Tahmineh Milani

[RedWine]

She was born in September 1960 in the city of Tabriz. She has 3 sisters and 2 brothers and she is the second child of the family. Her younger brother, who was injured during the Iran – Iraq war, passed away. Her father is a retired internist and her mother is a housewife with a high school diploma. Her father was born in Khorasan and in the exiled Milani family. They were exiled to Mashhad from Milan, a small city near Tabriz, during the reign of Reza Khan. Her mother is the eldest daughter of Mirza Ali Khan Hashemzadeh, one of the respectful and prestigious nobilities of Azerbaijan.
Education was of significant importance in both her maternal and paternal families. Her maternal grandmother was highly educated in her own time and more than 60 years ago she was employed in the educational administration of her own time.

She lived in Tabriz until the age of 8. She went to Shahnaz kindergarten and for 2 years she studied in Bouali School, which was a French School ran by French nuns. Actually this school was an international school. As she spent her summer holidays in his grandfather’s gardens and brickyards, she loved gardening, building houses and the sound of trucks offloading bricks. Maybe this was an inspiration for her interest in architecture.

And of course cinema, her favorite field! She acknowledged cinema with her mother. Her mother’s strange interest in cinema was astonishing. When she lived in Tabriz, her mother used to take her to the cinema twice a week. She can still remember vague memories from the movie “Gone with the wind”, which she saw in the Metropol cinema in Tabriz.

Due to transferring her father to Qazvin, at the age of 8 she became a resident of Qazvin’s Khayam Street, which was a respectful neighborhood. The interesting point was that Khayam Cinema was opposite their house, Arya cinema was located at the end of their street, a bit farther there was Mahtab cinema and Iran Cinema and BB cinema were located a bit farther as well. This means that all 5 theaters in Qazvin were located near her house.

Undoubtedly she owes her love for the cinema to her mother. In Qazvin, not only her mother took her to watch 2 or 3 movies during the week, but also on holidays her mother prepared sandwiches for the two sisters, Parisa and Tahmineh, and she and took them to the cinema opposite their house and came back home in order to take a break from their mischief. Sometimes the two sisters watched a single movie more than 4 times.

When she was in 6th grade the students were tested for their music talent and the school formed a large orchestra with the leadership of Mr. Delbari, an army colonel and great music teacher.
In addition to learning music, she established a special bond with the orchestra members, which has lasted until present and she still sees them and enjoys socializing with them.

She played the trumpet for more than 5 years. Her trainings came to an end at the age of 16, when her father was retired and they moved to Tehran.
In addition to music, she was very interested in painting. She became first in painting competitions several times. She had a teacher called Mrs. Mahvash Sarkhosh, who taught her during elementary school. In addition to giving classic trainings in painting and stage play classes, she was their guide and encourager.
When she entered high school in addition to the usual high school studies a new course called “Jameh”, which consisted of special studies for the more intelligent pupils, was introduced. The intermediate students were tested for their talents and especially those with an average grade above 18, could attend these classes.
The advantage of graduating from this course was that the students would’ve received a college degree instead of a high school diploma. Thus alongside the usual courses such as mathematics and science, they studied a specialty course so they could enter the university with a college degree and without going through the university entrance exams. She was accepted in the mathematics – physics – electronics course and started studying in Qazvin’s Mohammadreza Shah School, which was actually a boys’ highschool.
When the third grade of her “Jameh” course, which was equivalent to tenth grade, started her father became retired and due to her mother’s persistence they moved to Tehran. In Tehran, the “Jameh” Schools were located faraway from their house thus they enrolled her in Sharaf School, which was located in Monirieh and was relatively close to their house. The nostalgic feeling she had from entering a girls’ high school was unspeakable of. Her state of mind and mentality didn’t match the high school girls.

[RedWine]

She got to know her friend Fereshteh, whose life you see later on in the movies “Two women” and “The fifth reaction”, in this high school. She had a similar past and her state of mind and attitude matched her. Unfortunately after a year and for some reasons Fereshteh joined her family in Tabriz and she became parted from her.

At the same time the “Jameh” course was dissolved due to the lack of teachers and she was enrolled in Marjan Palace high school, which had a better environment and better teachers. In her class in Marjan High school there were more than 80 students and all of them were studious. Although most of the students came from well off families in Tehran, they were hard headed and into politics. It was during the years 78-79 and gradually the voice of people protesting against the policies of those days could be heard louder and louder.
As Marjan School was very close to the Children’s education center in Laleh Park, occasionally and when necessary, she participated in making decors for children’s stage plays. Actually this was the primary base for her acquaintance with most children, who are active in the field of cinema and theater at present.

The same year she graduated from high school, she was accepted in the course of electronics in Tabriz University. The revolution took place the same year she had to go to Tabriz and because of the way she was brought up it was difficult for her to move to a closed environment from an open environment.

During her life she has barely done anything, which she doesn’t have the courage to mention and the power to defend in a crowd. She always had a truth-seeking state of mind and although she wasn’t considered as the so-called obedient girl of her times but she always believed in ethics.
Unfortunately she didn’t value her youth sentiments according to her age. She was more geared up in reading, acknowledging, revolution and political issues rather than her personal life. It was years later that she found out the high price she has to pay for not gaining experience according to her age. She never managed to last in one political party because she never found answers for her questions and she wasn’t willing to blindly obey the orders of the superiors.
She didn’t read books just for the sake of reading books and participating in discussions. She read in order to increase her personal knowledge. In June 1980 after a few days of relentless resistance by the students of various parties and after several students were killed and injured, the universities were closed. After the universities were closed she thought that her generation was a miserable generation; a generation, which resembled a guinea pig. When the war started she was 19. When the Universities were reopened after 4 years, she couldn’t even solve a simple integral problem. She was confused and very depressed. It was a long while that she was disillusioned from the political environment and she participated in cultural assemblies such as poem recitals, general meetings of the writers’ center, film screenings and etc, due to her personal interest.
In one of these meetings she got to know Mr. Masoud Kimiayi, who was invited to give a speech. She started working in his Azad film workshop. At first she was only supposed to do researches on the scenarios, which he chose, but after a while she started her serious activity in cinema as his assistant. In an article she had read that she was the first female assistant director after the revolution. She found conducting researches on scenarios attractive.

She spent many hours in libraries and with knowledgeable people and this became the basis of writing for her.

Maybe her greatest luck in life or in other words her largest university was working in Azad film workshop, especially during the years that she kept experiencing bitter events. Some of her classmates were executed and some were imprisoned. Some of then had become refugees and others were depressed and didn’t know where they stand. During the three and half years, which the universities were closed, she found the opportunity to gradually overcome her depression and gain an important experience in filmmaking.
Before starting her work in Azad film workshop she only had some inadequate and preliminary information about cinema techniques. Her favorite film before the revolution was “Deer”. She liked this film so much that she had missed more than 20 of her high school classes to watch this movie. She knew the dialogues and mizanscene of the movie by heart.

She worked in Mr. Kimiayi’s office for 7 continuous years; even after the reopening of the universities and until she graduated. She stayed alongside him and during these 7 years she experienced being a stage secretary, stage designing, assisting the director, screening movies, assisting editing and etc. She could easily coil movies and assemble and disassemble the different parts of the edit table.
During these 7 years she was considered as a trainee and her income wasn’t much. At the same time she studied architecture, which was an expensive course, thus she had no choice but to provide her expenses by working in engineering offices and giving private lessons at home. Although his father was able to provide her financial needs, her pride didn’t allow her to get money from her father and we could daringly say that she didn’t receive a dime from his family from the age of 17. Giving private lessons and working in engineering offices brought about lots of experiences for her. After experiencing several movies with other film directors, she wrote the film script of “Children of divorce” and directed it.
Before that she wrote the film script of “I love you mother” and she won the first prize of the constructiveness Jihad organization.
During those years if someone wanted to direct a movie she or he had to offer an acceptable narrative short film to the ministry of guidance and have at least 2 experiences as an assistant director. She fitted in this category from the age of 23 but unfortunately it seemed that this regulation was written for people except for her. Each time she went to receive a filmmaking permit the answer was negative and they used to mock her secretly.
Fortunately Mrs. Pouran Derakhshandeh managed to open the way for the women directors with her movie “Connection”. At the age of 27 she managed to roll the cameras on her first movie in the worst possible conditions.
She had written the film script of “Children of divorce” in Masouleh and during the filming of Mr. Taghvayi’s movie called “Oh Iran”. This movie was left unfinished for several reasons and she became the assistant and set designer of Mr. Ghavidel for the movie “Salt heart”. Over there she read her film script for several people including Mr. Reza Banki, who was the cinematography manager. He introduced her to Mr. Mehdi Ahmadi (Iran film house) and they agreed for her to make the movie over there and with half the regular budget.

The film was made with a worn out I-flex camera and rusty equipment with the help of Mr. Banki. Imagine how she felt when she received the best movie award the same year, in Roudaki parlor, competing with 26 other movies and from the hands of Mr. Khatami and Mr. Anvar.
The most important point was that when her family and especially her mother saw her receive the award from a cleric on TV, the pressures, which were on her due to being a cinema activist, became less.
Her family preferred her to be known as an architect in the society rather than a filmmaker!
The next year with the help of Mr. Banki and Mr. Ahmadi she received the 1.5 million award for “Children of divorce”. She made “The Legend of sigh”, which was based on a story by Samad Behrangy and the philosophical viewpoint of Yong, in the year 1980. She believed that it was a very well-made movie but they didn’t even accept it in the Iranian films’ competition.
“The legend of sigh” was screened in more than 30 festivals worldwide and she was encouraged by international critics.
The next year she wrote the comedy “What else is new?” but as most Iranian cinema producers only accepted subjects, which they had experienced before, they didn’t accept this film script because the leading role comedian of the film was a female university student. The movie “What else is new?” not only received an award from the Fajr film festival but also became the bestselling movie in the year 1992. This matter nullified the common clichés and the film was even among the ten movies chosen by the critics. However this movie was banned for 7 months for unconvincing reasons. But eventually it received the screening permit and proved its legitimacy. After a few years of stagnancy, when they didn’t allow her to direct any movies, she wrote “Kakadou”, which was an advanced children’s movie about the environment. She managed to make the movie in the year 1994 with lots of difficulties and although she had received an A grade permit, due to totally personal matters, it was banded from screening by Mr. Hamid Khabazan, the CEO of the time. On top of this problem, she underwent many physical and mental damages and as a result she gave premature birth to her twins. She lost one of the twins during birth. Her daughter was born when she was only 5, 6 months old and weighted one kilo.

[RedWine]

She spent three years in Sima Film writing film scripts and a science fiction series for others because the CEO of the ministry of guidance wouldn’t give her a filmmaking permit. After the transformations of June 1997 and when Mr. Khatami became president, the managers and policies of the ministry of guidance changed, and in the year 1998 she managed to roll the cameras on her movie “Two women”.
According to the related officials this is the first Iranian feature film, which in addition to attracting millions of common viewers all over the country, has managed to receive awards from worldwide festivals and has been screened in more than 30 creditable worldwide festivals until now. Furthermore it has had successful public screenings in America and Canada.

http://img281.imageshack.us/img281/9234/indexfinal6ed.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

After the success of “Two women”, she wrote the film script of “The hidden half”. The story of this movie refers to the events, which took place during the strange years of 1979 and 1980. It is actually the story of the Cultural Revolution and the events, which took place in the following years. The film was made and it received an A grade screening permit but it was banned two weeks after its public screening started. Tahmineh Milani was arrested and sent to jail. She was in Evin prison for 7 days; August 21- 28, 2001. She spent 4 days in the solitary confinement and 3 days in the public cell. She was accused of taking action against the Islamic Republic of Iran, supporting combatant and antirevolutionary parties in his artistic works, purging and promoting the ominous aims of combatant parties and using art as a tool to promote the evil goals of combatant and antirevolutionary parties. The trials took place everyday at the Shahid Beheshti Branch of the court and the judge was Mr. Ahmadi Moghadas. Vast protests took place against her arrest both domestically and abroad. Letters were written in protest to her imprisonment by the board of directors of the house of cinema, cultural and artistic organizations of the writers’ center and etc, within the country and by artistic and cultural organizations and especially progressed cultural centers abroad. The letters were uploaded on the internet and signed by more than 5000 international artists including Eve Ruston, Sean Penn, Roger Ebert, Claude Chabrol, Claude Lelouch, Bertrand Tavernier, Costa-Gavras, Robert Redford and others.

Fortunately with the follow up of the president of the time, Mr. Khatami, and the minister of Guidance, Mr. Majid Salehi, the accusations were announced as misunderstandings and Tahmineh Milani was released by the order of the leader of the Islamic republic of Iran. Unfortunately the one week arrest and the file, which was made for her, had bitter and unpleasant effects on her personal and professional life. Although after a month and a half the ban was removed from the movie “The hidden half”, she and her husband, Mohammad Nikbin, have not yet managed to recompense the financial damages they endured.
Her next project, which is Tahmineh Milani’s tenth movie, is a children’s film ordered by UNISEF and it would be the first short film she will be making. This short film is about telling lies among children and the reasons, which lie behind it. This short film is called “I am afraid, that’s’ why I tell lies”.
One of the main characters of this film is a young, defenseless and homeless girl, who has lost her father during her childhood and during the Iran – Iraq war. She has become homeless due to not having any guardians.
Although by displaying this character she intended to express her congeniality with her but once again she became a victim of unrighteous judgments and she was forced to make changes in the film. During the making of the movie “The excess woman”, Due to her imprisonment reputation none of the governmental organizations and especially the disciplinary forces, which played an important role in this film, gave her any help. The interesting point is that after the screening of the movie in the year 2004, the movie won the disciplinary force award but once again due to her imprisonment reputation the award wasn’t presented to her! In the year 2005 she rolled the cameras on the movie “Cease fire”, which was based on a psychology theory. This movie was based on the book “Recovery of your inner child” written by Mrs. Lucia Capacchione and the film script was written with the permission of Mrs. Capacchione and under the supervision of Mrs. Soheila Nourbakhsh, a psychology consultant.

[nanakhafan]

az filmash kheili khosham miad
roo noghtehaye asasi dast mizare ;)
thx

[donsaeid]

تهمينه ميلاني برنده پنچاه و يكمين جشنواره فيلم «آسيا_پاسفيك»


فيلم ايراني «زن زيادي» به كارگرداني «تهمينه ميلاني» برنده جوايز بهترين كارگرداني و بهترين فيلم جشنواره بين*المللي فيلم «آسيا_پاسفيك» شد.



به نقل از روزنامه ژاپني مينيچي، فيلم ايراني «زن زيادي»، در حالي برنده دو جايزه بهترين كارگرداني براي «تهمينه ميلاني» و بهترين فيلم بيست و يكمين جشنواره فيلم «آسيا_پاسفيك» شد كه بازيگران كره جنوبي، «سون يجين»، براي فيلم «برف آوريل» و «لي جائه_ايونگ» براي فيلم «براوو، زندگي من»، نيز برنده جوايز بهترين بازيگر اين دوره از رقابت*ها شدند.

«زن زيادي» داستان تقابل و برخورد پيچيده انساني است. روابطي كه به زوال خانواده ها منجر مي*شود. فيلم نقدي اجتماعي است كه در آن به افراد جامعه اين شانس داده مي*شود تا خود را به روي جامعه بگشايد.

جايزه بهترين بازيگر بازيگر مرد نقش مكمل به «بييون هي بونگ» براي فيلم سه اپيزودي «ميزبان» رسيد.

«لو يي_جينگ» از كشور تايوان نيز براي بازي در فيلم «بلو چا چا» برنده جايزه بهترين بازيگر زن نقش مكمل شد.

جوايز بهترين «تدوين صدا»، «بهترين تدوين»، به فيلم «اسب» و جايزه بهترين فيلم كوتاه نيز به فيلم «Atomic Punch, My Darling» رسيد.

برگزاركنندگان جشنواره «آسيا پاسفيك»، با اعطاي جايزه يك عمر دستاورد حرفه*اي از «ران ران شاو»، مؤسس كمپاني فيلمسازي مشهور برداران شاو قدرداني كردند. اين كمپاني كه در سال 1958 توسط برادران شاو تاسيس شد، طي سي سال گذشته بيش از 900 فيلم چيني توليد كرده است.