The HBO documentary For Neda, directed by Antony Thomas and narrated by famed Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, first aired on HBO in the United States on June 14 but went viral in Iran on June 1, well before the regime even knew about it. In an HBO interview, Mr. Thomas stated that the goal of the film was to look beyond Neda Agha-Soltan as the most prominent symbol of the Green Revolution and into the soul of whom Neda was as a human being. To that end, Mr. Thomas and crew succeeded brilliantly. The emotional rollercoaster ride one undergoes while traversing Neda Soltan’s short but eventful life in For Neda ranges from the tender and sublime to black despair and furious outrage.

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At times, For Neda also induces in the viewer an unnerving sense of paranoia. Throughout much of the film, the regime is the evil villain unseen on the screen but whose ominous presence is most keenly felt. The rather ordinary but highly illicit home interview sessions in Iran with Neda’s family and others engender a dark foreboding to the point you almost expect regime jackboots to bust down the doors at any moment. The rest of For Neda is also fraught with many palpable dangers that make the fictional James Bond’s seem trite by comparison. In For Neda, we know that the consequences of regime discovery and reprisal are as perilous, real and horrifying as it gets.

For those reasons and many others, Neda’s family refused to talk to the media for the longest time. After Neda’s death last June 20, the regime forcibly moved the family to prevent their home in Tehran from becoming a Green rallying point (which it had in fact become), then thoroughly silenced them. Yet after much coaxing online, Neda’s family finally (and fearlessly) agreed to a live interview in their home to tell Neda’s life story. The man chosen to travel to Iran to secretly interview Neda’s family and capture it all on video for HBO was Saeed Kamali Dehghan, a courageous 24-year-old Iranian expatriate and editorial contributor to the UK Guardian. (more…)

Since my scathing two-part Big Hollywood editorial on imprisoned Iranian film director Jafar Panahi nearly three weeks ago, I have found myself drawn neck-deep into the campaign to push for his freedom. In that cause I have email-blitzed the media, the Academy, all the major US film festivals and as many contacts in Hollywood as I know and could find. I sent out deep background on his case, petitions for his release, and heartfelt pleas for Hollywood voices to speak up on Mr. Panahi’s behalf, along with not-so-veiled threats of PR Armageddon should the deafening silence continue.

I also informed all parties involved that I would do the same for any of them under similar brutal and inhuman circumstances. Whatever it took, be it sweetheart pleas or promises of a nuclear PR war. I have since dropped the latter approach, as I have been informed by Iranians also campaigning for Mr. Panahi’s release that it was not helpful to his cause. So on Mr. Panahi’s behalf, I have traded in my sword for a plowshare for the duration. Not a problem. I’m not a total ideologue. Just mostly.

This past three weeks have also brought many valuable learning experiences as well. I have since found that Facebook, which I have avoided like the Plague because I have enough on my geek plate already, is an incredibly valuable social networking tool that reaches even into the heart of Iran itself. I have made many new friends behind the Islamist Curtain, among them a Panahi family member, by posting any good news I could find on the Jafar Panahi and Free Jafar Panahi Facebook pages. (more…)

In Part One of this two-part series, I described the widely varying treatment of renowned directors Jafar Panahi and Roman Polanski by the leftist Hollywood establishment vis-a-vis their arrests and incarcerations, Polanski for child rape, Panahi for mere dissent. It is merely the latest chapter in a long and sickening history of the Hollywood Left’s willful blindness to and even profiting from the McCarthyite persecution and dire straits of creative film artists in Iran revolting over a stolen election, while child rapist Polanksi gets the Oscar treatment with regard to calls for his release and freedom.

But before I get into the stomach-churning details of the Hollywood Left’s shattered moral compass vis-a-vis directors Polanski and Panahi and other Iranian film artists, I would like to take a moment to honor more of the true heroes who have spoken out loudly on Mr. Panahi’s behalf and signed petitions for his release. The National Society of Film Critics. The Boston, L. A. and  Toronto Film Critics Associations. Arin Paul of the New York Times. Filmmaker Ken Loach. Rutger Wolfson, director of the Rotterdam Film Festival. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. Human Rights Watch. French Minister of Culture Frederic Mitterand. Iranhumanrights.org. The list really is long.

Of course, noticeably absent from those petitioning and publicly calling for the release of Mr. Panahi from his unjust tomb-like captivity in Tehran are all of the prominent Hollywood A-List petitioners for Polanski. So Mr. Polanski’s arrest for child rape is worthy of international pressure and outrage, but famed director Jafar Panahi being tossed into a crypt in Tehran on “unspecified charges” is not? Welcome to Lefty Hollywood. And it only gets worse. The most tragic case of Jafar Panahi is yet one more sorry, perplexing and infuriating chapter in leftist Hollywood’s incredible blind side to any human rights violations in Iran, never mind only those perpetrated against Iranian filmmakers today. (more…)

“Roman Polanski is a French citizen, a renowned international artist now facing extradition. This extradition, if it takes place, will be heavy in consequences and will take away his freedom. Filmmakers, actors, producers and technicians – everyone involved in international filmmaking – want him to know that he has their support and friendship.” – From the petition to free director Roman Polanski.

Jafar Panahi

“Every possible way has been used for breaking his spirit. He is deprived of his basic and legal rights. Can all of this be called anything but torture? Does a regime have the right to treat one of its artistic elite so shamefully and inhumanely on the basis of a film that has not yet been made?”  -  Taherah Saeedi, wife of renowned Iranian New Wave filmmaker Jafar Panahi, on her husband’s arrest and imprisonment in Tehran.

On September 27, 2009, famed Hollywood film director Roman Polanski was arrested on arrival at Zurich Airport by Swiss authorities on a 31-year-old L.A. warrant for the 1977 drugging and raping of 13-year-old Samantha Geimer, now 45. A huge swath of the liberal leftist Hollywood establishment wasted no time in leaping into action over the Swiss authorities’ dismaying breach of social justice and inhuman treatment vis-a-vis director/child rapist Polanski. Over 100 well-known filmmakers and A-list celebrities signed a petition of outrage demanding Mr. Polanski’s immediate release. (more…)

The news is really unbelievable these days. All that I once thought were core American values and traditions are now being washed away in a sea of propaganda and political attacks from the radical Left, which now rules supreme and knows it. The Left in power is now waging an ideological war not only against conservatives, but any dissenting Americans who get in their way. Worst of all, they are using the full machinery of the government and their Lefty media lapdogs to do it all, and in the same fashion as Ahmadinejad’s government is demonizing the Green protesters in Iran.

It is chilling to witness, in the United States of America of all places. Civil political discourse is a thing of the past. You cannot oppose ObamaCare without being a swastika-waving corporate Nazi stooge. Never mind the fact that no one will tell us exactly where all the hospitals, doctors, and nurses to treat 50 million new patients will magically materialize from, or how it will all be paid for.
(more…)