Culture

Radiofarda – Iran’s Foreign Ministry is set to sell three estates owned by Iran in sub-Saharan Africa, including a previous residence of Reza Shah, who was forced to abdicate the throne by the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941.

Al-Monitor – Iran’s Fajr International Film Festival has been an important platform for Iranian, regional and international films for more than three decades. But this year’s edition, which took place April 19-27, proved to be more mediatic and controversial than the previous years. This was partly due to the high-profile participants — in particular Oliver Stone, the American writer and …

PayvandNews – The 36th edition of Fajr International Film Festival, the longest running film event in the Middle East, named its winners during a ceremony on Thursday night at Vahdat Hall, Tehran. ‘Aga’ by Milko Lazarov won Best Film, while Cambodian documentary film director Rithy Panh won the Peace Award. The curtain fell on this year’s edition, on Thursday, 26 …

hyperallergic – An exhibition at the Louvre-Lens gathers 19th-century Persian artworks, design objects, fashion, photos, and more, many of them on view outside Tehran for the first time.

PayvandNews – Mina Sadati has won the Tiantan for best supporting actress for her role in Iranian drama “Searing Summer” at the Beijing International Film Festival in China. She received the award during the closing ceremony of the event in the Chinese capital on Sunday, the organizers announced. Directed by Ebrahim Irajzad, the movie is about Nasrin (Sadati) whose domestic …

RFL/RE – Home to some of its most influential clerics, Qom is among Iran’s most important cities, politically and religiously. Thousands of religious authorities are based at its seminaries, and the city is also a frequent stop for politicians eager to brief senior ayatollahs in hopes of getting their approval for their plans and policies. Yet at least one cleric …

Payvand.com – After 40 years, a never-before-heard recording of the Farah Choir, which was supported by the former queen of Persia Farah Diba (Pahlavi), has been released in Europe. The release of the recording, which contains seven Persian folk songs, was planned for 1978, but was halted due to the Islamic Revolution. “In 1973, Farah Pahlavi Charity Foundation commissioned Evlin …

voanews – WASHINGTON — Iran’s central province of Isfahan has seen a second consecutive day of street protests against water shortages, as lawmakers warned that millions of residents will have no tap water as soon as next month.

Iran-HRM – A sermon by Hassan Mosleh, the Friday Prayer Imam of the town of Borazjan in Bushehr was published in the local Khabar-e Junoob newspaper which indicates that he is fundamentally against music. “In our hadiths and traditions, there are numerous disadvantages to listening to music”, he said. “Some of the most important of these damages include nerve imbalance, …

CHRI – A popular exhibition by the Louvre Museum in Paris at the National Museum of Iran has come under criticism because it is inaccessible to people living with disabilities.