Free For All
GALLERY HOURS (during exhibitions)
Thursday & Friday, 11am – 4pm
The Iran Job [FILM SCREENING + Q&A]
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
7:00PM
Recital Hall, Simons Center For The Arts, 54 St. Philip Street
Free, Rated PG-13
Q & A with the filmmaker and a reception by Brown’s Court Bakery to follow the film
Synopsis:
The documentary The Iran Jobfollows American basketball player Kevin Sheppardas he accepts a job to play professionally in one of the world’s most feared and misunderstood countries, Iran. With tensions running high between Iran and the West, Sheppard tries to separate sports from politics only to find that politics is impossible to escape in Iran. Along the way he forms a friendship with three outspoken Iranian women.Thanks to these women, his apartment turns into an oasis of free speech, where they discuss everything from politics to religion to gender roles.
Sheppard’s season in Iran culminates in something much bigger than basketball, the uprising and subsequent suppression of Iran’s reformist Green Movement. This is a powerful prelude to the sweeping changes across the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Spring. With the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq declared over, and the world’s attention laser-focusing on Iran again, this is a critical time to take a fresh look at Iranians. It may even be crucial in avoiding the next war in a Muslim country.