Reflecting on Freedom
Author Azar Nafisi
If tyrannical dictatorship or
“thought police” are beyond your experience, Foggy Bottom neighbor Azar Nafisi’s brilliant and insightful essay begins with the premise
“how fragile are rights we take for granted” as she unfolds her experience as a literature professor in Tehran during 1979.
“The Republic of the Imagination,” examines literature’s power to liberate minds and a nation’s spirit.
At this time when it seems many democracies are being challenged, we recognize the brave souls whose families and lives continue to be at risk for voicing their concern in question of the recent Iranian election results.
Forbidden to assemble during the day, the everresourceful Iranians practiced the nonviolent resistance of Gandhi and Martin Luther King (shaped by New Englander, Thoreau’s 1849 essay “Civil Disobedience”). They went to their roofs nightly with prolonged chanting “Allahu Akbar”– God is Great. A June 28 LA Times article reported that pro-government militiamen stormed neighborhoods, damaging private properties and assaulting civilians in an attempt to stop the nightly chants, “reminiscent of protests that erupted in the months that led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.” Arrests have broadened to those “perceived” as sympathetic.
WFI’s Iranian Film Night with Vigil
For an introduction to Iranian culture, Friday July 31, Washington Film Institute is holding Iranian Film Night at Carnegie Institution. The program includes an hour of classical Persian music and a candlelight Vigil in addition to two contemporary Iranian movies.
Program Notes:
7:30 pm FILM: Ethereal (“Asiri”) starring Khusraw Shakibayi directed by Mohammad Ali Sajjadi Samandar and Khorshid are living in an apartment given as their wedding present by Samandar’s father. Meanwhile, Khorshid is mysteriously connected to a ghost who reveals a crime executed by Samandar’s father and uncle. Scary stuff ensues.
9 pm: Roya Bahrami
With over 22 years of experience performing on her Persian santur, she has studied the Persian Classical repertoire (radif) with the leading masters of the art form on santur, setar and tar with Maestros Lotfi, Alizadeh, and Talai.She has studied santur techniques with Shahariar Saleh, Esmail Tehrani and Kazem Davoodian; daf with Esfandiar Shah-Mir; piano and vocal training with Golnoush Khaleghi; flamenco baile (dance) with Lourdes Elias, Jaime Coronado, cante (chant) with Marija Temo, Jesus Montoya, and palos (harmonies and rhythms) with Richard ‘Ricardo’ Marlow
10 pm FILM: The Crime
(“Jenayat”) directed by Mohammad Ali Sajjadi After murdering and robbing a wealthy man, Siavash leaves the only witness to the crime alive and goes into hiding. When a police inspector visits and he receives a threatening phone call, Siavash goes in search of the witness.
Revealing Portraits: Azar Nafisi and WFI Serve to Open Windows to Iranian Culture and the Challenge of Sustaining Democracy World-Wide
Reflecting on Freedom
Author Azar Nafisi
At this time when it seems many democracies are being challenged, we recognize the brave souls whose families and lives continue to be at risk for voicing their concern in question of the recent Iranian election results.
Forbidden to assemble during the day, the everresourceful Iranians practiced the nonviolent resistance of Gandhi and Martin Luther King (shaped by New Englander, Thoreau’s 1849 essay “Civil Disobedience”). They went to their roofs nightly with prolonged chanting “Allahu Akbar”– God is Great. A June 28 LA Times article reported that pro-government militiamen stormed neighborhoods, damaging private properties and assaulting civilians in an attempt to stop the nightly chants, “reminiscent of protests that erupted in the months that led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.” Arrests have broadened to those “perceived” as sympathetic.
WFI’s Iranian Film Night with Vigil
For an introduction to Iranian culture, Friday July 31, Washington Film Institute is holding Iranian Film Night at Carnegie Institution. The program includes an hour of classical Persian music and a candlelight Vigil in addition to two contemporary Iranian movies.
Program Notes:
7:30 pm FILM: Ethereal (“Asiri”) starring Khusraw Shakibayi directed by Mohammad Ali Sajjadi Samandar and Khorshid are living in an apartment given as their wedding present by Samandar’s father. Meanwhile, Khorshid is mysteriously connected to a ghost who reveals a crime executed by Samandar’s father and uncle. Scary stuff ensues.
9 pm: Roya Bahrami
With over 22 years of experience performing on her Persian santur, she has studied the Persian Classical repertoire (radif) with the leading masters of the art form on santur, setar and tar with Maestros Lotfi, Alizadeh, and Talai.She has studied santur techniques with Shahariar Saleh, Esmail Tehrani and Kazem Davoodian; daf with Esfandiar Shah-Mir; piano and vocal training with Golnoush Khaleghi; flamenco baile (dance) with Lourdes Elias, Jaime Coronado, cante (chant) with Marija Temo, Jesus Montoya, and palos (harmonies and rhythms) with Richard ‘Ricardo’ Marlow
10 pm FILM: The Crime
(“Jenayat”) directed by Mohammad Ali Sajjadi After murdering and robbing a wealthy man, Siavash leaves the only witness to the crime alive and goes into hiding. When a police inspector visits and he receives a threatening phone call, Siavash goes in search of the witness.