In collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art and its program Global View, the Cinemateque organizes a small retrospective of the Iranian filmmaker Mania Akbari. Many will remember her as the beautiful, emancipated woman in Abbas Kiarostamis teheranske urban blues 'Ten', who is speed-quarreling with her teenage son (and the fact that it was her son in the real world, Amin Maher, was adding an extra level of authenticity). After the film Mania Akbari, who had previously been a visual artist, decided for a film career and has since delivered fierce, thoughtful, personal and very diverse films about modern Iran, gender, body and politics - often in an intersection between fiction and documentary.

Ticket reservation: Cinemateque

PROGRAM:

Tuesday, February 25th 7.15pm
From Tehran to London by Mania Akbari, 2012 / 105 min. incl. Q&A with the director

It is the story of a marriage in the balance - between the independent female artist Ava and her husband Ashkan, who loves her, but also gives her a role she abhors. Ava is determined on a divorce, but both her ​​energetic sister (who himself is unhappily single) and an unplanned pregnancy makes it difficult for her. The film 'From Tehran to London ' was supposed to take place in Iran alone and been called 'Women Do Not Have Breasts'. Because of Mania Akbari's escape from Iran it was completed in England and renamed. After the film, experience Mania Akbari in conversation with program editor Rasmus Brendstrup .

Tuesday, February 25th 9.30pm
One.Two.One by Mania Akbari, 2011 / 99 min. incl. introduction by the director

The film 'One.Two.One.' is a love triangle and a study of the conditions for love and forgiveness in contemporary Iran - complex, insightful and with a highly dramatic resonance (the ingredients include attacks with acid due to jealousy, plastic surgery, imprisonment and bone fractures!). But everything is told with a style that elevates the film an entirely different place than the semi-documentary works: Few people in dialogue in a beauty clinic, in a jail, on a ski lift over the city. Or, as in the scene where a young Iranian man is sitting in the waiting lounge of a bank and over the phone is trying to convince his ex-girlfriend to come back. He is so emotional that the young woman next to him is touched almost to tears. Subsequently their eyes meet. Refined, elegant and bold storytelling.

Wednesday, February 26th 4.45pm
Ten af Abbas Kiarostami, 2002 / 102 min. incl. Q&A with the director

Abbas Kiarostami's 'Ten' follows the self-employed Nima (Mania Akbari), who has lied to divorce by claiming that her ex-husband is a drug addict. Now she has difficulties with many things - not least in getting her ten-year-old son to see her as the real victim. The film's strength lies in the interaction between these two stubborn personalities revealing both male chauvinism and the dark side of sheer determination. The title refers to the ten conversations that make up the film - all recorded with small digital cameras in Nima's car.

Wednesday, February 26th 7.15pm
10+4 af Mania Akbari, 2007 / 97 min. incl. introduction by the director

In this unofficial sequel to 'Ten', made at the invitation of Abbas Kiarostami, Mania Akbari has taken the director's chair and gives the fly-on-the-wall style yet another notch. We see, for instance, what a loving young man, the son Amin has become five years later, and follow Mania Akbari in several cancer treatment stages: Composed and transparent as glass, drowsy and weaving. The film's real protagonist is perhaps Tehran - a city packed with great emotions and too little elbow room - in this regard, the car is a quite effective metaphor.

All films are with English subtitles