries of Charity, where she served and transformed the lives of thousands of people worldwide in 120 countries.

and

JOURNEY TO ABADAN:
A PARADISE LOST

In Persian with English Subtitles

two films by:

SHIRIN BAZLEH

In 1992 filmmaker Shirin Bazleh returned to Iran after a 20 year absence. She was anxious to visit her beloved hometown Abadan where she was born and raised while her father worked at the Abadan refinery. The 8 year Iran-Iraq war had just ended, and travel to that part of southern Iran was restricted. The only route was to take a train from Tehran to Ahwaz and then a bus to Khorramshahr. From that point, a private van would take her and her cousins to the neighborhood where they grew up and had the best memories of their childhood.

The film is a subjective journey of Bazleh reuniting with her past.

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SHIRIN BAZLEH: Born and raised in Abadan, Iran, Shirin Bazleh was interested in photography and journalism from an early age. After finishing high school in Tehran she moved to the United States and received her BA in Mass Communications from Emerson College in Boston. She then moved to Los Angeles and completed her graduate studies at Loyola Marymount University with a degree in Communication Arts with emphasis in Film Production. Her thesis short film, The Duet, was released theatrically for Academy Award Student Film Considerations and was shown numerously on the Z Channel.

Bazleh started her professional career in the film industry as an assistant editor at Saul Zaentz Studios and Lucas Films in San Francisco where she worked on a number of feature films including Francis Coppola’s Godfather III.

In 1985 Bazleh began editing television documentaries with CNN’s two hour special Iran, Behind the Veil. She then moved to Australia where she was creative director and editor of Paradise of Martyrs for ABC Australia which was awarded as runner up for Australia’s Best Documentary by the Australian Film Commission in 1987.

Since 1993 Shirin Bazleh has been working in Los Angeles as director, producer, writer and editor on over 100 hours of network and cable television programs. Her credits include co-producer and editor on Bravo’s 6 hour Special Series, Maimi Slice 2004, co-writer and editor on A&E’s 12 hour Investigative Report series, Parol Board 2002, co-producer and editor on MSNBC’s 2 hour Special Truth About Acquaintance Rape 2001.

In 1997 Bazleh won a Gracie Award for producing, directing and editing Mother Teresa, an Intimate Portrait for Lifetime Television. This was Mother Teresa’s only participation in a television program in 8 years. Bazleh also produced The Young Kennedy Women for the same Lifetime series about the new generation of Kennedy women.

Bazleh has also worked on a number of documentary features, including Passages directed by Gabriela Bohm 2005, and co-writer and editor of By Many Names 2007, directed by Paul Fouce.

Shirin Bazleh’s most recent television credits as an editor include Obsessed for A&E, Homeland Security USA for ABC, and Operation Wild which will premiere on Discovery’s Planet Green Channel in January of 2010.

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