A young Iranian director's short film has garnered enough votes to be among the 18 finalists of the Democracy Challenge competition, organized by the US government and featured on YouTube. The film with the greatest number of votes by midnight, June 15, 2010, will be declared the winner of the challenge to create a short video that completes the phrase 'Democracy is...' and will be awarded with the chance to meet industry insiders, democracy activists, and government leaders in Washington DC, New York, and Los Angeles.
Farbod Khoshtinat, 21, entered the competition with a short film called 'ATTN: Mr. Democrat.' He is currently one of the front-runners, but needs more votes to win the challenge.
Khoshtinat, aka Fred, attended the 'Seda-va-Sima' high school where he obtained a degree in cinema. He graduated from Tehran's University of Applied Science and Technology (Elmi Karbordi) in 2007.
After founding Persian Underground Cinematic Arts, he directed the wildly-successful video of 'Ye Mosht Sarbaz' (Bunch of Soldiers) by rapper Hichkas in 2008. The regime's radio-television used a short segment of the clip in a propaganda program which compared rappers to drug-addled Satanists:
Director Bahman Ghobadi called on Khoshtinat's talents to edit all the video clips in 'No One Knows About Persian Cats' which won the special jury prize in the Un Certain Regard category at the Cannes film festival last year.
His short film 'ATTN: Mr. Democrat' features animation by Taraneh Golozar and a beautiful score by Shahin Pajoom.
To help Khoshtinat win the Democracy Challenge, please vote in the following manner:
Sign In to your YouTube account
Go to YouTube.com/DemocracyChallenge
Click on VOTE, search for ATTN: Mr. Democrat
Click on green thumbs up to vote
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how amazing :)
ReplyDeleteViva Democracy!
Viva Iran!
You can sign into YouTube and vote for ATTN: Mr. Democrat once a day through June 15, according to the Democracy Challenge rules.
ReplyDeleteThis is a kheyli khub article , Homylafayette! I met Austin Heap, the anti-censorship software developer, today at the Iranian rally at the UN in New York. I told him about this article and recommended your blog to him. He remembered hearing of your blog before. I wish he would Twitter a link to this article. We'll see...
It's is always a challenge to come up into the world with what you have been creating for months. I hope young producers will gain some experience through others criticism during this event. I adore to watch to-be-producers make their way in the world of cinematography.
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