Summer 2010 – San Francisco

Arrangement & Guitar: Babak Amini

Dance: Shahrokh Moshkin-Ghalam

Video: Ahmad Kiarostami

Album: Hajm-e Sabz (Green X)

Singer: Mohsen Namjoo

Video: Ahmad Kiarostami

Video: Ahmad Kiarostami

Album: amor de la velocidad

Based on a song by: Arash Tebbi

Video: Ahmad Kiarostami

Shot in San Diego, Irvine, and Los Angeles, US – April 2008

[filebase:file:file1]

Lyrics:

(verse 1)

I’m the type of Persian who claims he’s part of the mafia
I also with gangsters and my friends are all siyah
I drive an SUV, or BMW with rimms
I stare at whites and tell them I’ll tare off their freaking limbs

sometimes i pretend that I’m a terrorist threat
I tell chicks I get missiles underneath my bed
and I don’t got the time of day for people saying that I pose
I rather shave my eyebrows and smoke weet with my bros

and i only wear ecko, and over-sized clothes
my mom still makes me all of my POLO
one time I even skipped my class for week
I might be from LA or SD, I’m so sweet

when i drive I’ll be leaning way back in my seat
last norooz, i picked this one kid to sleep
cuz I try to act hard and he called me a geek
he said I need to tweeze where my eyebrows meet

(chorus)

what kind of Persian are you?
is you thug is your hanker-chief red, is it blue?
what kind of Persian are you?
what kind of Persian are you?
what kind of Persian are you?

(verse 2)

I’m the type is straight from my homeland Iran
i say I’m no fob and really too hairy to run
i like the white girls here with gigantic boob
i don’t like pizza or taco, just Persian food

i make namaz three times a day and drink chai-yee
i clean my sibil and dress america-yee
i drink doogh from sadaf, its aallee,
from when i watching football eh europa-yee

i promise my dah-yee that i never have the sex
until i become doctor or mohandess
so i never have girlfriend and straight a in school
but when i go to toilette i play with my doodool

(chorus)

what kind of Persian are you?
is you thug is your hanker-chief red, is it blue?
what kind of Persian are you?
do you talking Farsi and love drinking doogh?
what kind of Persian are you?
what kind of persian are you?

(verse 3)

hi I’m not really Persian – i’m white washed
I skate and surf bro, plus wear abercrombie, gosh
I listen to Coldplay and creed, that’s all I really need
my friends are dave, patrick, matthew, and steve

I don’t attend those lame Persian parties with the fobs
I’d rather go to the gym and keep working on my bod
so the girls I got hot when I wear a tank top
and my girlfriend don’t like kabob a whole lot

I can’t speak Farsi but I know how to say pedar-sag
when i’m around too many Persian I just wanna gag
and my girlfriend lisa loves how i shave my chest and
billabong and rusty taught me how to dress

(chorus)

what kind of Persian are you?
is you thug is your hanker-chief red, is it blue?
what kind of Persian are you?
do you talking Farsi and love drinking doogh?
what kind of Persian are you?
do you act how you act just so you can get through?
what kind of Persian are you?
what kind of Persian are you?

Album: All is Calm

Dance: Shahrokh Moshkin-Ghalam

Shot in San Diego, US – September 2008

Ahmad Kiarostami has worked in cinema and software industries for twenty years. After taking on leadership roles at Microsoft Middle East, he founded three companies including the first multimedia and online production venue in Iran, where he published award-winning multimedia products in cinema and visual arts. Ahmad was a member of several national software standard committees, and developed the first full-text search technology for Persian content which was adopted by different products and online newspapers. This technology is used in his personal project, Persopedia, one of the first and biggest online libraries on Persian poetry.

Ahmad has made short films and has worked with Iranian directors including Bahram Beyzaie, Nasser Taghvaie, and Ramin Bahrani. He has also served on the board of San Francisco Cinematheque, the oldest organization in North America promoting independent and experimental cinema and video. His music video for Kiosk’s song, Eshgh-e Sor’at, is among the most viewed Iranian music videos on YouTube.

Ahmad has studied Math and Computer Science at Sharif University and Philosophy at UCLA. He is currently working on his new startup, Fotomoto, in San Francisco, California.

BT: What is your take on musical films? Do you see yourself making a musical feature film?Bijan Tehrani: Can one say that you are a “mood” filmmaker? In your music videos like the one I love, “What About Love“(Ey Dad Az Eshgh) you are creating a mood, you are visualizing an emotion or sentiment.
Ahmad Kiarostami: I’ve done only 4 music videos (of which only 2 are available on the net), and I don’t think that qualifies me as a “filmmaker”. But in those videos, especially in “What about love”, I did try to create a mood, or maybe I should say, I tried to show *my* mood. If I want to explain using your term, mood, I would say “Love for Speed” has a social mood, and it seems that more people connected to that one. But “What about love” has a very personal mood, which by nature, has a much more limited audience. I’m very happy to know you’re one of them.

BT: How did you start making films? And here comes an inevitable question that you may not like: What has been the effects of having a world known filmmaker as father?
AK: Well, no matter what, I always get that “inevitable question”! For years, the question was “how come you didn’t become a filmmaker?”, and now it’s “how did it effect…”! Well, it’s true, my father is a filmmaker, and I grew up watching him make films, and I’m sure I’ve absorbed a lot through the years. When I was a teenager, I tried cinema, but never worked with my father, I worked with some other well-known directors in Iran, like Bahram Beizayi, Nasser Taghvayi, and Kioomars Pourahmad. After I finished high-school, I decided that I wanted to try my own thing, and I chose engineering/computers. That’s what I’ve been doing since then. But all these years, I’ve had an “itch”. That itch made me do different things, from trying to co-direct, to produce, to being on the board of cinema-related organizations. But none of them was really my thing. It was either missing the creative part, or was too big to be an on-the-side project. I also made few short films, 2 or 3 of them, but now this music video thing seems to be a lot more fun. I’m sure you can trace the “effects of my father” in my videos, but it’s not limited to that. You can also find that “effect” in the words I use when I talk, or the way I put my hand on the back of my head when I sit. Whenever I go to Vancouver to see my uncle there, rarely an hour passes without him saying “its amazing, you sounds just like Abbas”. It’s always entertaining for people to find similarities, from George Bush Sr. and Jr., to the father and son who run their local grocery store. It’s like the game we used to play when we were kids, the one that asks to find similar items in different pictures.

BT: You told me you are a computer software engineer, how did you end up with that kind of education? Is that really your passion? How can an engineer and an artist live together inside you?
AK: It just happened, I guess! In Iran, if you can go to an engineering or medical school, you have no choice other than studying engineering or medicine, even if you want to become an artist. Several of my artist friends are like that. for example Payman Yazdanian who is one of the best piano players in Iran and also a very good music composer, studied Industrial engineering at one of the best engineering schools in Iran. Just like Payman, I went to an engineering school, but unlike Payman, there I sadly realized that I’m an engineer and that’s what I’m good at. Then I tried to mix both, I started the very first multimedia company in Iran, but I was still an engineer. I like to experience art, I sometimes write little “notes” (I recently put them in a blog), I do a little graphics, design logos, and make music videos, but these are all hobbies. I don’t mistake trying art with being an artist.

BT: When did you move to the US and how did you face the changes? Did you know the US through cinema and literature?
AK: I came to the US in 2001 just to visit. Those days computer engineers were still in demand, and I got a job offer without applying for one, but I didn’t accept it. After traveling for a month from the west coast to the east coast, I thought I should try living here. The job offer was still there, so I got it and changed my visa from visiting to working and I stayed here. I got my working permission on September 1st 2001, and 10 days later everything changed. All I can say is I was lucky, both with the offer, and the timing.

I kind of knew the US when I got here, but not only through cinema and literature. Roman Gary in “Goodbye Gary Cooper” says “America is a country that everybody knows without being there, because everything there from A to Z is exportable: you can find America in any supermarket”, which – in an ironic way – is true. From Hollywood, to Microsoft, to Michael Jackson, to Levi’s, to Mc Donald’s, I knew it all. But when I came here, I realized the reality here was a little different from the image I saw in Bay Watch.

BT: Your work as a filmmaker has close ties with Farsi as a language and even a form. I am sure any film fan who could discover your work and find the means of understanding it, will enjoy it. But is there any English translation of the lyrics of your video musics? Or are you planing to work on any English language songs?
AK: There’s a subtitled version of “Love for Speed” on the net, but I think if not impossible, it’s very difficult to put subtitles for “What about love“. The idea of that video is very simple, and I have tried to explain it to a couple of non-Farsi-speaking friends. They all seemed like they got it, but it’s like translating a joke, most of the time, you can only translate the words, not the humor, you can’t really explain a joke. The third video (which is not on the net) is in Farsi as well, with English subtitles. The last one, which will be on the net in a couple of months, is for an English song, but again for a “Persian” audience, so you still have to be Iranian to “get” it. I’d love to make a video for an English song, but it hasn’t happened yet. Do you know of a good musician that wants a music video?

BT: What type of music do you like most? And if you were given the opportunity to make a music video for the English song of your choice, what song it would be and how do you approach it visually?
AK: Well, my music taste changes from time to time. During the 80′s I was a teenager, so I have a lot of emotional attachment to 80′s music, even though I think it’s crap! And you can’t belong to my generation in Iran and not like rock, especially Pink Floyd. Through Pink Floyd’s music we could see and express our anger, frustration, and confusion. You know that western music in Iran was illegal and there was no “official” place to buy that music from. You could only get that type of music from underground vendors, but the quality of the copies was usually very poor, and sometimes they would give you Wasp instead of Wham! So each time a friend or a family member was going out of the country, or was coming back to visit, I’d ask them to bring me a cassette or later a CD. That way I gathered more than 1000 CDs, which I was very proud of. You could find everything there, Leonard Cohen (I still adore this man), Sting, Tom Waits, Charles Lloyd, Julian Bream, Paris Combo, Ben Harper, Schubert, Alizadeh, Arvo Part. As I’m getting older, I appreciate jazz more and more, but I also bought my first rap music yesterday! The only type of music that I can’t stand is country!

But choosing an English song to make a video for is not only based on my music taste. So far, the video’s that I’ve made are based on how they makes me feel. Technically they are very simple. That doesn’t mean I don’t like to use technology. Some of the best music videos that I’ve seen are Peter Gabriel’s videos, and he uses a lot of technology there. But technology is there to help enhance a feeling, not create a feeling. I’ve been thinking (daydreaming) about making a music video for Tom Wait’s “Road to Peace” for a while now. I imagine that video having a lot of visual effects, but all in a very realistic way. Imagine something like Forest Gump. I know perfectly well this is only a dream, it’s Tom Waits after all, and it would be an expensive project, but there’s no harm in dreaming. I also have an idea for Clare Fader’s “The Wine” which seems closer to the reality, but still far from happening!

BT: Do you watch a lot of MTV and other music channels? What have been your favorites music videos?
AK: I don’t. MTV changed the music video seen when it came out, but is not about music anymore. I don’t like TV in general, and I don’t watch much TV. I try to see music videos online, and on DVD. Like I said, I love some of Peter Gabriel’s music videos, like “Sledgehammer“, and “Big Time“. U2′s “Numb” is just fantastic. I love the simplicity of Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues“, and when several people compared my “Ey Dad az Eshgh” to that I thought I couldn’t get a better complement. I have watched Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” many times. Van Halen’s “Right Now” is unforgettable. Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice” (by Spike Jonze) is hilarious. And I think Michel Gondry is the Einstein of music-video-makers, and his visually genius mind easily covers the lack of feeling in his music videos. I still haven’t been able to figure out how he’s imagined “Let Forever Be“, and how he’s made “Sugar-Water“. (I met him few months ago and asked him about this, and he said he made the whole thing in less than a week). And I stole the opening of Police’s “Wrapped around your finger” and used it in “Zoghal Khoob” (which I never published on the net).

BT: How do these videos affected your work?
AK: Let me say something here. I have a theory that some people don’t like: I think we are getting to the end of many different forms of art. For example, I think painting is finished, over. Doesn’t matter what you want to do with your paper/pencil/canvas/paint, it’s been done before. You can’t do anything new. Cinema and video are relatively newer forms of art, so there’s still some room left for creativity there, but with the speed we’re moving at, we’re going to pass the finish line soon. In this type of situation, whatever you do, you will be imitating someone. After I made “Eshgh-e Sorat” several people told me I copied Nickleback’s “Rock Star“. I had not seen that video by then, but that doesn’t change the fact that using people on the street lip-syncing wasn’t new. I saw it the first time more than 15 years ago in “One World, One Voice“.

I think these days only exceptional, genius people – like Michel Gondry – can make something totally new. The rest of us can only imitate the others. But if we are clever, we can hopefully add something – even a little something – to the original works. Martin Scorsese was once talking about making “Raging Bull“, and how in the fight scene, he used the famous bath scene from Hitchcock’s “Psycho” (and I think he has added A LOT to that scene!).

BT: YouTube is where creations of filmmakers like yourself find a chance to reach an audience. How important has YouTube been for recognition of your work?
AK: YouTube and Internet have totally changed the game. You don’t need big companies to promote and distribute your work anymore, and that’s great. Without YouTube, it would have been impossible for me to show my video. Like I said, this video is just a hobby for me, and I can’t imagine myself putting a lot of effort in showing my work. The other great thing about it is you can directly see what people say about your work, and get feedback immediately after you release a video.

But at the same time it has it’s own problems. The first thing is because it’s very easy to make videos and distribute them, there are a lot of bad videos out there. It’s just like when CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) came out. Because the tools were there people with no graphic or advertising talent started make commercials and as a result there were a lot of bad CGI ads on TV. people don’t have anything to say, but because it’s easy and “fun”, they make videos. Technology and tool is replacing form, and what has been forgotten is content. And it becoming more and more difficult to make money from video or even film. Since I don’t pay my bills with my videos, I don’t really have this problem, but I see several friends in cinema facing financial problems. The whole business model of film, video, and music is going through a big change, and I’m sure in few years we will see a very different situation.

AK: Like I said, I don’t see myself as a filmmaker, but honestly, even as film-watcher, I never understood musical films! It’s exactly the opposite of the direction I would like to go… In the videos I did for Kiosk, I tried to turn a song into something bigger, add another dimension to it, and make it more universal. For example “Ey Dad Az Eshgh” was from their old album, and was a nice love song. In my video, I drew the word “Love” beautifully in the middle, and then added all those words around it. The more I repeat love, the messier it gets. That image in the end, with a big messy love in the middle and all those things around it, is the image of life. Everything in that video is personal, simple, and at the same time, very cliche, just like our lives. I tried to turn that song from a simple love song to a song about life. Now, I don’t claim that I was successful in doing this, not at all. But that’s what I liked and tried to do. Musicals are exactly the opposite. In the best form, they get a real topic and ruin it by adding dancing and songs to it, and making it “entertaining” and “fun”. The only musical that I liked in my whole life was “West-side story”, and even there I wonder if I liked the film because I was 14 when I saw it! I don’t want to see it again, because I’m afraid I won’t like it again!

BT: Have you seen any of the Beatles movies like Yellow Submarine? Do you have the same problems with them that you have with Hollywood musicals? Also have you seen Carlos Saura’s Carmen?
AK: It’s interesting, now that you’re mentioning these movies I can see that I don’t have the same issues with them, and I don’t know why! I think I should rethink what I said about musicals! Yellow Submarine is more like a long music video. And Carlos Saura’s Carmen… I don’t know what to say, it has all the elements that I dislike in musicals, but I love that film. I enjoy almost anything by Saura. In Iberia there’s a dance scene with plastic blowing on the dancer’s face and body, which is just amazing!
BT: Do you like any of the documentaries made about music? They might not have some of the same problems that you have with musicals. Have you ever thought about making documentaries about music?
AK: Documentaries are exactly the opposite of what I said about musicals, and as I get older I like documentaries even more. With Hollywood movies getting more and more boring, and independent cinema facing more production and distribution problems, documentaries are becoming one of the best ways to spend time in front of screen! And if it gives me more information about the people whose music I like, it’s even more interesting! No Direction Home was about someone that I admire in music, made by someone that I admire in movies. And it was fun to see the young Roger Waters and David Gilmour between the tracks in the recent release of Pink Floyd DVDs. Koyaanisqatsi and Baraka were not exactly documentaries, but I enjoyed the them very much. I’m not a filmmaker, but I’m sure I’d enjoy hanging out with musicians and filming them.

Album: Jaja

Special Thanks to:

• Mathieu Eisingere
• Mouna Khadir
• Reza Dibaj
• Pardis Mahdavi

Shot in Paris, France – June 2008

La Ferme Abandonnée

(more)

Comfortably Numb

Paper presented as part of panel

“Iran: Cultural Renaissance?”

Stanford University
October 10, 2007

—

I want to start with a story that someone told me a while ago about Iranian architecture.  I have always known that domes are an important part of old Iranian architecture.  The technology that we had to build domes so long ago was very impressive.  What I didn’t know was that the dome was a symbol of heaven, and the question in Iranian architecture was how to get from the cube, the symbol of Earth, to the dome, the symbol of Heaven.

So they used different techniques, like molding, to make the transition from the cube to the dome as smooth as possible. This is perhaps best demonstrated in the Shah Mosque.  The symmetry and the mathematical calculation you see in the building blows you away, and with tens of thousands of small mosaics that have been used in the building, when you stand inside and look at the ceiling, it’s impossible to say where the cubical building becomes a dome.  The Shah Mosque was The answer to the question of Iranian architecture: going from the earth to heaven.

Since no one came up with a newer question after that, our architecture lost its way, and its character.

* * *

Our parents’ generation had a question, or a dream: how to build a utopia.  Different groups had different answers to that question; some thought the answer is Communism, or as a friend of mine always corrects me, Marxist-Leninism.  Some thought the path to Utopia was going through the gates of civilization.  Some thought religion was the only way to redemption.  Some mixed up a couple of these and came up with new ideas, like Islamic Marxism!

There was a common question that people were trying to answer, and even though they had different answers to it, they had something in common: believing in Utopia.  Having a belief, to me, is a sign of three things: having a question, having a value system, and having enough self-respect to actually do something about your value system.

If I want to explain the difference between my parents’ generation, my generation, and the new generation in Iran, I would say our parents’ generation had beliefs, we had (or maybe still have) suppressed beliefs, and the new generation does not believe.   Our parents fought for their beliefs.  We saw the revolution, and we saw the war, but the result was very different from the expectations, from the promised Utopia.  We have questions, and we’re kind of searching for answers, but we don’t really believe there is one.

Some friends and I have a game called “The One Word” game.  In this game we try to find the best word or short phrase that captures the most accurate sentiment about someone, or something.  Not too long ago a friend asked me for the one word that describes my generation, and the best thing I could come up with was one of Pink Floyd’s songs title: “Comfortably Numb”.  Seeing our parents, the revolution, the war, and post-war life-style in Iran, we have become numb, comfortably numb, just to be able to stand the unbearable lightness of it.

* * *

I rarely talk about those years with “Kharejis” (foreigners).  Whenever I do speak about that time, I feel a big difference between “us” and “them”.  They usually start asking me about the “culture shock” I experienced after I moved to the States.  But that “culture shock” was not as big as they thought.  We listened to the same music as they did, we saw the same films, we partied, we danced, and we had girlfriends.

The difference between us reveals itself when I start talking about going to school every year and seeing big baskets of flowers sitting on the seats of the classmates who went to the front line during “summer break” and never returned.  Or spending days in jail just for attending a simple party. Or about watching Chris De Burg’s “I Love the Night”, while Tehran was getting hit by missiles every single night.

They usually look at me with disbelief, thinking that I’m exaggerating, while I’m thinking “there’s no way you can feel what I’m telling you”.  They ask “did all this really happen to you guys?”, and my answer is a short and cool “yeah”.

This “yeah” is what I’m calling “comfortably numb”.  In order to be able to deal with all of this, we had to become numb.  This was our defense mechanism.  But not only have our feelings and memories become numb, but our beliefs have also become numb.  The thought, the feeling, the urge to do something is there, but we are too numb to actually do something about it.

* * *

I want to talk about another aspect of our culture.  Our culture is an “epidemic” culture, meaning things come into fashion very easy.  For example, for a while TM (Transcendental Meditation) was a fad, and everyone was doing some sort of meditation.  Then there was the painting fad, and all of a sudden people’s garages became fashionable galleries.  Then playing the setar was trendy, and my previously poor setar-teacher friend bought a brand new shiny SUV.  Nowadays, thanks to cheap technology and digital cameras, making documentaries have become the newest fever.

In my teenage years though, we didn’t have the luxury of those fads.  In those dark years of war, our only way to breathe was through films, music, and books. Intellectualism, by default, was our fad.  Even though we didn’t know English, we all knew the lyrics to a couple of English songs.  You can barely find someone in my generation that has not read Milan Kundera’s books, or at least has not heard the name of Jean Luc Godard.  Many of us are familiar with one or two forms of music, cinema, or literature, and this has given us a solid foundation on which to build something, but we have become too numb to actually build anything.

* * *

The new generation in Iran has a different view.  Their definition of literature is the weblog.  Their definition of freedom is being allowed to have unusual hair styles.  Their definition of a relationship is only sexual.  Their definition of life is Los Angeles.  They are looking for an answer, there’s no real question, there’s no value system, and there’s no self-respect.  And the result of this not having a value system is frightening:

One of the highest earnings from a movie in Iran today is an illegally distributed home-shot video told to be an actress and her boyfriend in bed; 1 million copies, 5 million dollars.  Illegal distribution of filmed clips from private parties has become a line of business.  Iran has the highest rate of plastic surgery in the world, and people who can’t afford a nose job put “surgical tape” on their nose.  “Bribery” is part of the cost analysis of any project there.  And it’s not a secret that Iran has the highest rate of drug injection per capital in the world, which is 3 times higher than the next country in the chart.

In my opinion, these are all results of not having a belief, value system, and self-respect.

The young generation needs a change to come.  The change has already started, but we have lost The Question, and with it, the value system. If we don’t help ourselves find the right direction, there’s a big chance that what’s happened to our architecture will happen to our culture as well.  With all that glorified history in architecture, Persepolis, 33 Pol, Shah Mosque, Arg-e Bam, now we simply don’t have anything called architecture anymore.  The folks here that have gone to Tehran recently know what I’m talking about.

The change has started, but more than the change itself, I’m concerned about the direction of the change, and what comes after the change.  In Iran we have been saying for a while that “anything that comes after this can’t be worse, we just need a change”, but each time we have seen things getting worse.  We can’t stop the change that is happening, but we can help it go down the right path, or we can sit there watching it trip over itself in random directions.

There are small movements happening here and there which last a little while, but without our support the flame dies and goes away.  This happened to our cinema, which was a source of pride for a decade or so, but has noticeably slowed down.  In music, there are very few bands, who are producing good music, without being ignorant to what’s happening around them.  Mohsen Namjoo, Kiosk, 127, and maybe a couple of other bands.  That’s all we have. We have to support them anyway we can, so this small movement continues to grow.  Otherwise soon they won’t be able to produce anything anymore, the bands will die, and the movement will stop before it has a chance to make an impact, just like what happened to several other bands like O-Hum.

The era of Los Angeles’ satellites is long over for certain, but there’s nothing to replace it.  The best alternative to Los Angeles TV for Iranians is Voice of America, which is, in my opinion, much worse; it’s shameful and humiliating.  We can close our eyes, turn off our TVs and pretend they don’t even exist.  But we can’t ignore that there’s a need for it.

We don’t have many people contributing to our culture.  In our generation, and the new generation, we have the best businessmen, doctors, lawyers, and engineers all around the world.  But when it comes to culture and art, we rarely see someone effective.  If we want to see a change, we have to support that little group that are trying to make a cultural change, both financially and emotionally.

These days I see a lot of people talking about Cyrus writing the first human rights charter 2500 years ago, or fighting over a silly cartoonish movie about the ancient Persians, or showing off about having Saadi’s poem on the entrance of the UN.  Just like the way they talk about the glory of our old architecture, like Persepolis or Shah Mosque, without having much to say about our present.  We can believe in Utopia or not, we can be numb, comfortably or uncomfortably, but we all should try to build something for the next generation to talk about, before our past (including Persepolis and Pasargad) is submerged under water.  We don’t have much time left.