Kick in Iran is a feature documentary by Fatima Geza Abdollahyan. [1] It portrays Taekwondo fighter Sara Khoshjamal-Fekri on her way to the Olympic Games 2008, in Beijing. [2] [3] Sara Khoshjamal Fekri is the first female athlete from Iran to ever qualify directly for the Olympic Games. [4]
The movie follows Sara Khoshjamal-Fekri and her coach Maryam Azarmehr during a nine-month period, beginning with qualification and including participation in the Olympic Games 2008. Because they live in a Muslim country, the two athletes have to face a lot of challenges. [5] [6] They work hard as they prepare to represent the Islamic Republic of Iran as female Taekwondo-fighters. [7]
Kick in Iran portrays day-to-day life in the Iran for two women while wearing both the hijab and the dobok . [8]
Maryam Keshavarz, is an American filmmaker, of Iranian descent. She is best known for her 2011 film Circumstance distributed by Participant Media and Roadside Attractions, which won the Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival.
Sara Miller Driver is an American independent filmmaker and actress from Westfield, New Jersey. A participant in the independent film scene that flourished in lower Manhattan from the late 1970s through the 1990s, she gained initial recognition as producer of two early films by Jim Jarmusch, Permanent Vacation (1980) and Stranger Than Paradise (1984). Driver has directed two feature films, Sleepwalk (1986) and When Pigs Fly (1993), as well as a notable short film, You Are Not I (1981), and a documentary, Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat (2017), on the young artist's pre-fame life in the burgeoning downtown New York arts scene before the city's massive changes through the 1980s. She served on the juries of various film festivals throughout the 2000s.
The event of Taekwondo competitions at the 2008 Summer Olympics was held in Beijing. It was held between August 20th and August 23rd at the Beijing Science and Technology University Gymnasium. The event consisted of various athletes, there were 128 Taekwondo practitioners, consisting of 64 men and 64 women. These athletes competed in 8 events, where for the first time ever, two bronze medals were awarded per event.
Be Like Others: The Story of Transgendered Young Women Living in Iran is a 2008 documentary film written and directed by Tanaz Eshaghian about trans people in Iran. It explores issues of gender and sexual identity while following the personal stories of some of the patients at a Tehran gender reassignment clinic. The film played at the Sundance Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival, winning three awards.
Sara Khoshjamal Fekri is an Iranian taekwondoka and the first Iranian female taekwondo Olympic qualifier. She competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics, defeating Ghizlane Toudali of Morocco in the round of sixteen before losing to Yang Shu-Chun of Chinese Taipei in the quarter-finals.Recently she published her official website for release new notes about biomechanics articles and coaching.
Rakhshān Banietemad is an Iranian film director and screenwriter. Her title as "First Lady of Iranian Cinema" is not only a reference to her prominence as a filmmaker, but also connotes her social role of merging politics and family in her work. Her signature style focuses on a character representing a part of society to explore while remaining objectively neutral. The first period of Banietemad's cinematic activity originates from dark humor. Still, in the second period of her work, dark humor gives way to serious and influential films, and deeper and broader issues are addressed. Banietemad has a more balanced view of life.
Elchin Musaoglu [Guliyev] is an Azerbaijani filmmaker best known for his award-winning movie The 40th Door and Oscar contender Nabat. Musaoglu is a member of the Union of the Azerbaijan Cinematographers and the Union of Turkish Documentary Cinematographers, and a founder of the Society for Support of the Development of Documentary Films and Authorial Programs.
Hanna Polak is a Polish director, cinematographer and producer. For her short documentary film, The Children of Leningradsky, about a community of homeless children living in the Leningradsky railway station in Moscow, she was nominated for an Academy Award and an Emmy Award. In 2003, she was awarded Best Producer of Documentary Movies at the Kraków Film Festival for Railway Station Ballad.
Granaz Moussavi is an Iranian-Australian contemporary poet, film director and screenwriter. She is known for her avant-garde poetry in the 1990s. Her debut feature film My Tehran for Sale (2009) is an internationally-acclaimed Australian-Iranian co-production. Her second feature film When Pomegranates Howl was nominated for the 14th Asia Pacific Screen Award as the Best Youth Feature Film and was selected as Australian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards.
Ghizlane Toudali is a Moroccan taekwondo practitioner. Toudali qualified for the women's 49 kg class at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, after placing second from the African Qualification Tournament in Tripoli, Libya. She lost the preliminary round of sixteen match to Iran's Sara Khoshjamal, who was able to score five points at the end of the game.
Red Wedding is a 2012 documentary film co-directed by Lida Chan and Guillaume Suon, which portrays a victim of forced marriage under the Khmer Rouge regime.
The women's finweight event at the 2010 Asian Games took place on 17 November 2010 at Guangdong Gymnasium, Guangzhou, China.
Gabriel Mascaro is a Brazilian visual artist and film director.
Starless Dreams is a 2016 Iranian documentary directed by Mehrdad Oskouei.
Hawa Essuman is a film director based in Nairobi, Kenya. Her 2017 feature-length documentary Silas, co-directed with Anjali Neyar, tells the story of Liberian environmental activist Silas Siakor's fight to preserve the country's rainforests from commercial logging. The film won multiple awards, including the Amnesty International Durban Human Rights Award (2018) and the Audience Award for best documentary at the RiverRun International Film Festival (2018). Hawa's first feature film, Soul Boy (2010), also received a series of awards. In addition, Hawa has produced a range of TV programmes, commercial films, music videos and adverts.
It's Always Late for Freedom is a 2008 Iranian documentary directed by Mehrdad Oskouei. The film depicts the life of three teenager boys in Tehran House of Correction. They are portrayed as victims of serious social problems such as addiction, poverty and divorce, which the Iranian society is faced with.
Film Festival'Kitzbuehel is an Austrian international film festival focusing on emerging filmmakers that takes place in Kitzbuehel/Tyrol in the last week of August each year. The Film Festival Kitzbuehel offers filmmakers from all over the world the opportunity for their works to be shown, discussed and promoted. The festival comprises competitive sections for national and international fiction and documentary feature films as well as short films and a group of out-of-competition sections, including the Spotlights, In Persona, Heimat, Mountain Sport Shorts and a Retrospective. A particular emphasis is put on films from the EU and, starting in 2017, Film Festival Kitzbuehel has entered partnerships with Transilvania International Film Festival, Sofia International Film Festival, and Bolzano Filmfestival
Gypsy Davy is a 2011 documentary film, directed by Rachel Leah Jones, and co-produced by Jones and Philippe Ballaiche.
Mohsen Nabavi is an Iranian Director, Scriptwriter, and Actor.
Twice Colonized is a documentary film, directed by Lin Alluna and released in 2023. A co-production of companies from Canada, Denmark and Greenland. The film profiles Aaju Peter, an Inuk lawyer and activist who has lived in both Greenland and Nunavut, documenting both her activism for Inuit rights and her personal struggles.