Kiana Firouzi worked underground in Iran as an activist for Iranian homosexual woman’s right. While working on a documentary about oppression for gays and lesbians in Iran, she was pursued by the Iranian government. She then subsequently escaped to Britain, requesting for asylum which was denied at first. She was then faced deportation to Iran where she would have been executed to death for being a lesbian.
Iranian government forbids homosexuality and women and men who are caught by the police more than four times are sentenced to death. During a speaking engagement at Columbia University, the President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was asked the question, “Iranian women are now denied basic human rights and your government has imposed draconian punishments including execution on Iranian citizens who are homosexuals. Why are you doing those things?” Ahmadinejad’s response was, “We don’t have homosexuals, like in your country. I don’t know who told you that.” As the result, Kiana would have faced death upon returning back to Iran as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated in his speech that there are “no homosexuals” in Iran. However after many petitions for saving Kiana’s life and fighting for her basic human right, she was then granted to stay in UK in June 2010.
During her stay in UK, she released a documentary about her life as an Iranian lesbian called Cul-de-sac which she played as the lead actress. The documentary reflects lives of lesbian and gays in Iran and was produced by Ramin Goudarzi Nejad and Mahshad Torkan who are both film directors and human right activists residing in the UK.
Below is the trailer for the documentary Cul-de-sac which had more than 30,000 hit in a month on youtube during the time Kiana was facing deporation from the Uk government.
Iranian Actress, Golshifteh Farahani, Talks About Art, Life & Fears of Returning Home
Golshifteh Farahani at age 26 has played in seventeen Iranian films, some of which were banned to be shown inside the country such as her latest movie called about Elly. She starred in a Hollywood movie, Body of Lies, directed by Ridley Scott. In the movie, she plays the Jordanian nurse Aisha, who comes to be the love interest of an American spy on a mission in the Middle East, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. She is the first Iranian actress who played in the Hollywood production since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. However, due to the controversial plot of the movie and golshifteh losing her veil, she was in trouble with the Iranian authorities that she had her passport confiscated for almost a year upon to her return to Iran. In an interview with the New York Daily News, she said “I had a lot of problems because of this movie ... [Iranian officials] took my passport. The intelligence service interrogated me several times. In the end, the judge said, 'We have to see the movie and then decide what we're going to do with you”. Although, her staring in a Hollywood film, made her huge in Iran, but her career life was complicated afterwards “I'm totally in love with Iran. I have family there ... But I lost one opportunity to do a screen test, for 'The Prince of Persia.' I'm not ready for that again” Golshifteh now resides in Paris and not returning back, fearing repercussions.
Below is an Interview with Golshifteh, in which she talks about her latest film, About Elly, proudced in Iran. The movie was a brillant work of Art that was recongized internationally. It is one the rarest movie in which it shows the modern face of Iran. The movie “centred on big questions about right and wrong, social coercion and the lies people tell themselves and each other”
Anger At Iranian Actress Who Is Due To Play Role Of Neda
Leyla Otadi, an Iranian actress, was ought to play the role of Neda Agha Soltan who was a innocent victim of Iran’s Green Revolution. Opposition Group to the government immediately had taken action to stop Leyla from taking the role since the government is using this film to show the world that death of Neda Agha Soltan was executed by the CIA. The opposition group have been using the social networks such as facebook and bloggers to criticize Leyla for accepting the role of Neda and working with "the murderers of Iranian citizens" and of ignoring "the blood that was spilled" during the postelection in June 2008.
Below shows Leyla Otadi’s official website which was hacked by “wave of freedom” who inserted a bloody picture of Neda Agha Soltan multiple times on the site.
