An evening with Maani Petgar

Screening & Talk

Born in Tehran, Iran, November 1959. After running a Photography Studio, (1980-82), he started working in the film industry with Amir NADERI, in The Runner (1982-83) and Water, Wind, Dust (1985) as stills photographer, assistant director, and assistant editor. After working in The Key (Ebrahim FOROUZESH-1986), he migrated to Australia and between 1988 to 1990 worked in the Australian Film Industry in various positions, until he made his first experimental short, Reverse Angle in 1991. In 1994, he returned to Iran to make a documentary on Iranian cinema for SBS TV in Australia and Farabi Cinema Foundation in Iran, but for some reasons, that project was never executed and instead, Cinema Cinema was made and Film Lovers, were initiated. He has returned to live and work in Iran since 1997 and planned two feature films in Iran. The first project: Looking Through, is completed. He has established his own production houses; Reverse Angle Productions, between 1996-2002 in Australia and Unexposed Films in Iran- since 2004.

In this evening, the following films will be presented:

Happy Ends | Mani Petgar | 04:00 | 1995

Three disasters with three happy ends…

Reverse Angle | 28:00 | 1991

The visuals in this film from the backstage of a British/Australian TV series -Living of Liverpool- but the sounds, music, and narrations, are excerpts from the different films and some director’s comments on cinema. They are juxtaposed in order to build an “essay” and a tribute -to my favorite kind of- cinema.

Station to Station | Mani Petgar | 10:00 | 1994

A train driver, at work, and inside his home…

Point of View | 10:00 | 1992

People are waiting at the bus station …
My main concern in this film was allowing "interpret-ability of the images", without intending "to tell a story". But also being aware of the fact that one cannot live without the "stories", stories give us reassurances, we can (try to) sum up this life of chaos ...
Therefore I (sort of) tried to come up with a story, at least on the last shot of the film