Yesterday, the press conference of Oliver Stone, the American director, writer and producer has been held in Charsou Cineplex. It was the first time that the Hollywood cineastes traveled to Iran during 36th FIFF and answered to the questions of the national and international press representatives.
Presence of Oliver Stone had some ifs but the director of “Platoon” and “Born on the 4th of July” came to FIFF to finish all the stories.
Undoubtedly, a section of holding every international film festival is holding workshops for cinefans and students but the main target of holding such an international event is for making an atmosphere for familiarity of Iranian and international artists and communication between them but Oliver Stone passed his days in Iran in holding workshops, having some interviews, or some days for touring in Iran. The point is that was there any meeting with him and Iranian cineastes? He answered to Etemad question; Iran has great cineastes like Nasser Taghvayi, Dariush Mehrjui, Masoud Kimiayi, Asghar Farhadi, Majid Majidi, Abbas Kiarostami, and,,, do you know them? “I know some of these names and I don’t know some others, also, I have met some of them during film festivals.
This question made Amir Esfandiari, the festival international deputy to answer; “The festival is being held by cineastes and we have appointment with Iranian cineastes on Thursday.”
However, the American director, writer and producer that worked on politics doesn’t know Jafar Panahi. He answered to Deborah Young the Hollywood Reporter film critic about the presence of jafar Panahi in Cannes Film Festival: “I don’t know him. It is important for a filmmaker to make film and sometimes its possible to be present in an event. However, I don’t know the details of the political story behind that.”
However, it wasn’t the whole side stories of the director. He had a meeting with student in the beginning of his trip to Iran and a sentence came out from him that he said while Iranian Cinema has some boring films, it wins some awards in festivals. In the press conference he referred to this sentence and said; “I don’t remember that I said such a sentence about Iranian and Indian cinema and I asked the festival team to clear this issue. In that meeting, I generally told that the pace of most of films in the festival is boring, moreover, I was speaking with students and I had an honest offer for them to use challenges and ties in their works. Billy Wilder also had some criticisms to my Nikson that is too long!”
Its natural to ask the director of such political films life “JFK”, “Lookinh for Fidel” about making political films about the political situation of middle-east and the political leader of Iran. He explained; “Sometimes ago, a fake interview was released that I want to have interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad, I strongly deny this issue. It is very common that when you are on news, something like this are released but I’m not as ambitious as this.”
The director pointed that I’m not a journalist but I’m a dramatist and said; “when I became tired of being a dramatists, I go for making documentary, also, I have worked with characters like Castro, Chavez, Putin, Netaniaho, and Yasser Arafat and theses documentaries made me to back to normal life and feel it in touch.”
Stone pointed to political world of today and answered to the question about filmmaking on ISIS and Sardar Solaymani; “Probably, there are lots of forces that make problem for making these kinds of projects. There are many scripts about ISIS and some countries like USA and Saudi Arabia do not accept Iran’s attitude toward it.
Most of the questions were asked in the press conference were political more than artistic ones. His next question went to on his trip to Iran: “The only criticism that was talked about my presence in Iran was from an Israel extremist media that they released incorrect story of having interview with Ahmadunezhad.
However, in his career he has made anti-Iran movie “Alexander” with Warner Bros. and he said about misunderstanding: “In the film , Darius leaves way due to his physical problems and Alexander became winner of the war. But he respects to Pars king’s. Alexander believed that to make multi-natural emperor like UN today.
Stone talked about the political look to Iranian Filmmakers like Farhadi and said: “With my knowledge and experience about collecting the votes in Academy Awards, I can not answer to the question of political selection of films in OSCAR but we cannot say that all of them are judged from the political attitude but sometimes some filmmakers say they criticisms delicately.
He became famous with his movies about Vietnam and answered to a question about the possibility of making a film about the wars in the middle east: “It is a great issue and answering to it is so hard. I think “documentary” is a better medium for it and I don’t know how it can be set in the form of dram.”
Moreover, he counted meeting of Macron and Trump as a shock and said: “I was shocked when I just saw the French president standing by US president and talking about JCPOA. Macron is a young inexperienced president and standing beside US means returning to past for France. I became unhappy,
“Iran and Russia” are not exceptional from this issue” and continued: “they may cost expensive costs for their guardianship. There are many ways to criticize in cinema and delicacy is the only way to omit limitations. My movie must be introduced to Cannes Film Festival but the distributer told me that the film must be first screened in USA and finally, the film hasn’t screened and seen as much as it must b.
If I was someone who is in charge in cinema I allowed to Jafar Panahi come to France for screening of his film in Canned film festival, because I believe in freedom in the world of art as much as we can.
The time for screening or Alexander; it was the time that Bosh started to attack Iraq.
Me and the jury board loved “Blockage” in Pusan and we dedicated the main award of the festival to it and a Korean movie. It shows Tehran and Iran problems very good.