japan/iran movies

there have been a number of japanese-iranian movies recently. both countries have large asian movie industries and have won a lot of international awards in the last years.
to mention two:

"Farda" (Tomorrow)

2002 - Japan/Iran

Starring Kai Shishido, Osman Mohammadparast, Akiko Oshidary, Mehdi Ghoudarzi. Directed by Setsuo Nakayama.

Farda, the first Japanese-Iranian film, tells the story of a Japanese salesman who goes to Iran to repay a debt and discovers human warmth and tenderness. By showing the Iranian way of life, filmmaker Setsuo Nakayama has said that his film窶背hose title means 窶徼omorrow窶 in Farsi窶琶s intended to impart to audiences a sense of calmness and gentleness so often lost in the rat race of modern Japan.

Setsuo Nakayama's Farda is an unusual fish-out-of-water story. Japanese businessman Izava (Kai Shishido) works for an auto manufacturer. Izava is saddened by the death of a man who ran a plant that Izava was ordered to close. Murata had a dying wish to see one of his workers get a large payment. Izava is asked to deliver the money. He travels to Iran. Although he continues to have trouble finding his prey, Izava befriends locals even though he is often unable to communicate verbally. Farda was screened at the Montreal World Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

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and another, this one by an iranian director


"Kaze no Jutan" (The Wind Carpet)
2002 - Japan/Iran

Director: Kamal Tabrizi
Producer: Masuda Yumiko, Alireza Shojanoori, Yamashita Takahiro
Screenplay: Mohammad Soleymani, Imai Masako
Cinematography: Hassan Pooya, Ui Tadayuki
Music: Payman Yazdanian
Cast: Yagyu Miyu as Nagai Sakura, Farbod Ahmadjo as Ruzbe, Reza Kianian as Acbal

Nakata Kinta (Mikuni Rentaro) is planning to reconstruct a legendary festival set and decorate it with a Persian rug as the centerpiece. The rug is designed by Nagai Kinue (Kudo Yuki), and will be unveiled to people at the upcoming event. However, Kinue passes away in a car accident right before her husband Makoto (Enoki Takaaki) departs for Iran to pick up the rug. Makoto goes to Iran with their daughter Sakura to meet carpet broker Acbal, but finds out that the rug has not been completed due to some mistakes. Makoto is in the depth of despair and decides to go back to Japan. Acbal's nephew, knowing the devastation Sakura feels, struggles to set up a team to finish the carpet in 24 hours. During their hard work, Sakura and Acbal bond with each other. Casting the representative actors from Iran and Japan, Iranian filmmaker Kamal Tabrizi directed this film as a co-production between the two countries.

Sounds interesting. I wonder if I could find these movies in America. Or with subtitles in English.

"Sounds interesting. I wonder if I could find these movies in America. Or with subtitles in English."

dear Brooker,

Actually these movies are allways made with english subtitles. But i am not sure
if they are easy to obtain there. You should be looking in either japanese or persian
stores where they have movies i suggest. Though i doubt there are many persians
in Seattle (thats where you are from, right? hehe). They are all in Tehrangeles.... eh
Losangeles that is. But there should be plenty of japanese movie reatailers i suppose?
Unfortunately iranian movies unlike in Europe where they regularly win or run up
in festivals like Cannes or Venice, do not receive much positive feedback in America.
Must be for political reasons.

regards,
P.

In America it seems that only American movies are popular, which I think is unfortunate. I am a big movie fan and would like to see some good non-American movies, so I'll look for the ones you suggested. There is a really good specialty video store here in Seattle and they have (or can get) anything.

Are these movies made together with Japan and Iran or what ?

Duo said:

Are these movies made together with Japan and Iran or what ?

Click to expand...

If it says "Iran/Japan" and half of the actors, technicians, movie crew etc. is japanese and the other half are iranian, i suppose yes you could come to the conclusion that these movies were made together by Japan and Iran.

That's interesting. I'd love to see one, what it is about, i mean not much cultural similiarities between the two countries. I'd like to see on how they connect the two cultures together.

It seems that these two movies are interesting to watch. I better try watching it (especially Kaze no Jutan).

*~Hikki Kokurabuji~*

"That's interesting. I'd love to see one, what it is about, i mean not much cultural similiarities between the two countries. I'd like to see on how they connect the two cultures together."

Well for one thing these are both asian (eastern) cultures with an ancient civilization.
Besides Japan is easily Irans largest economic partner. At largel there have been about 3 million Iranians in Japan over the last two and half decades on restricted work visas. Most of them have returned to Iran and brought a lot of music, movies and memories with them. Japan has recently been rewarded the largest state order in iranian history to exploit the newly detected Azadegan oil fields which make Iran the worlds 2nd oil state, a deal which Japan has struck despite heavy American protests. Japan holds large scale annual conventions to support the further development of Iran. Actually I wouldnt know another foreign country where Japan is involved to such a degree. (maybe south korea, not sure though)

And btw before the 1979 coup d'etat that ended the 2500 year old Persian Empire, the Shah of Persia was the emperor of the worlds oldest empire. Now it is the Tenno of Japan.

Japan also has a close relationship with Bangladesh. There were many people from Bangladesh in the neighborhood where I lived in Tokyo. It's interesting to see which countries have ties together.

Well it seems obvious that Japan, a country with very few resources, is interested in having a good business relationship with Iran, one of the largests oil exporters. I just wondered if there any similiraitie in culture that i wasn't aware of, because i can think of nothing.