Rooftop Films & Chelsea Art Museum:Iran Inside Out (Event Over)

Iran Inside Out Film Series

Curated by Livia Alexander, ArteEast Executive Director
Presented in collaboration by Sam Bardaouil, Chelsea Art Museum Curator; Dan Nuxoll, Rooftop Films Program Director; Vali Mahlopuji; and Sara Nodjoumi

Every Wednesday July 15 – August 19 at 9 pm

$15 general admission / $10 students and seniors / CAM Members free

Venue: Chelsea Art Museum / 556 West 22nd Street / At the corner of 11th Avenue

Chelsea Art Museum is proud to present the Iran Inside Out Film Series in collaboration with Rooftop Films and ArteEast. This film series will present brilliant feature and short films as well as documentaries by well-established and emerging Iranian directors that are designed to compliment CAM’s ground-breaking exhibition, Iran Inside Out. The films are organized thematically to match the exhibition’s five pillars: war and politics, gender and sexuality, culture as commodity, reinventing traditional art forms and street culture within Tehran.

The screenings will take place every Wednesday at 9 pm from July 15 until August 19 in the Chelsea Art Museum’s magnificent gallery space. A music performance by Electric Black will precede the launch of the series on July 15 at 8 pm. Electric Black elicit a new experimental blues sound, a self-proclaimed “American Gypsy Music”.

Iran Inside Out features 35 artists living and working in Iran alongside 21 others living in the Diaspora. The result is a multifarious portrait of 56 contemporary Iranian artists challenging the conventional perceptions of Iran and Iranian art. In Iran Inside Out, 210 works comprising painting, sculpture, photography, video and installation come together, not merely as a political statement.  Rather, as an opportunity that allows visitors to formulate their own views on what makes up the people of Iran, from inside and outside a country that is at the center of a global controversy.

The Chelsea Art Museum , a nonprofit charitable organization, strives on presenting contemporary thematic exhibitions inspired by current social, political, and cultural events. Rooftop Films was founded in 1997 and has come to be known internationally as one of the most dynamic film festivals in the world. ArteEast is a New York-based international nonprofit organization supporting and promoting artists from the Middle East, North Africa and their diasporas by highlighting significant, provoking and ground-breaking work.

The films:
July 15
My City, Pizza
Date: 2008
Length: 26 mins
Director: Ala Mohseni
Synopsis: This light-hearted, amusing, fast-paced documentary about eating habits in modern Tehran offers a kaleidoscopic view of Iranian society. We see young people, old people, progressive and conservative Iranians who all reveal their identity by telling us what they think of Italian fast food in the capital.

Tehran TV Disoriented
Date: 2006
Length: 21 mins
Director: Farhad Moshiri and Shirin Aliabadi
Synopsis: In this short piece, Farhad Moshiri reedits scenes from Iranian soap operas to show the influence that these seemingly innocent mediums have on Iranian society.