Kourosh Ziabari, Ahmadreza Tavassoli: The Cinema Verite International Documentary Film Festival, which was held in Iran on the third week of October 2008, was undoubtedly an occasional opportunity for documentary filmmakers from 75 countries worldwide to congregate for a landmark event and share their precious artistic experiences together and become acquainted with the obscured and disputatious culture of Iran.

The festival, which was inaugurated by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance of Islamic Republic of Iran, has hosted a stack of artists, journalists, filmmakers and analysts from US; which is not in an official friendly and impartial stance toward Iran these days, though is considered as a close cultural and scientific ally of Iran on behalf of its independent and non-governmental organizations and communities.

Shannon Kelley, who is the Director of Programming of the Morelia International Film Festival in Morelia (Mexico), was among the guests who attended the festival from the United States and attracted many reporters, audiences and festival curators, as well.

Kelley is an independent movie consultant and has worked for the Sundance Film Festival as Associate Short Film Programmer since 1997; where presently she is serving as the Festival Senior Consultant to the Documentary Program.

The following is the text from the exclusive Asian Times interview with Shannon Kelley where we discussed a variety of art-related topics and explored her perceptions of being in Iran to attend the 2008 Cinema Verite Film Festival for the very first time.

Continues here

Iran was different to what I’d thought

OhMyNews - Kourosh Ziabari: In November 2007, Yahoo attempted to remove Iran from the list of countries it supported on its signup page and ban Iranian users from creating new accounts using the pretext that the United States had imposed sanctions on the country.

It did this even though it had already been announced officially that US exports to Iran had increased tenfold despite the sanctions imposed under President Bush.

Many journalists and experts believe that the issue of Iran sanctions is more media propaganda than practical solution. Statistics for 2008 show that Iran is currently the largest economic partner in the Persian Gulf region of France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Australia. Iran is also the fourth largest economic ally in Asia of Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom — following South Korea, China and Japan.

After the removal of Iran’s name, waves of protest ensued in Iran and among Iranians residing in other countries.

The first step was debuting a Google bomb called “Hello Yahoo mail” with the aim of introducing Iran to global opinions, Internet users and Yahoo directors.

A young Iranian cyber activist, Mohammad Tavakoli, established Helloyahoomail.net with the slogan “Culture is our weapon, the weak impose sanctions,” calling for international attention on the 7,500-year history of Persian culture and civilization.

The main goal of this Google bomb, which targeted the “Yahoo mail” keyword, was to provide users searching for “Yahoo mail” in search engines with some unbiased and realistic information on Iran and its people, culture, arts, sciences and history so as to express that Yahoo was quarrelling with an ancient and peacemaking nation.

The Web site interviewed many outstanding personalities, including university professors and political figures, regarding the issue, and all condemned Yahoo.

“Hello Yahoo mail” also commenced a national movement in order to encourage existing Iranian users of Yahoo to remove their accounts from the site.

It is estimated that five million Iranian users of Yahoo removed their accounts from the Yahoo database after this national call. This called huge damage to the international credit of Yahoo.

Anyhow, Yahoo mail once again included Iran in its list of supported countries three days ago, without any announcement or apologizes.

It is not clear why Yahoo removed the name of Iran unexpectedly and why it was added again, but it is clear that “Hello Yahoo mail” was a simple reflection of Persian talent and power.

The cyber influence of Iranian bloggers, journalists and activists lead to an unforgettable failure for Yahoo and proved that hostility, atrocity and animosity are not proper ways for dealing with ancient nations and civilizations.

 Paying a 3 days visit to Turkey for the expansion of cultural, economic and political ties with the Muslim bordering country, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a press conference that his country will welcome any new sanctions by EU or US!

Speaking for a group of Turkish media reporters along with the mainstream media correspondents, who struggled seriously to flaw the mutual relations between two countries by intensifying their boring, perpetual black propaganda, President Ahmadinejad announced that Iran is among the top 5 world Biotechnology powers, ranking 10th in the latest Nanotechnology stats and also planning to launch its newest satellite in near future and these progresses are all due to sanctions imposed on Iran by US and EU countries.

“If there were free trade relations between Iran and Europe without any embargo, then the Iranian scientists and businesspersons would never bother themselves striving for innovative ways of enhancements and escaping from restrictions, therefore we are thankful of US and EU and would welcome any new sanctions by them.” Ahmadinejad said.

Iran and Turkey signed 5 agreements on the fields of energy, agriculture and industries and it is estimated that the economic ties between two countries will arise to the annual rate of 20 BLN USD.
The giant Iranian car manufacturer IKO also established a plan to export Samand to Turkey.
“Samand” is the first Iranian national car, being exported to 32 major markets such as Russia, UAE, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Poland, Egypt, China, Senegal and Persian Gulf bordering countries.

Yahoo governors finally acquiesced to re-include the name of Iran in their signup available countries list.

The frequent and intensive protests by angry Iranians started right after the Yahoo banned Persian users from creating new mail accounts and removed the name of Iran from its list of countries in November 2007.

The Iranian users attempted a Google Bomb named “Hello Yahoo mail” which was a responsive movement against what they called “insulting the 7500 years of Iranian civilization by the state-run portal Yahoo”.

Helloyahoomail.net provided more than 2 million visitors and users with information on Iranian culture, ancient Persian empire, Iranian literature, history of the land, its people and modern day lifestyle in Iran to prove that Yahoo, mainstream media and other American allies are misleading public opinions by crying that Iranians are terrorists and uncivilized, they want to “conceal” the facts and realities about this ancient and historical land.

It was a dark point of Yahoo mail history to altercate with a people of ancient culture, history and peacemaking backgrounds by removing the name of their country with the pretext that Iran is a terrorist country.

Meanwhile, the main question of Iranian cyber-activists was about the hoarding of 2500 nuclear warheads by US that the state officials confessed to, also about the evident violation of human rights in Guantanamo jails and US government funding the terrorist groups in Iraq, bombarding Afghanistan and killing thousands of civilians etc.

It was always totally clear that which country violates human rights, boosts the terrorism and commits genocide, but the American statesmen and their mercenaries in Yahoo mail planned to alienate the global opinions from human disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan by accusing Iran and pressing its people.

Last night, following the intervention of cyber courts, internet activists and political figures Yahoo finally deferred to include the Iran’s name in the lists again and this was a great failure for Yahoo which has already announced that it is not possible to have ties with Iran and its people!

The page which you are on is a Google bomb that redirects the users searching “Yahoo mail” keyword to articles and news about Iran, its people and their scientific, cultural progresses and mainly is a response to Yahoo men and its users who assume that they are facing with uncultured and terrorist nation.

Iran’s name in signup page

 Tehran 4-side Futsal tournament closed tonight while the 9-time Asian champions shattered the 2009 Euro cup host unbelievably.
The Iranian national Futsal team which obtains 9 gold medals out of total 10 times held championships scrunched the 13th of FIFA rank holder during a boring, unilateral battle and stitched the Hungarian net with 8 goals, setting a dramatic farewell for Euro 2009 host.
Iran is also planned to meet Spain in two friendly matches within next weeks, ending its preparatory timetable in order to leave for Brazil’s Rio De Janeiro FIFA Futsal World Cup.
Spain, Uruguay and Libya are also in the same group of Iran in the qualifications stage and that is why the 4th group is called the “group of death” by sports media.
Along with legend Ali Daei who is titled as the best FIFA all-time goal scorer, Iran’s Vahid Shamsaei is also the world’s Futsal top scorer, a makes his rivals always overwhelmed for facing with a “mini Ronaldinho”.
According to August 2008 stats, Islamic Republic of Iran Futsal team currently ranks 7th in the world ranking, passing Argentina, Japan, Serbia, Ukraine, Thailand, France, Greece, USA and Netherlands.