Camera
She's the bar floozy, he's the stranger. She tries to pick him up but for some reason, he's not game.
A profile of the Iranian film industry
Simin is an Iranian woman on a journey to discover what it means to be a free American. She works for the Census Bureau which, in an effort to control its citizens, has begun a program to record their dreams. Unaware of this devious plot, Simin is torn between her compassion for those whose dreams she is recording and a truth she must find within.
Tradition still abides in the ADK - the Adirondacks region of upstate New York - as nine friends gather for their annual all-night hog roast even as their community crumbles around them. But the arrival of Carter, a slick rock 'n' roller from the City, will expose the simmering tensions within the group and ignite an age-old feud.
Two-channel video installation by Shirin Neshat
On one wall, a singer delivers a passionate love song to a group of men. He is faced away from his audience, secure that his performance will be accepted and adored. On the opposite wall, a woman in a black chador stands silently throughout his song. Then something stunning happens…
Iranian businessman Haji returns to Manhattan with his new bride, Mariyam. Haji's friends plan a feast to celebrate the marriage in the traditional style, which includes a slaughtered lamb. Lamb's blood from the messy ritual dripping into the apartment below causes a suspicious neighbor to call the police. When Haji is killed in the ensuing police intervention, the widow Mariyam is wooed by Haji's friends. Sensing Mariyam's reluctance, Mohammed acts quickly to propose marriage with tragi-comedic consequences.
In 1948, decades after fleeing Armenia to the US as a child, Charlie returns in the hopes of finding a connection to his roots, but what he finds instead is a country crushed under Soviet rule. After being unjustly imprisoned, Charlie falls into despair, until he discovers that he can see into a nearby apartment from his cell window - the home of a prison guard.
Three stories. We see, but little is explained. In "The Married Couple," a salesman pays a call on an old customer who is with his wife in the upstairs bedroom of their ill adult son. Another salesman may beat him to the punch, but not before disorienting changes. A maid scrubs the floor. "In the Penal Colony": a man arrives at a penal colony where an officer demonstrates a bizarre apparatus, one that punches a message into the skin of a prisoner strapped beneath it. Who will be punished? In "Fratricide," a man is murdered at night by someone he knows well. A woman grieves.
The Colony, which shares the screen and the character of Shirin Neshat's Land of Dreams, is about an immense research institute devoted to recording and archiving the dreams of the local population.
