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AMIN portrays Qashqai musician Amin Aghaie, a young modern nomad and his family who despite facing steep financial, cultural and political obstacles are dedicated to their art and culture. Amin travels to remote towns and villages to record the music of the surviving masters whose numbers decline each year. His nomadic family are selling their meager belongings to help support their son's education in performance and ethnomusicology at Tchaikovsky's Conservatory in Kyiv, Ukraine, but it is not enough. Amin, desperate to finish his academic education, sells his violins one at a time just to pay for his tuition.
A poetic meditation on the death of three Iranian refugees who committed suicide in Ottawa in the late 1990's. Nasoot is an Islamic mythological term for the world of corporeal existence. Evoking the power of memory and history, this film is about dispossession, exile and alienation caused by war and displacement.
A poetic, performative documentary based on the improvised monologue of veteran actor Shahram Golchin.
Lahoot is an Islamic mythological term for the world beyond the corporeal existence. In a stylized, formalist illustration of dreams, memories and realities.
George Lim arrived as a young man in 1913 in Ottawa. He lived there the rest of his life except for visits to China. Typical and extraordinary, his life and the lives of his family are cast in the history of the migration of overseas Chinese and the history of Canada. With the help of an interpreter, Melina Young interviews members of the Lim family who recall events in their lives and speak of aspirations in this country.The Lim family's story is embedded in contexts - past and current immigration policies, rallies, remarks by Members of Parliament, the reflection of friends - that make sense for the videomaker at this time in her life.
Shahram Golchin is a professional film actor from Pre-Revolution Iran who was trapped between worlds in the prime of his career. Debilitated by a range of illnesses and a strong sense of exile, he is our window to the other characters of this film. Faces is an experimental documentary exploring the life and work of diasporic artists as they represent themselves through their art and stories. This multi-layered documentary reflects on politics, pop-culture, history and the power of popular media.
Acclaimed Iranian-Canadian musician Kiya Tabassian leaves behind the slush, congestion and impersonal towering buildings of his home in Montreal to encounter the deep sources and inspirations of diasporic Persian music. His search takes us on a richly textured journey into the landscape, the poetry, the memory, and above all, the compelling spirituality of the music of southern Iran.
