To Be Far

AMERICAN COUP tells the story of the first coup ever carried out by the CIA - Iran, 1953. Explores the blowback from this seminal event, as well as the coup's lingering effects on the present US-Iranian relationship. Includes a segment on the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis and its relation to the 1953 coup. Concludes with a section on the recent Iranian presidential election. Contains interviews with noted Middle East experts and historians and prominent public figures such as Stephen Kinzer (author, All The Shah's Men), Prof. Ervand Abrahamian, Trita Parsi, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Ted Koppel and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. With Iranian cinematography by James Longley.

The Last Jews of Baghdad takes a historical and personal look at the persecution, torture, escape and exodus of over 160,000 Iraqi- Jews between the years 1940 through 2003. Hear from the survivors the real reasons why they left their beloved homeland of over 2500 years and if they will ever return.

The Freedom of the Sea is a short documentary highlighting the freedom of living in the UK - in contrast to a more restrictive life in Iran - through the joy of daily sea swimming in Brighton.

I went to Bosnia after war ended, in 1996, when the Danton Peace Accord was being implemented. Bosnia had been divided in two entities, which separated the two main opposing forces of the conflict; the Serb Bosnians and the Muslim Bosnians. Two years later, in 1998, I returned to Bosnia... This movie is a diary of the two voyages, in which I deal with the memories of the war, the death and destruction and with the victim’s struggle who don’t know how to return home.

After five years studying in Paris, Arash has not adjusted to life there and has decided to return to Iran to live. Hoping to change his mind, his two friends Hossein and Ashkan convince him to take a last trip through France.

In this guided tour of a unique Persian carpet, a close-up of the delicate "spine" of a tree branches out into the discovery of a fantastical world.

Between 1993 and 1995, artist and photographer Louis Jammes took pictures of people on the streets of Sarajevo under siege and gave them angelic face and wings. Then he put his huge portraits on destroyed city walls. Suddenly, it seems as life is getting back with their arrival, because they brought a sense of peace, beauty, nostalgia...

Breaking a centuries-old taboo, Ava stands as the first woman in Iran to master the male-dominated craft of carpentry. Within the grit and clamor of the workshop, she confronts a society that deems her presence forbidden. This observational documentary captures her daily battle against physical hardships and social judgment.

Sarajevolution is a project born in 2011 with the aim of exploring the cultural life of today Sarajevo. The film gives voice to the places of culture and to the people who animate them. The stories of Sarajevo’s libraries, museums and theatres intertwine with those of the inhabitants of the city, reflecting all the contradictions which characterize the social and economic context of the country.

Emir Kusturica views himself as a rock musician and believes that he became a world-famous filmmaker by pure chance, as he shoots his movies only in between concert tours with the “No Smoking Orchestra” band. At these little pinpoints of time he gets “Palms d’Or” at Cannes, “Golden Lions” in Venice, builds his own villages, a power plant and a piste and regrets not becoming a professional football player. Kusturica’s own living is very much similar to his movies, where shoes are polished with cats, death is treated like a story from tabloid press, and life is a miracle...