Kostas rocks!

Kostas is a great Gypsy Swing guitar player. He also lixes to experiment in a fusion setting. I met him in our cafe a few years ago, and was always happy when he walked in with his guitar. Have a look at and listen to his new MySpace site:

http://www.myspace.com/kostasgiannakopoulos74

A blogger dies in prison (Tehran)

Omid Reza Mir Sayafi, an Iranian journalist and blogger dies in the Evin prison. Kamangir.net has a nice write-up:

http://kamangir.net/2009/03/22/no-more-martyrs/

These are truly sad times.

Documentary maker put in Evin

And now they are targeting documentary film makers. This is truly getting scary:

http://www.edn.dk/art.lasso?-token.skip=&nd=200403&ns=1293

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all! Congratulations on making it to the year 1388. It's funny how more than a few times today I heard the phrase "Next year in Iran". Before the creation of the state of Israel every years jews would celebrate with "next year in Israel", nice to see how much we have in commmon.



Here's Obama's Nowruz speech:

Laughing and Crying with the Persians

First off the important news for all our Persian readers and writers: the Dehkhoda dictionary is now online:

http://www.loghatnaameh.com/

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In the Haha category here's Stephen Colbert talking about Nowruz:



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The Iranian Film Festival will have a Best Of edition in de Balie in Amsterdam. Have a look in their website:

http://www.iraansfilmfestival.nl/

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Understanding Libanon

Juan Cole has an interesting article up about Libanon.

A quick update on why this is an interesting country to follow: Lebanon is a small country neighbouring Israel, with 4 million inhabitants. The people in Libanon are a mixture of Sunni, Shia, and various Christian sects. The Shia are by far the largest minority and could very well be the majority in a few years time. Many of the Shia muslims in Libanon follow the rulings of the Iranian Hezbollah.

http://www.salon.com/books/excerpt/2009/03/17/juan_cole/

Wow

I am speechless... This is, finally, the creativity of the 21st century. This is amazing:

http://thru-you.com/

Gaza

So, the war in Gaza is over and we stopped caring about the place and its people? No more demonstrations or solidarity actions. Let's move on to the next big cause. No matter that the people are still locked up.

Well, at least some people haven't forgotten. Here at http://www.closedzone.com/ you'll find the following animation by Yoni Goodman, the animation director of Waltz with Bashir.

Bollywood Blues

My friend Rishi Chamman has made the Dutch documentary Bollywood Blues. It's about a young Dutch Hindustani girl who lives in a strict home and dreams of making it in Bollywood. Have a look here:

http://www.nederland2.nl/uitzendinggemist/programma/holland-doc/1574
(click on Bollywood Blues)

Radio Zamaneh - Human Rights page

Radio Zamaneh has started translation some of the articles that appear on the Persian Human Rights page. The page is still under construction, but have a browse and leave a comment if you (dis)like the articles.

http://zamaaneh.com/enhr/

My Friends are Filmmakers

My friend David Herman made a film called Fair Play. Here's some info about him and a moving trailer. I am very proud of him.

http://beyondthebox.org/filmmaker-profile-david-herman-fair-play/

My other friend Marco of the Amsterdam based Godmother Film has made this short film for Milieudefensie, a Dutch environmental campaign.

http://60sec.milieudefensie.nl/film33.php

There is a list of other short films made for this campaign. You can vote for your favorite short here:

http://60sec.milieudefensie.nl/