Film Screening:

Bashu, the Little Stranger
(Bahram Beizai, 1990, 120 min, Iran, Persian with English subtitles, Color, DVD)

During the Iran-Iraq War, Bashu, a young boy loses his house and all his family. Scared, he sneaks into a truck that is leaving the area. He gets off the truck in the Northern part of the country, where everything from landscape to language is different. He meets Naii, who is trying to raise her two young children on a farm, while her husband is away. Despite cultural differences, and the fact that they do not speak the same language, Bashu and Naii slowly form a strong bond.

This touching, thought-provoking Iranian children's drama has a simple story, but complex undertones as it is simultaneously a quiet plea for peace and tolerance, an entertaining story and a sly, metaphorical criticism of fundamentalist thinking. It also presents a view of Iranian rural life seldom seen by Westerners.

-- Voted "Best Iranian Film of all time" in a poll of 150 Iranian critics and professionals by the movie magazine Picture World in 1999!

Cost: Free and Open to the Public!

Sponsors: The Graduate Student Association of Iranians at Duke (GSAID), The Duke Islamic Studies Center (DISC), the Duke University Middle East Studies Center (DUMESC), the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies, and the Program in Arts of the Moving Image (AMI).