The White Meadows

Harris Theater: May 7 @ 5:00PM
Melwood Screening Room: May 11 @ 9:00PM

Passes not accepted on Opening/Closing Night. Please arrive at least 15 minutes ahead of start time to ensure availability of seating. Film schedule and Q & A's are subject to change.

2009/Iran/Director: Mohammad Rasoulof/92 minutes
Cast: Hassan Pourshirazi, Younes Ghazali, Mohammad Rabbani, Mohammad Shirvani (Language: Farsi)
Festivals and Awards: Winner of 2009 Asia Africa Special Jury Prize and Muhr Asia Africa Award for Best Actor-Dubai International Film Festival/ Nominated for Golden Shell Award-San Sebastian International Film Festival 
Rahmat (Hassan Pourshirazi) is tasked with collecting the abundant tears of the islanders in Iran’s great saltwater Lake Urmia. A typical collection day, Rahmat fills his glass pitcher with the tears of mourners. They mourn an unnamed young woman, beautiful in death and preserved in salt whose cause of death is alluded to be never made clear. We learn only that she was perhaps too beautiful to love among those in this near moonscape of an island. In this land, devoid of any growth or anything green, such beauty is a burden and, indeed, a hazard.
There is no shortage of tears to collect. Rahmat encounters a painter who suffers an unspeakable punishment for daring to paint the sea as he, the artist, sees it. As any artist would, he holds true to his craft, rather than relent to the court of public opinion- the joyless villagers. Rahmat goes about his business of running errands and collecting tears and realizes that he is also collecting wishes and petitions for life and fertility –indeed creation itself- to return to this barren land. These episodes serve as an allegory for the desire for freedom, artistic and otherwise, in Iran. Rasoulof skillfully employs ancient universal archetypes and references to the pre-Islamic spirituality of Persia in his grand fable.
Rahmat’s tale is part mythic and part parable for an ancient land whose sorrows are all too apparent and whose dreams and beauty drown within them. The White Meadows visual metaphors evoke themes of social control, groupthink, and the role of the outcast in a society. Stark, mesmerizing, and entrancing, Rasoulof’s fable works best as an eerie poetic feast for the eye. The White Meadows, with its brutal allegorical images, rang true enough provocative enough to cause the imprisonment of the crew and their families in Iran. Freed after several months, their work in The White Meadows is a beacon from Persia to cinephiles, artists, and those who continue to struggle for self-determination.
“The White Meadows is co-presented by the Global Film Initiative and is part of the Global Lens 2011 film series. For more information, visit www.globalfilm.org.”