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Radio Dreams

2016 American film From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Radio Dreams
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Radio Dreams is a 2016 American film by Iranian-born film director Babak Jalali.[3] Inspired by a group of real life Iranian Metallica fans, calling themselves the Persian Magnetic,[3] and the realities of expatriate life of the Iranian diaspora in the United States.[4]

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The film Radio Dreams won the 2016 Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam,[3] and Jalali[2] won the Best Director Award at Andrey Tarkovsky Film Festival in Russia. In 2016 the film was shown at the 32nd Warsaw Film Festival in the "Discoveries" section.[5]

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Plot

Hamid Royani is the station manager at Pars-FM Radio, the Bay Area's premiere Persian language radio station.[4] As everyone at Pars-FM looks forward to a continuously delayed jam session by Afghan rock band Kabul Dreams with metal legends Metallica, Royani despairs. As a respected man of the arts in his homeland, he must struggle against the commercial demands of the station's owners; erudite and eloquent in his own tongue, he must face the ups and downs of everyday life in a land where he can hardly speak the language.

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Cast

  • Mohsen Namjoo as Hamid Royani[4]
  • Lars Ulrich as himself[6][4]
  • Boshra Dastournezhad as Maral Afshar[7]
  • Kabul Dreams (Sulyman Qardash, Siddique Ahmed, Raby Adib) as themselves[6][8]
  • Bella Warda as Sherbet[9]
  • Mohammad Talani as Reza Gerami
  • Babak Mortazavi as Jamshid
  • Mahmood Schricker as Morad
  • Keyumars Hakim as Sohrab Afshar
  • Leila Shahrestani as Leila Shahrestani
  • Ali Tahbaz as Yashar
  • Mansur Taeed as Dr. Jim Rakhshandeh
  • Larry Laverty as TV reporter
  • Kyle Kernan as wrestling coach
  • Casimir Carothers as little drumming boy
  • Fat Dog as guitar salesman
  • Litz Plummer as opera singer
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Production

Marjaneh Moghimi (Wikidata), a producer of community documentaries, was looking to produce her first fictional feature and approached Babak Jalali to helm it.[2] A personal friend of Mohsen Namjoo, Moghimi introduced him to Jalali;[2] at the same time Kabul Dreams had just decided to relocate to the United States, and around these cast members the story was written. With a minimal budget of US$300,000, a virtue was made of necessity and the story that developed staged the action within the span of a day within the confines of a radio station.[2] This setting in turn was to play a part in the lighting and camera setups used by cinematographer Noaz Deshe.[1] The design of the film poster was made by design agency, Ceft and Company New York.[10]

Reception

Neil Young of The Hollywood Reporter described the film as, "presenting a nuanced, intelligent and consistently droll take on hot-button subjects of immigration, identity and cultural assimilation..." and that it "stand[s] comparison with the finest radio-themed enterprises of the current century..."[1]

Writing in Variety, critic Catherine Bray called the film a "quietly satisfying gem..." and a "deserving Tiger competition winner at Rotterdam..."[11]

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Awards and nominations

More information Year, Award ...
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See also

References

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