“Fifi howls from happiness,” director Mitra Farahani’s elegiac post-scriptum to Persian artist Bahman Mohassess, was rolled out in theaters on Friday. I met with her in Paris to talk about the last living days of a artist.

About five years ago Farahani had decided to go on an investigation of the works of Mohassess. The Loch Ness creature of Iran’s expatriate artists and a prolific painter

The 2000s had been difficult for Robin Williams who was found dead yesterday at his home in California at age 63. That decade did not yield any major successes for the actor who wore bittersweetness on his sleeve and made poetry out of life’s daily vexations.

He earned one Oscar in 1998, a feat that happens rarely, if not at all, for most actors and directors (it took Scorsese forty years

"Golan-Globus ..." To this critic who grew up in the eighties in France in a decade when "La Boum" and "Un homme et une femme" where big, the hyphenated combo held the promise of cinematic thrills and brash entertainment: high stakes cop-vs-bad guys intrigues, meatheads in military gear knocking doors down and car chases aplenty. This was Hollywood at its best, making money without the obscenely outsize budgets

For those of you in the New York area look for this new documentary about sculptor and painter Bahman Mohassess, an artist from Iran who's lived in exile and seclusion in Italy for thirty years until his untimely passing in 2010. "Fifi howls from happiness" is slated for release tomorrow Friday. Paris-based filmmaker Mitra Farahani spent time at his Italy-based studio discussing his opus, his triumphs and his failures

Have you ever stared at a disheveled, smelly, fierce-eyed derelict, talking to himself on a street corner, and wondered what it would be like to spend around two hours in his company? Have you ever wondered if compulsive necrophiliacs are humane deep down? Do you have a knack for deciphering nearly-inaudible dialogue spoken by people missing teeth and brain cells? Is that a yes? Thought so. Then look no further than

The Kids generation is back and skateboarding down the red [...]

You can flashmob to Pharrell ‘til you’re blue in the face, but, in terms of things we do en masse nothing gets people gathering ‘round in the soothing glow of community like outdoors movie night. Even if it’s a subtitled movie.

That seems to be the wager made by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York, the city’s Parks Department and FACE foundation in presenting FILMS ON THE GREEN