Asian Cinema Fund

ACF Asian Cinema Fund

Asian Network of Documentary(AND) Fund

2006 Asian Network of Documentary (AND) Fund

LIST Revelations in the Night Season

Category	PanStar Fund
Project	Revelations in the Night Season
Director	Mana RABIEE
Country	Iran
Director's Profile	Born in 1971. Mana RABIEE has made several short documentary videos ([The Anniversary Balloon] and [Moths on Fire]) in Iran and one fiction short ([The Solace of Winter]). In 2003, she played the lead female role in the Iranian avant-garde film, [Navel], directed by Mohammad Shirvani. Her debut feature length documentary, [The King of the Orchard], is currently being edited by Mastaneh Mohajer, whose prior editing credits include Hana Makhmalbaf`s [The Joy of Madness], and which was in competition at the 2006 Venice Film Festival. [The Fires of the Heart] is the director`s second feature length documentary film.

Synopsis: The Fires of the Heart is a feature-length documentary film set in Iran and made by an Iranian-American woman. The film chronicles the director`s spiritual adventures with several of Iran`s Islamic paramilitary youth militia. The project explores how their insular fraternity effects their coming manhood. In their one-track search for God, and for heavenly angels and martyrs, are these young men seeking an imaginary utopia that is ultimately beyond their reach?

Director's Note: I came to Iran from New York after 9/11 to seek out young Iranians, mostly teenage boys, who were preoccupied with the culture of martyrdom in Islam. I found eager young men in the paramilitary youth militia and I urgently wanted to explore the "grey shades" of their young emotional lives.

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