The Iranian "Blade Runner"
Saturday, May 15, 2010 at 12:06AM 
Gist:
While the world's film community continues to protest the detention of Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi, another helmer from Iran traveled to Italy's recent Cartoons on the Bay festival to unveil a sneak peek of the futuristic "Tehran 2121," billed as the country's first sci-fi feature, live action or animated.
Shot by locally popular animator Bahram Azimi, using a rotoscoping technique but with a "Blade Runner" aesthetic, "Tehran 2121," almost seems intended as Iran's answer to opponents of its hard-line government.
Azimi described the pic as being about "a far-away future in which, despite how much our country will have changed, the morality and the ways of Iranians will remain the same."
"Tehran 2121" producer Mohammad Abolhassani says, "The Islamic Republic is happy to use the tools of culture to spread peace and equality." He called Iran "the top animation nation of the Middle East," citing 200 companies in the country's toon sector.
Animation is often used in Iran for government campaigns, such as the series of computer-animated adverts that Azimi shot in 2006 to spruce up the image of Iran's police force.
Seven minutes of the big-budget "Tehran 2121" unspooled at the Italo toon fest.
Pic revolves around a 160-year-old man, who, deeming his death to be imminent, wants his niece, to come to Tehran so he can pass on his inheritance to her, on condition that she gets married.
During her travels, she encounters three men: a taxi driver, a rock singer and the owner of a robot shop.
This I got to see.
Recent Bret Stephens column cites Bernard Lewis saying he can imagine a future where Turkey is the Islamic republic and Iran is the secular one.
Frankly, just the fact that Iranians can think like this is interesting enough.
Of course, the notion that the Revolutionary Guards will get you to this future is awfully ludicrous, but the Iranian people? That I could see--post-revolution.
Reader Comments (1)
Looking at the animator's website, www.bahramazimi.com, the photos of him on the main page and the bio are monochrome with added elements of green.
His name also appears online on a letter in support of Green protesters, though that may not be reliable:
http://www.unpost.org/?p=4666