Marjane Satrapi

[Rasputin]

First screening of Persepolis ...


A couple of days ago, for the first time we screened Persepolis in a very nice theater on Champs Elysée in Paris. Not that the movie is already finished, but still from the 90 minutes, 63 minutes of it is already animated.

The goal was to show to the totality of the staff what movie exactly they are working on. All of them knew of course about the story, but it's a huge difference between knowing a story and seeing how it will be narrated and showed.

Each step of the movie was present. Some part is only animatic (story board), some animated without being assisted, some others animated and assisted, some coloured, and 45 minutes of animated, assisted, coloured and composed movie. So each group could see the importance of the work they are doing. Vincent and I, we were so thrilled. It works! We will never be ashamed of our movie!!

The last scene before the end, my heart started beating so badly (thanks god everybody applauded!) thinking about the first time the movie is REALLY going to be screened. I will maybe make a heart attack, I will faint... Or at least I would need a diaper.

Before starting PERSEPOLIS, the movie, I had my pleasant life where I decided how and when and where and which illustration I will draw, the text I’ll write or the new comic book I will or will not start to do.

I only had to deal with myself (which was already unbearable) and be responsible of myself (a huge task!).

For more than 8 years, so was my life until 2004 when all changed when I made a great decision : since from my youngest age I did everything possible to be alone, to only work with myself and have all the freedom in the word, and there, I’ll destroy this beautifully handmade paradise and start making an animation movie of my book Persepolis, which meant working every day with more than eighty other people !


By:Marjane Satrapi

[zubin]

This is one of my favorite pieces of art.

I do have a gele/complaint though regarding how it might be presented, which relates to Iranian art and literature in general. Most Westerners seem to get the wrong messages from anything Iranian and they seem to interpret us through our literature and arts as exotic people with undeveloped minds, who are constantly struggling to become liberated by becoming Westernized. We do want to get rid of some cultural aspects, but we also have a culture with many great and uniquely developed features which we want to keep and, in general, its not about becoming "Westernized", rather it is about learning from other cultures. I find the predominant interpretation by Westerners highly offending.

So though this is my fravorite piece of modern Iranian literature, I'm not too excited about it being presented to the European public and it seems that they lack the freedom for accepting other cultures and interpreting them accurately.

[Sepideh_UK]

Nice 1...
Cooool...
thanx alot R/W

[indian_blues]

heyy sepy now i really dont mind for ur large img sig.. ...really loved it.

[Michellica]

mikham bebinam filmesho!!! ketabesho khoondam kolli khandidam.. kheili jalebe!!

[Sepideh_UK]

heyy sepy now i really dont mind for ur large img sig.. ...really loved it.

looool Offcourse u dont mind but it aint real i just put it to make u guyz feel happy

[Rasputin]

It was announced officially during the last Cannes Film Festival. Sony Pictures was to produce Marjane Satrapi’s bestseller comic book Persepolis into an animated feature film. Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg’s producer on such films as E.T and the Indiana Jones films had purchased the rights for Sony Pictures and the film is co-produced with two French production companies Bibo Films and Pumpkin 3D. Marjane Satrapi is herself at the helm for the direction and screenplay of what is promised to be faithful adaptation of her now classic hero.



The Comic books translated in several languages worldwide (except in Persian) has been greeted by enthusiastic readers and has been critically acclaimed over the years since its publication in a small and unknown publishing house l’Association. The phenomena of Satrapi’s success with Persepolis has certainly surprised her own compatriots more than other nationals. Who could have imagined that the dark comedy of an upbringing in revolutionary Iran could strike a cord amongst non-Iranians worldwide of all generations. The outspoken Satrapi managed to render through her series the childhood fears and doubts so common in prepuberty and amongst teenagers regardless of where they were born. The Iranian historical context of the revolution and its aftermath obviously plays an important role in this story but what makes Satrapi’s experience attractive to western readers is probably that it also reflects part of their shortcomings and cultural misconceptions on not only Iran but towards many expatriates from so-called labeled 'third world countries'.



The language barriers or culture clash take an often comical turn in that they are only human and probably so obvious that one tends to forget the more deeper social, political or historical reason’s that could explain them. Maybe Satrapi’s genius resides in this simple fact that her hero’s statements are expressed from a child or teenager’s point of view. They are also very visually simple like black and white photography’s that need no particular sophistication but which confront them to the harsh realities that an entire generation of Iranians can alas still relate too.

[Rasputin]

An Animated Adventure, Drawn From Life

MARJANE SATRAPI’S life was flashing before her eyes. There she was, a mischievous girl on the streets of Tehran, buying contraband records during the Islamic revolution. Singing the lyrics in her bedroom at the top of her teenage lungs. Fidgeting with her head scarf at the lycée. Mourning the political imprisonment of her uncle. Falling in love for the first time. Saying goodbye to her beloved parents as they sent her, their only child, to find freedom and solace in the West.

“Imagine you see your face everywhere — from the back, from the front, as a girl, adolescent, everywhere,” Ms. Satrapi, 37, said during the making of an animated movie based on her best-selling and critically praised comic-book memoir, “Persepolis.” The original version, in French, includes the voices of the legendary French actress Danielle Darrieux as her grandmother, Catherine Deneuve as her mother and Chiara Mastroianni — the daughter of Marcello Mastroianni and Ms. Deneuve — as Marjane. An English-language adaptation, which will also include Ms. Deneuve, with Gena Rowlands as the grandmother, is scheduled to be released by Sony Pictures Classics this year.

Ms. Satrapi has drawn herself thousands of times. But she found it initially overwhelming to watch her own vivid gestures animated on computer screens in the skylighted atelier that is the film’s headquarters in the 10th Arrondissement. Eventually, she said, she learned to put emotional distance between herself and her character.

“From the beginning I started to talk about ‘Marjane’ and ‘Marjane’s parents,’ ” she explained, “because you cannot do it otherwise. There are people, for example, drawing my grandmother. My grandmother is dead. Here not only is she moving, but I have to look at her, image by image. If I think, ‘This is my grandmother and my story,’ I would start crying all the time. And it’s not easy for the animators if I start talking about me, me, me. I will make them crazy, and they will be walking on eggshells. They won’t let themselves go.

“When my parents came to the studio, nobody breathed. Imagine you are drawing Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, and suddenly a big mouse and a big duck walk in.”

Ms. Satrapi’s poignant coming-of-age story is drawn in a simple yet evocative style, which conveys maximum feeling with deceptively naïve images in minimalist black and white. It was first published in 2000 in France, where she has lived in self-imposed exile for 12 years. When the book was released in the United States in 2003, she said, Hollywood executives offered to buy the rights for adaptations that included a “Beverly Hills, 90210”-esque series set in Tehran. An ardent filmgoer who has served as a juror at the Cannes Film Festival, she concluded that making a filmed version of her own story was a bad idea.

“Normally when you make a movie out of a book, it’s never a success,” she said over her morning espresso and cigarettes, wearing all black and her trademark platform heels. But when Marc-Antoine Robert, an acquaintance and fledgling producer, offered to raise money to make the movie in France, Ms. Satrapi agreed under what she presumed were impossible conditions: despite having no filmmaking experience, she wanted to direct the movie herself, in black and white. And she wanted Catherine Deneuve to play her mother.

Ms. Satrapi teamed up with Vincent Paronnaud, a fellow comic book author who has also made a few short films. “We’re like the Coen brothers,” she said of herself and Mr. Paronnaud, who co-wrote and is co-directing the film. “We’re very complementary. I would have made much more of a Bergman movie. But I don’t want something that a couple of intellectuals in Paris and New York will watch and nobody else.”

It was Mr. Paronnaud who pushed her to dramatize emotional and violent sequences that she had insinuated in the book. “Vincent is good at knowing where the camera should go, how to cut to give scenes rhythm,” Ms. Satrapi said. “People were thinking, if you just film the frames of the book, you have a movie. If you just film the book, it would be extremely boring.” She and Mr. Paronnaud picked their moments and condensed the book into a 90-minute film, told as a flashback.

“In no way did we want to betray the book, but we had to make choices,” Mr. Paronnaud said. “The idea was to keep the spirit and energy of the book and to try and find a way to interpret it differently on film.”

Ms. Satrapi said she wrote “Persepolis” as an answer to the relentless and loaded question of what it means to be Iranian. But her book’s success has meant that she has both gently educated those in the West — “Persepolis” is taught in 118 colleges in the United States, including West Point, according to Pantheon, its publisher — and taken part in a larger conversation about the book’s global resonances.

“Little by little, as the book got translated in other languages, people were saying, ‘This is my story too,’ ” she said. “Suddenly I said to myself, ‘This is a universal story.’ I want to show that all dictatorships, no matter if it’s Chile, if it’s the Cultural Revolution in China or Communist Poland, it’s the same schematic. Here in the West we judge them because we are so used to democracy, believing that if we have something, it is because we deserve it, because we chose it. Political changes turn your life completely upside down, not because you are crazy but because you don’t have any way out.”

The executive producer of “Persepolis” is Kathleen Kennedy, a veteran Hollywood producer who approached Ms. Satrapi after the film was in production, asking to buy the rights. Ms. Satrapi declined to sell but welcomed her involvement. Ms. Kennedy found an American distributor, providing an infusion of cash while leaving Ms. Satrapi in creative control, a rare occurrence for a black-and-white animated film in progress from a pair of first-time directors.

“Persepolis” is a rarity in France: an animated feature that was entirely produced here, rather than being farmed out to Asian animators. The filmmakers favored an artisanal approach that includes hand-tracing the images on paper, an art long lost to computer animation software.

“It’s not that they do lesser work in Asia, but it’s complicated to communicate with people 10,000 kilometers away,” said Marc Jousset, the film’s art and technical director, who assembled the animation team. “Marjane is here every day. She implicates herself in every decision. And even if she had never done an animation sequence, she has given us courses in things like how the head scarf is worn at home versus on the street in Iran, things that are important for the rigor of the story.”

Mr. Jousset said it took a few months to find the right style of animation. Characters are depicted in black and white, as they are in the comic book, while the settings are richly shaded in grays that lend them a painterly quality. “The narration had to be somewhat somber and restrained, and I saw a lot of animators with too cartoonish of a style,” Mr. Jousset said. “It’s an animated film, but we wanted it to be rather realistic, as if it was being filmed live.”

The voices were recorded before the animators began work, with Ms. Satrapi coaching the actors one on one. (Aghast at the prospect of bossing Ms. Deneuve around, she said, she downed three cognacs before directing the actress, who turned out to be “funny and intelligent and a big smoker.”) Ms. Satrapi allowed herself to be recorded while acting out the physical gestures for each scene, to give the animation team a physical reference.

“We could do any number of movements to coordinate with the words,” said Christian Desmares, the chief animator, “but Marjane wanted to really personalize each character, to use precise Iranian gestures. And we don’t know how to do that.”

Ms. Satrapi interjected: “I play all the roles. Even the dog.”

It took an adjustment, she added, to transform herself from a solo artist into the co-leader of a 90-member filmmaking team, though she has gotten some practice in group dynamics by lecturing regularly in Europe and the United States.

“I realized I had a talent I didn’t know,” she said. “In France people will tell you everything is impossible. I have the enthusiasm of an American. I tell people: ‘Rah, yes! We’re going to make a great movie.’ And it pays; you can see their reaction. And suddenly you realize they have ideas that you didn’t have. It is hard for me, for my ego, to say this: For me, the movie is better than the book.”

[Rasputin]

Wailing lost love

AFTER the politically- and socially-charged successes of Embroideries and Persepolis 1 and Persepolis 2, Marjane Satrapi is now trying her hand at a simple love story. Well, sort of. Nothing is quite so simple with Satrapi, unofficially crowned the “spokesperson for Iranian women”. She manages to convey the political, religious and social circumstances of the characters in her story, even within a slim graphic novel.


In Chicken with Plums, Satrapi tells the story of her great-uncle, a celebrated Iranian musician who lived in Tehran during the 1950s. Nasser Ali Khan is one of Iran’s most revered tar (an Iranian lute, resembling a guitar) players, but is going through some discord in his personal and family life.

The tale begins when Nasser Ali meets a woman on the street whom he recognises, but she does not remember him. Although this is a fleeting introduction to her, she is a central character in his life and will reappear later in the book.

At this point, Nasser Ali is looking for a tar to replace his beloved, irreparably damaged instrument. When he cannot find one the sound of which speaks to him with the same power and passion with which his music speaks to others, he decides to die.

Eight days later, he dies, and thus ends the first part of the book. But the real story begins in the following pages, where Satrapi retraces each of the eight days before Nasser Ali’s death, and how he resists attempts by his family and friends to connect with him.

Through flashbacks and flash-forwards (events in the future unknown to him), we get a glimpse of his childhood and adult life, and begin to understand what drives his despair. The seemingly simple loss of an instrument actually symbolises the loss of loved ones in his life.

Although Chicken with Plums slips from poignancy into self-pity at times, it is a well-told story of a flawed man struggling to reconcile his desires with his responsibilities. The ending is almost marvellous in its simplicity, answering questions raised in the beginning of the book, and at the same time leaving more unanswered.

Satrapi’s distinctive black-and-white illustrative style draws a connection with the stark atmosphere in Iran from the 1950s to the 1970s. She is not unfamiliar with these circumstances, having faced a fair measure of political oppression and family upheavals in her own life.

Born to a liberal family in Rasht, Iran, in 1969, she was sent to Vienna at the age of 14 to escape the Iranian regime. Since then, she has studied in Austria and Iran, and currently works in Paris. She claims that the Iranian government is making it difficult for her to return to her birth country, although there have been no threats made to her, implied or otherwise.

Nonetheless, Satrapi says that she will continue to write about Iran, with the next book to be set between the 1920s and 1960s. It will be interesting to see what she chooses to educate her readers about the country next.

[Rasputin]

Author Marjane Satrapi in a recent interview on French television.

YouTube - Marjan Satrapi

[Rasputin]

Marjane Satrapi is an Iranian comic-book artist living in Paris. She is also, it turns out, an advocate for heavy smoking and a devoted admirer of Sophia Loren's boobs. Her previous books include Persepolis, a memoir of her teenage European exile following the Islamic Revolution, and Embroideries, in which her female relatives drink tea and dish on sex. Her latest, Chicken With Plums is set in 1958 Tehran and mines similar semi-autobiographical territory, with its main character, Nasser Ali Khan, loosely based on her mother's real-life uncle, a famous musician.
Nasser Ali is a morose man of aristocratic tastes and lofty artistic ideals who feels that his life has been a failure. When his favorite tar (an Iranian string instrument) breaks, he searches for a replacement, only to find that all other tars sound flat to him. Sinking into depression, he decides to die — and takes to his bed to wait for death to arrive. The book traces the last eight days of his life as he ruminates on his unhappy marriage and a stillborn romance from his youth. No longer able to enjoy sensual pleasures, Nasser Ali wiles away his days chatting with the angel of death and fantasizing about sex with a certain pinup girl.
Chicken With Plums is a darkly humorous book that, unlike Nasser Ali, doesn't take itself too seriously. It's filled with the same blocky black-and-white pictures as Persepolis, while the narrative style seems borrowed in equal parts from Hitchcock and Mrs. Dalloway. Satrapi spoke to Nerve about life's little pleasures, and how enjoying them would solve more problems than we can imagine. — Sarah Sundberg

Chicken With Plums feels like a book about missed opportunities. Part of the premise is that there has been a halfway sexual revolution. Nasser Ali meets a woman, Irane, but isn't allowed to marry her. There's also been an aborted political revolution. It's sort of a time of dashed hope.
Absolutely. The story is set in Iran in the '50s. Mossadegh has been overthrown. In some sense that was the end of democracy in the whole region, and the dream of a whole part of the world was broken. Nasser Ali's dream has been broken too. The story with this woman Irane is that she's not veiled anymore because the veil was banned by Reza Shah. It was the beginning of a sexual revolution that never actually took place.
promotion

Nasser Ali is a portrait of a man who feels he has the prerogative to be deeply egotistical.
For me it was very much a description of the artist. I think that you have to be really egocentric and narcissistic to become an artist, and I say that as an artist. I consider myself to be a charming person, but I know that I am unbearable.

Nasser Ali is concerned with artistic ideals, but he's also pretty cynical when it comes to more religious forms of spirituality.
I have to tell you something: I never felt as free as when I wrote Chicken with Plums. When I write about women, and obviously when I write about myself like in Persepolis, people relate [the text] to me. In this book, the main character in is a man. I could hide behind him, yet in some ways, he is me. I can be very cynical, but I can also die of love.

Making a first-person protagonist a different gender than yourself seems to be one of the best devices to hide behind in fiction.
Absolutely. When Flaubert wrote Madame Bovary, he said, "Madame Bovary is me," and it was so true. Even with all her pathetic sides, all the things that she wants to be and will never be, I could completely relate to her. I don't believe in women's literature and men's literature. I think Marguerite Duras was right: literature doesn't have a sex. You shouldn't need to be a woman to write about a woman or a man to write about a man. If that were true, it would be the end of literature.

Though for some reason, women more often seem to feel that they have to write about women than men feel that they have to write about men.
Click to enlarge.

I know, but I am not one of those women. Some women — whatever is nasty they say is masculine, and whatever is nice they say is feminine. I don't believe that people are good or bad because of their gender. I've seen r eally horrible women, and I've seen horrible men, and I've seen really nice women and really nice men. I think it is a question of being a human being more than having a pair of boobs or a pair of balls.

Speaking of boobs, talk to me about Sophia Loren's. They play an important role in this story. How did they make their way into the book?
To me, Sophia Loren is the most beautiful woman in the whole world. She looks incredible. I mean, nothing on her is normal. She has this nose that isn't normal, a mouth that isn't normal, eyes that aren't normal. Her breasts are so big that you can't even imagine. I have a feeling that if God made me in two seconds, he spent two years on Sophia Loren. For me, she is the symbol of beauty and pleasure. Today in Hollywood you have to look like a stick, not really like a woman at all. Sophia Loren is a real woman, and this is the kind of woman I like. Actually, we had someone in our family who would say, "Give me some Sophia Loren, give the plums," every time we made chicken with plums.

You have these great, sensual descriptions of cigarette smoke in the book. One character calls cigarettes "food for the soul."
Click to enlarge.

Cigarettes are food for the soul. When you're smoking you can actually watch yourself breathing, watch your soul getting out of your body and into your body. Two days ago I spoke in Barnes & Noble in Chelsea. I said that I wrote this book to rehabilitate smoking, and people just stopped laughing. People are willing to eat any bullshit and drink bad water; pollution doesn't bother them. But as soon as you take out a cigarette they act as if you're going to kill them. This is not true! All the shit that they put in the food, all these hormones and pesticides and what have you, the stress, the condition of life, all of that . . . Living kills you anyway.

What made you want to write this book now?
I love love-stories in general. I also love the idea of death, because I think that it is such a scandal that we have to die. We die for the same reason that a worm will die, or a cat will die, but with the difference that we are conscious of it. But the book is also about pleasure, from Sophia Loren, to smoke, to love — all of that. We are living in a world in which the notion of pleasure is completely rejected. As soon as you say smoke, they say cancer. You say eating, they say cholesterol. You say making love, they say AIDS. But before AIDS and cancer and cholesterol you had the pleasure of doing these things. I think this rejection of pleasure is the basis of much of the fanaticism we see now. People are frustrated from lack of pleasure. If they had pleasure, why would they go and kill other people? They wouldn't.

Do you think there is a connection between American Puritanism and the kind of fanaticism that exists in other parts of the world?
Of course. You have all these states here that have this problem with sex. They won't teach it in school, sex shops are forbidden and they have weapon shops instead. Everybody knows that the weapon is just a continuation of the penis. The penis works very well on its own. You don't need any weapons, actually. All of that is based on frustration. All religion is based on frustration. It's a great way to control people. People who have fun have a bigger spirit, a bigger mind, and they are much less easily ruled than people who are so frustrated that they have to follow an ideology to be able to survive.

[Rasputin]

مرجان ساتراپی در بخش مسابقه فستيوال کن

روز گذشته اسامی ۲۲ فيلم پذيرفته شده در بخش مسابقه فستيوال کن ۲۰۰۷ اعلام شد. نام فيلم پرسپوليس ساخته مرجان ساتراپی نيز در فهرست فيلم*های اين بخش ديده می*شود. ساتراپی اين فيلم را با کمک وينسنت پارانود فيلمساز فرانسوی بر اساس کتاب کميک بوک خود به همين نام ساخته است که مربوط به خاطرات کودکی او در جمهوری اسلامی ايران قبل از مهاجرت به فرانسه است.


فستيوال کن امسال شصتمين سالگردش را جشن می گيرد و بسياری از فيلمسازان و چهره*های سرشناس سينمای جهان در آن حضور خواهند داشت. فيلم ساتراپی تنها فيلم از يک فيلمساز ايرانی (نه سينمای ايران) است که در بخش مسابقه حضور دارد. هنوز نام فيلم های بخش های ديگر فستيوال اعلام نشده و معلوم نيست چه فيلم هايی از سينمای ايران برای بخش*های ديگر کن پذيرفته شده است. با اين حال حضور فيلم کوتاهی که عباس کيارستمی به مناسبت شصت سالگی کن ساخته در اين فستيوال قطعی است.

امسال فيلمسازانی چون برادران کوئن، امير کوستاريکا، الکساندر سوخوروف، کوئنتين تارانتينو و ديويد فينچر برای دريافت نخل طلای کن رقابت می*کنند.

کوئنتين تارانتينو که نخل طلای فستيوال را در سال ۱۹۹۴ به خاطر فيلم پالپ فيکشن به دست آورد امسال با فيلم مدرک فوت(Death Proof) در فستيوال حضور دارد. برادران کوئن (اتان و جوئل) نيز با فيلم برای مردان پير سرزمينی نيست(No Country for Old Men) در فستيوال شرکت کرده*اند.

گاس ون سنت نيز که قبلا با فيلم فيل برنده نخل طلا شده بود امسال با فيلم پارانويد پارک(Paranoid Park) با فيلمسازان ديگر رقابت می کند.

از بين ۲۲ فيلم بخش مسابقه ۱۳ فيلم به وسيله فيلمسازانی ساخته شده که قبلا هرگز در کن نبوده اند، از جمله فيلم زودياک(Zodiac)ساخته ديويد فينچر فيلمسازی که پيش از اين فيلم*های خوبی چون هفت و فايت کلاب را ساخته است. فيلم زودياک درباره قاتل سریالی است که در اواخر دهه شصت با قتل*هايی که در ساحل سانفرانسيسکو انجام داد، موج وحشت در اين منطقه ايجاد کرد.

ژيل ژاکوب مدير فستيوال کن می*گويد اين فستيوال تلاش می کند توازنی بين فيلم های پرخرج هاليوودی و فيلم*های مستقل هنری ايجاد کند. به گفته او سعی فستيوال بر اين است که فيلم های بخش مسابقه ترکيبی از فيلم های فيلمسازان کهنه کار و فيلمسازان نوظهور باشد.

در حالی که استيون فريرز فيلمساز برجسته انگليسی و سازنده فيلم ملکه، رياست هيئت داوران امسال کن را به عهده دارد، هيچ فيلمی از سينمای بريتانيا برای بخش مسابقه کن پذيرفته نشده است. اما فيلم قلب قدرتمند

(A Mighty Heart) ساخته مايکل وينتر باتم و فيلم کوتاه مرد تنها(Mister Lonely) در بخش جنبی کن حضور دارند. برخی از صاحب نظران سينمای بريتانيا اين اتفاق را شکستی برای سينمای ملی اين کشور دانسته*اند. بريتانيا سال گذشته جوايز نخل طلا و دوربين طلايی را با فيلم*های کن لوچ (بادی که خوشه جو را لرزاند) و راه سرخ به دست آورد.
مايکل مور مستندساز جنجالی سينمای آمريکا که نخل طلای ۲۰۰۴ را به خاطر فيلم مستند فارنهايت 11/9 دريافت کرد نيز با فيلم مستند سيکو(Sicko) که در باره وضعيت بيمه درمانی در آمريکا ساخته در کن امسال شرکت دارد.
اورهان پاموک نويسنده ترک زبان و برنده جايزه نوبل ادبيات در کنار مارکو بلوکيو، ميشل پيکولي و ماريا ديمتريوس فيلم*هاي امسال کن را داوری می*کنند.

فستيوال کن از ۱۶ تا ۲۷ می در شهر ساحلی کن فرانسه برگزار می*شود.

[Rasputin]

Marjane Satrapi’s best-selling Comic Books are now brought to Screen as an animated Feature starring Catherine Deneuve and Chiara Mastroiani for the voice overs. The French produced movie to be distributed by Sony Pictures in the United States is now running for the Palme d’Or (the most prestigious film Award in the World with the American Oscars) in the upcoming Cannes International Film Festival that will be celebrating its 60th anniversary and the Head of the Jury will be director Stephen Frears(The Queen, Dangerous Liaisons).



What are the chances for Satrapi’s film Persepolis in this year’s competition? That is hard to say for the time being but it would certainly be an achievement for an animated film to be in a selection that favors films to animated ones. Also if Persepolis does win it would be the 2nd Palme d’Or won by an Iranian filmmaker exactly ten years after Abbas Kiarostami in 1997. However the film will be running for the French colors since it is produced by two French Studio’s Pumpkin 3D & Bibo Productions. Satrapi also shares the films director credits with her collaborator Vincent Paronnaud.



Below Complete list of competitors for Palm d’Or 2007:

- My Blueberry Nights by Wong Kar-wai

- De l'autre côté by Fath Akin

- No Country For Old Men by Joel & Ethan Coen

- Zodiac by David Fincher

- We Own The Night by James Gray

- La Forêt de Mogari by Naomi Kawase

- Promise me this by Emir Kusturica

- Secret Sunshine by Lee Chang-dong

- 4 mois, 3 semaines et 2 jours by Cristian Mungiu

- Tehilim by Raphaël Nadjari

- Lumière silencieuse by Carlos Reygadas

- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud

- Import Export by Ulrich Seidl

- Alexandra by Alexander Sokourov

- Death Proof by Quentin Tarantino

- The Man From London by Bela Tarr

- Paranoid Park by Gus Van Sant


- The Banishment by Andrey Zvyagintsev

- Une Vieille maîtresse by Catherine Breillat

- Les Chansons d'amour by Christophe Honoré

- Le Scaphandre et le papillon by Julian Schnabel



Out of Competition:



Ocean's 13 by Steven Soderbergh starring George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Al Pacino and Andy Garcia. Michael Moore will also present his latest documentary.



Good Luck Marjane and Vincent!

[abadani69]

مجموعه کتاب هاي مصور "پرسپوليس"، نوشته مرجان ساتراپي، روز 27 ژوئن 2007 به صورت يک فيلم انيميشن در سينماهاي فرانسه به روي اکران خواهد آمد. در اين فيلم که توسط مرجان ساتراپي و ونسان پارونو ساخته شده، ماجراي انقلاب اسلامي ايران از ديد يک کودک و سپس يک بزرگسال [همان کودک] بازبيني مي شود.

در همين ارتباط، گالري آرلوديک پاريس [www.arludik.com] به منظور آماده کردن فضاي مناسب قبل از اکران اين فيلم، نمايشگاهي از اولين طرح ها و نقاشي هاي اين فيلم برگزار کرده است [از تاريخ 9 مه تا 16 ژوئن]. اين طرح ها در تاريخ 20 ژوئن 2007 در مجموعه فرهنگي کاردن پاريس به نفع فدراسيون بين المللي حقوق بشر به مزايده گذاشته خواهند شد. مراسم فروش اين نقاشي ها در حضور مرجان ساتراپي، ونسان پارونو و ديگر شخصيت هاي فيلم، ازجمله کاترين دونو [هنرپيشه معروف فرانسوي]، چيارا ماستروياني، دانيل داريو، سيمون آبکاريان و ... برگزار خواهد شد.

تابلوهاي باقي مانده سپس به هفت فروشگاه زنجيره اي Fnac در شهرهاي مختلف فرانسه [پاريس، وليزي، پواتيه، بوردو، ليل، کان] منتقل و متعاقباً با واريز قيمت هر تابلو به حساب فدراسيون بين المللي حقوق بشر قابل خريد خواهند بود.

کتاب هاي مصور "پرسپوليس" [چهار جلد] که در سال 2000 منتشر شد، يک موفقيت بين المللي براي نويسنده آن به دنبال داشت. تصاوير اين کتاب ها تماماً به صورت کلاسيک، با نقاشي هاي سياه و سفيد و بدون استفاده از تکنيک هاي مدرن سه بعدي ترسيم شده اند.

[abadani69]

شصتمين جشنواره جهاني فيلم کن، امروز با تشريفات فوق العاده اي آغاز مي شود. امسال براي دومين سال در اين معتبرترين جشنواره هنري جهان، هيچ فيلمي از جمهوري اسلامي انتخاب نشده و براي اولين بار فيلمي از يک زن مهاجر ايراني به نمايش در مي آيد که در ستايش پرسپوليس وعليه جمهوري اسلامي است.
فيلم پرسپوليس ساخته مرجان ساتراپي که ازهم اکنون نامش درميان برندگان نخل طلائي کن شنيده مي شود و پس از پايان جشنواره کن در سينماهاي اروپا به روي پرده خواهد رفت، توسط شرکت سوني پيکچرز کلاسيک [استيون اسپيلبرگ- کاترين کندي] در آمريکا پخش شده است. در اين فيلم تعدادي از هنرپيشگان مشهور سينماي فرانسه مانند کاترين دونوو و دخترش شيارا ماستروياني، دانيل داريو، سيمون آبکاريان و جينا رولندز به جاي شخصيت هاي اصلي فيلم حرف زده اند. کاترين دونوو که از هواداران کتاب هاي خانم ساتراپي است، در گفت و گويي با مجله فرانسوي سيتيزن ضمن ستايش از ترکيب خلاقانه عناصر نااميدي، طنز و تنهايي در کتاب هاي او مي گويد: "مرجان ساتراپي احتمالاً محبوبترين نويسنده کتاب هاي تخيلي من است."
در شصتمين سال جشنواره کن که از ۱۶ تا ۲۷ ( 28 ارديبهشت تا 10 خرداد ) ماه مه برگزار مي شود، بسياري از فيلمسازان و چهره*هاي سرشناس سينماي جهان حضور خواهند داشت. اما براي دومين سال پياپي هيچ فيلمي از جمهوري اسلامي در بخش هاي مختلف جشنواره پذيرفته نشده است.
در اين جشنواره فيلمي کوتاه از عباس کيارستمي به نمايش در مي آيد که به سفارش جشنواره ساخته شده است. نيکي کريمي هم که با انتشار نامه سرگشاده اي به عدم نمايش فيلمش در ايران اعتراض کرده، داور بخش جشنواره است.

سرگذشت پرسپوليس
پرسپوليس اولين فيلم مرجانه ساتراپي است که بر اساس زندگينامه مصور خود نوشت او ساخته شده است. مرجانه ساتراپي درايران نام شناخته شده اي نيست، اماشايد بتوان از او به عنوان معروف ترين هنرمند ايراني در فرانسه نام برد.حتي معروف تر از عباس کيارستمي، که شهرتش بيشتر در جامعه روشنفکري فرانسه است.
درنوامبر سال ٢٠٠٠ انتشارات Ciboulette فرانسه کتاب مصوري به نام پرسپوليس را منتشر کرد که به سرعت تبديل به يک پديده شد. پرسپوليس بارها تجديد چاپ شد وبعدها سه جلد ديگر نيز در ادامه ماجراهاي مرجي[قهرمان قصه] منتشر شد. جلد اول پرسپوليس فقط در فرانسه بيش از چهار صد هزار نسخه و نسخه هاي ترجمه شده آن- تاکنون به ١٦ زبان- بيش از يک ميليون ودويست هزار نسخه درجهان به فروش رفته است.
کلمه مولف شايسته ساتراپي است که هم نويسنده متن است وهم نقاش تصاويرکتاب. مرجانه ساتراپي به سال ١٣٤٩ در شهر رشت و در ميان خانواده روشن فکر ونسبتاً مرفهي به دنيا آمده است. ساتراپي در تهران بزرگ شده و در رشته گرافيک در دانشکده هنرهاي زيباي دانشگاه تهران] درس خوانده و پس از مهاجرت به فرانسه در رشته دکوراسيون داخلي به تحصيل ادامه داده است.. پرسپوليس در واقع شرح حال مصور خود او ومصداق واقعي" آنچه از دل برآيد لاجرم بردل نشنيد" است. کتاب شامل تصاويري سياه وسفيد با متني ساده ويکدست است.پرهيزهوشيارانه ساتراپي از رنگ ورويکردش به طراحي ساده به کتاب وجهي منحصر به فرد داده است که درنقطه مقابل تمايل امروزه بازار کتاب هاي مصور قرارمي گيرد.

تصاوير پرسپوليس جنبه كم يا بيش طنزآميز دارند ولى داستان كتاب جدى و واقعى است و در بطن مهم ترين دگرگونى تاريخى در ايران طى نيم قرن اخير، يعنى انقلاب سال ١٣٥٧ و پى آمدهاى آن به وقوع مى پيوندد. پرسپوليس حوادث سريع و سهمگين دوران انقلاب را از زاويه ديد يك دختربچه شجاع و حساس كه زندگى اش از طرق مختلف با تحولات تاريخى در ايران پيونده خورده است و از رويدادهاى سياسى و انفعالات اجتماعى تاثير مى گيرد، با ذهن فعال خود در مورد آنها فكر مى كند و از خلال آنها رشد مى كند، به تماشا مى گذارد.
جلد اول كتاب دوران بچگى نويسنده را كه با انقلاب سال ١٣٥٧ همزمان است، به تصوير مى كشد. جلد دوم به آغاز نوجوانى مرجان ساتراپى اختصاص دارد كه با سركوب زنان، طبقه متوسط مدرن شهرى و نيروهاى سياسى مخالف حكومت اسلامى از يك سو و آغاز جنگ ايران و عراق از سوى ديگر مقارن است. سومين جلد پرسپوليس داستان مهاجرت نويسنده در سن ١٤ سالگى به اتريش و جلد چهارم[آخرين جلد] كتاب قصه بازگشت او به ايران و مهاجرت دوباره اش به اروپا را بازگو مى كند.
داستان كتاب از طريق روابط و گفتگوهاى نويسنده، كه در خانه مرجي خوانده مى شود، با پدر، مادر، خويشاوندان، دوستان و آشنايانش جريان مى يابد، اما مجموعه اين روابط و در نتيجه سرنوشت فردى مرجان ساتراپى تابعى از مختصات جامعه ايران و تحولات سياسى و اجتماعى آن است، خصوصا اين كه خانواده او به دليل سابقه سياسى نسبت به تحولات سياسى به طور خاص حساس هستند. به اين ترتيب نقطه عطف هاى سياسى ١٠٠ سال اخير در ايران به ستون هاى اصلى داستان پرسپوليس تبديل مى شوند و نويسنده كتاب بدون هيچ بغضى به بازگويى تفاوت هاى فاحش طبقاتى در ايران و خشونتى كه اين تفاوت ها از طريق آنها متحقق مى شوند، زمينه هاى انقلاب ١٣٥٧، انقلاب و سركوب هاى سياسى و اجتماعى پيرو آن و سپس جنگ ايران و عراق و تاثير همه اين عوامل در زندگى خود مى پردازد و مسئله مهاجرت كه بخش قابل توجهى از جامعه ايران را تحت تاثير قرار داده است را برجسته مى كند.

محتوي کتاب[مخصوصاً دو جلد اول آن که سرگذشت يک نسل است، براي خواننده ايراني بيش از هر خواننده ديگري در چهار گوشه دنيا مي تواند جذاب باشد] انتشار آن را به زبان فارسي در شرايط حاکم فعلي ناممکن مي سازد. بديهي است اين سرنوشت در انتظار نمايش رسمي فيلم نيز مي تواند باشد، اما يقيناً نسخه هاي غير قانوني آن راه خود را در ميان تماشاگران ايراني پيدا خواهند کرد. چون مرجانه درباره چيزهايي سخن مي گويد که کودکان دهه پنجاه همه آنها را با با تمامي وجود زيسته و حس کرده اند. او از خودش، از کودکي، از پايان حکومت شاه، از تظاهرات، از انقلاب، ازعموي توده اي، از اعدام، از سر به نيست شدن، از حجاب، از جنگ، از اولين عشق، از ديپلم، از کنکور، از دانشگاه، از ازدواج، از طلاق و سر انجام ازترک وطن مي نويسد.همراه با مرجي درتاريخ معاصر کشورمان سفر مي کنيم و شاهد حوادث غم انگيز بسياري مي شويم. حوادثي که هنوز مشابه آنها در برابر چشم هموطنان ما بسيار رخ مي دهد. مقايسه تصويري از داستان پرسپوليس با وضعيت فعلي زنان و دختران سرزمين ما خود به تنهايي گوياست. اما کتاب به طرز معجزه آسايي نه تنها غم انگيز نيست که حس طنز درجاي جاي آن به چشم مي خورد وبه آن جذابيتي غريب بخشيده است. خود ساتراپي در مورد ايده اصلى نگارش پرسپوليس مي گويد:
"از بدو ورودم به فرانسه در سال ١٩٩٤ دائما در مورد زندگى ام در ايران براى دوستانم صحبت مى كردم. تلويزيون گاه و بيگاه تصاويرى از ايران نشان مى داد ولى اين تصاوير گوياى برداشت هاى من نبودند. دائماً بايد گوشزد مى كردم كه واقعيت آن طور كه در تلويزيون نشان داده مى شود نيست. من ٢٠ سال است سعى مى كنم به آدم هاي پيرامونم توضيح بدهم كه ايرانى بودن بد نيست... بعد از اينكه دانشگاه را تمام كردم، ٩ نفر از ما كه همه نقاشى و گرافيك خوانده بوديم با هم يك استوديويي گرفتيم و به كار مشغول شديم. دوستانم به من گفتند:يك كارى با قصه هايت بكن! آنها من را با كارهاى نويسنده هاى داستان هاى مصور آشنا كردند و در اين ميان آرت اشپيگلمان بهترين شان داستان سرا بود... "
پرسپوليس با سادگى تصاوير، طنز تلخ و پيچيدگى و جديت داستان تكان دهنده اش، يادآور داستان مصور موش اشپيگلمان است كه قتل عام يهوديان در آلمان نازى را از خلال زندگى يك موش به تصوير مى كشد. ولي با وجود تمام اين جنبه هاى جدى سياسى و اجتماعي، نقطه قوت پرسپوليس در اين است كه داستان كتاب خصلت فردى و شخصى خود را حفظ مى كند. مرجان ساتراپى با بى طرفي، كنجكاوى و انرژى يك نوجوان جوياى حقيقت در مقابل تحولات محيط عكس العمل نشان مى دهد و زندگى و روابط خود را مى سازد. پرسپوليس بازگويى دنياى فردى و درونى نويسنده است، كه تاريخ به سنگينى و قساوت، با تانك ها، مسلسل ها، خرابه ها و اجساد خود از وراى آن عبور مى كند.
پرسپوليس از داستان زندگي مرجان ده ساله آغاز مي*شود که آغاز انقلاب اسلامي است که از پي خود حجاب اسلامي را مي*آورد و جنگ و شادي*ستيزي و رونق*يابي کار زندانها. مرجان کوچولو از طرفي در بازي*هاي کودکانه*اش در جلد چه *گوارا مي*رود و از طرفي شب*ها بر زانوهاي خدا مي*نشيند و عزم خود را جزم کرده تا پيامبر شود. با اعدام شدن عمويش در زندان*هاي جمهوري اسلامي مرجان با خدا قهر مي*کند و او را از خود مي*راند. جلد دوم کتاب ادامه* جنگ است و فشار و ساتراپي در اين بخش هم، چنان که در تمامي کتاب گاه با جملاتي کوتاه و ساده، و تصاويري ساده*تر موفق مي*شود فاجعه*اي را منعکس کند. جلد سوم پرسپوليس داستان غربت مرجان ۱۴ ساله است و دربدري*هايش در اتريش که رنج تنهايي تا آستانه* خودکشي مي*کشاندش که با بازگشت مرجان به خانه تمام مي*شود. اما در وطن باز همان فشارهاي آشنا، انواع گشت*ها و شحنه*هايي که پاسداران اسلامند و انقلاب. و سرانجام کتاب فرار دوباره* مرجان است از وطن. مرجاني که اين بار پرتجربه*تر است و هدفمندتر.

مرجانه در برابر اين سئوال که آيا پرسپوليس داستاني است از گذر زمان، ماجراهاي خانوادگي يا داستاني سياسي است؟ مي*گويد: "هيچ کدام از اين موضوع* ها و همزمان همه* آنها. من هميشه با يک انديشه* بسيار نادرست در مورد کشورم طرف بوده *ام، اينکه ايران کشور پر نفت و ثروتمند با پادشاهاني قدرتمند و ملکه *اي زيبا بوده؛ سرزمين هزار و يکشب. و همين کشور هزار و يک شب بعد از سال ۱۹۷۹ در نظر آنها تبديل شد به بدترين کشور با مردمي ديوانه که به خون غربي ها تشنه*اند. ايران نه کشور افسانه*اي هزار و يک شب است و نه سرزمين تروريست* ها و در عين حال ترکيبي است از هر دوي آنها. من در دوره زماني مناسبي در اين کشور بوده*ام که هم شاهد انقلاب بودم هم جنگ و به دليل همين جنگ مجبور به ترک ميهنم شدم، با در نظر گرفتن همه* اين*ها، کار من بازتاب چيزهايي*ست که شاهدشان بوده*ام."