Patio

A flurry of comments on Twitter and the dead man's Instagram account exposed the intense resentment felt by Iran's squeezed middle classes towards an increasingly wealthy elite, who have been driving around in flashy cars in recent years while the majority suffer under international economic sanctions passed against Iran's nuclear programme.
Apart from Porsches, high-speed models including Bugattis, Maseratis and even Rolls Royce began flooding into Iran during the administration of the firebrand former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - even though high Iranian import tariffs means such cars cost more than double their selling price in Western countries.
Some commentators have attributed the spread of such status symbols to a widening inequality and rampant corruption tolerated by Mr Ahmadinejad, who allowed a small band of individuals to become rich by granting them the right to sell oil, foreign currency and gold, despite his stated commitment to social justice.
Such luxuries feature heavily on the Instagram account Rich Kids of Tehran, which has drawn attention and criticism for its depiction of glitzy and hedonistic living inaccessible - or even prohibited - for most Iranians.

By: Testsss On 4:59 PM

Continue Reading

My Car

Once upon a time, the ageing, smog-inducing Peykan - modelled on the British-made Hillman Hunter - was the car of choice clogging Iran's congested roads.
Now drivers of a far less humble - and much faster - make have the country's traffic police on high alert after a fatal crash involving a Porsche, which has caused a storm on social media about the shenanigans of the well connected super-rich.
Police confiscated 47 luxury cars in a seven-hour spell in Tehran's affluent northern neighbourhoods on the evening of May 7 for "causing problems and danger", according to ISNA, an Iranian news agency.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader and most powerful political figure, had demanded action following a late night crash on Tehran's Shariati Street a week earlier, when a yellow Porsche Boxster smashed into a tree after hitting a kerb at 120 miles per hour.
The accident killed the 20-year-old female driver and the passenger, Mohammad Hossein Rabbani-Shirazi, 21, the car's owner, who happened to be - embarrassingly for Iran's ruling theocratic establishment - the son of a prominent ayatollah.
The event caused further scandal when it emerged that Mr Rabbani-Shirazi was engaged to another woman - meaning he was breaching Iran's stringent religious laws on gender segregation between unrelated men and women at the time of the crash.

By: Testsss On 4:58 PM

Continue Reading

Mall2

The book also allowed a young generation of Iranian photographers their first chance for international exposure. As the editorial head of Fabrica, a communications thinktank owned by global fashion giant Benetton, Bossan could offer the photographers resources for refining and publishing their work. However, the photographers also risked punishment if the project ran afoul of the government, “To protect them, we decided not to show every picture online — we talked with them, and we talked with my friend, the curator and the writers, we proposed to have a list of pictures on an embargo to save them from any kind of attack from inside based on religion or politics.“ Even after the launch, some problems came up. Due to U.S. embargoes, the book was automatically denied payment service through Paypal, but the misunderstanding was resolved quickly.
The book — its ornate cover a nod to the distinctive Iranian carpets — remains for sale online only. Bossan plans to revisit the formula that made Iranian Living Rooms a success. To him, it represents a more honest look at its subject, less prone to the prejudices of a photographer who’s influenced by the imposed isolation between the regular folk of our respective cultures. “We can see this in many other countries of the world,” Bossan says. “The [common] attitude about how to represent Iran is completely false in terms of the reality.” Hossein Keshavarz's directorial debut, "Dog Sweat," has won recognition at world film festivals, but it will never be seen in his homeland. That's because the tale of rebellious youth was shot underground in Iran with Keshavarz stealing scenes in public places, filming in private homes, then placing his film on a computer hard drive, putting it in a backpack and leaving the country. "There's no (Iranian) theater that would show this," said Keshavarz, a graduate of Columbia University's film program. "Dog Sweat," which opens in US movie theaters on Friday, is the name of a type of liquor that can be bought on the Iranian black market in a country where alcohol is forbidden.

By: Testsss On 4:58 PM

Continue Reading

Mall1

Women & Islam: Tales from the Road - Melissa Vinitsky says, "With Muslim women largely behind the scenes and out of reach, a foreign woman, even modestly dressed, stands out like a bikini-clad girl skiing down the slopes in mid-winter. On top of that, many Arab men, influenced by American movies and TV, subscribe to the common belief that western women are 'easy.'..." Read Melissa's analysis of life and travel in Cairo.
The Answer Bank suggests women travelers' dress guidelines in Muslim countries: cover your arms and legs with loose clothing. Many female travelers suggest covering your hair in Islamic countries to help avoid rude attention from men; women should always cover their hair in mosques, period. The Answer bank also describes traditional Muslim women's garments.
"Not only is it important to be modest there, but loose clothing is more comfortable in the tropical heat. Wear sandals or slip-on shoes when you visit a local's house because most Bangladeshis take off their shoes when entering a home. When I went out in public I often wore sunglasses..." --Becky, Grand Rapids, USA
"I bring groups of American students to India every year, and always ask my students to be respectful of local custom and dress modestly. Several girls last year saw other foreign tourist women wearing tank tops and/or shorts and followed suit. The difference in how they were treated was dramatic. Wearing tank tops and shorts invited countless more lewd comments and attempts to look down the girls' shirts..."

"As is the case in most Islamic countries, it is important for women to cover as much of their body as possible in loose clothing. I've found that in Pakistan, people are really appreciative of tourists who wear the traditional punjabi dress, shalwar (kamiz)

By: Testsss On 4:58 PM

Continue Reading

Pool

In the movie, it is a metaphor about a diverse group of young people looking for pleasure in a country where so much is prohibited. A gay man is forced into an arranged marriage. An unmarried couple cannot find a place to be alone. A female musician isn't allowed to pursue a career due to her gender. Nearly 70 percent of Iran's roughly 80 million people are under the age of 35, and while Keshavarz was raised in the United States, he said he returns frequently to Iran. "You go to the movie theaters and you never see anything that reflects our lives. Something as simple as having drinks with your friends and talking, meeting up in a restaurant, meeting up in a cafe. People are really insistent on living their lives freely," he said.
The subject matter seen in "Dog Sweat" is forbidden in Iran. The government prefers movies that represent an idealized version of the country - a place without gay men and women and where members of the opposite sex mix only if married. A typical film production involves submitting a screenplay to the censorship board. They will either reject it or return it with notes. Once it's been approved, production can begin. But no movie is released without the board's final approval. The past two decades of media within the US have painted a picture of Iranians- one full of women in burqas, executions, denouncement of western culture, and an ongoing threat of nuclear weaponry. What we don’t see is the other side of the coin: a vibrant youth community that is bursting of culture. Photographers Hossein Fatemi and Kaveh Rostamhani have painted a different picture of Iran with these stunning, revealing photographs that depict the rebellious youth of Iran indulging in life’s many vices. In a system of strict Islamic rules, many have found loopholes that allow a bit of leeway- something that goes a long way in a nation with such strict laws.

By: Testsss On 4:58 PM

Continue Reading

Velenjak1

“We didn’t want any portrait or a fake portrait, but asked them to show us their most realistic daily life,” Bossan says. “Being so realistic was a problem for some of them, because it portrays exactly what is private. To smoke, to drink, to go dancing, to make love without being married.” Bossan became fascinated by the competing spheres of Iranian identity while visiting the country in 1989. It was ten years after Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic revolution and overthrowing of the Shah, and Iran had adopted strict social, religious and political regulations that included limits on public speech, imposing dress codes for women, and enforcing prohibitions on alcohol.
Despite the recent election of Hassan Rouhani — a more liberal-seeming president than Ahmadinejad was — things haven’t loosened up much. Smoking has since been outlawed, and access to the Internet remains restricted. Even dancing can be risky, but in a country where 65% of the population are under 30, subversion is inevitable. During his visit, Bossan could sense a tension between the strict public face of post-revolutionary Iran with another way of life carrying on behind the drawn blinds of Iranian homes and private spaces. What he never saw were the photographs that illuminated this hidden aspect of its culture. “I saw more pictures, more stories related to people in the streets, revolution, religion, chador,” he says, “but no interesting work of them inside their houses, and specifically inside their living rooms.” Those are the photos he tried to get with Iranian Living Rooms. Throughout the book’s 15 stories, we are shown the day-to-day lives of Iranian people young and old, leading lives not at all different from those led by folks throughout the States. We also see the secret costume parties, nail salons, makeup styles, and questionable habits like smoking and drinking that are common to most cultures — the difference here is that many of these activities could carry stiff penalties for the subjects of the photos. Iranian Living Rooms aims to engage Western readers with a slice of Iranian life they wouldn’t otherwise see, and in doing so demonstrate how undifferentiated the two cultures really are.

By: Testsss On 4:57 PM

Continue Reading

Velenjak

Iran remains largely misunderstood by many of us in the West. As a theocratic country kept under rigid social, religious, and media restrictions, it’s difficult to relate to. And in the absence of much tourism or Western media based in Iran, for many Americans the country is a blank canvas for their own assumptions and conjectures. Iranian Living Rooms by photographer Enrico Bossan tries to close that distance. It’s a book of photographs taken in the domestic havens where Iranians, very much like the wider Western world, indulge in drink, smoking, sex and radical ideas. It’s where they express the casual lifestyles that thrive despite the preferences of Iran’s government.
To get a glimpse behind the official party lines, Bossan decided against taking the photos himself. Instead, he asked 15 young photographers already living in the country to document the Iran they know better than anyone. “Not many [outsiders] know,” says Bossan, “because unless you are going to be traveling inside the country — say you have a friend and you have the possibility to go to a dinner with some Iranians in a private house — you will see another kind of country. I don’t like to invite someone to shoot a world they don’t know. I believe that it’s better that somebody shoot or tell a story about what they know.” In March of 2013, as the country’s election approached, Bossan and a colleague created a private Facebook page where young Iranian photographers could submit their portfolios. They got more than 60 applications, and after visiting the country to hold meetings and clandestine workshops the list was finally shortened to 15. Each photographer had their own ideas and proposals for the project — Bossan’s job was to curate their ideas and coach the photographers remotely as they gathered the images that eventually made up the book. One requirement was that they had to document the lives of people they knew, to share their personal view of authentic daily life.

By: Testsss On 4:57 PM

Continue Reading