By Jason Apuzzo. I wanted Libertas readers to have a chance today to see an extraordinary short film by Iranian filmmaker Farbod “Fred” Khoshtinat called, ATTN: Mr. Democrat. The ‘Mr. Democrat’ of the title is an ironic reference to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who actually claims to preside over a democratic republic in Iran.
Khoshtinat is a multi-talented filmmaker who edited the music video sequences in a poignant movie I really admired this past summer called No One Knows About Persian Cats (see my review of that here).
ATTN: Mr. Democrat is a short film that created a big splash recently by winning the State Department’s ‘Democracy Video Challenge,’ in the Near East and North Africa category. Khoshtinat was given the ‘Democracy Video Challenge’ award for this short this past week by Hillary Clinton.
Dissident filmmakers like Khoshtinat will always have a ‘virtual home’ here at Libertas. We wish him the best in his future endeavors, and hope the success of his film opens up another tiny crack in the Iranian regime.
Posted on September 17th, 2010 at 12:43pm.
Very moving and well done. I hope something happens some day to finally bring true democracy to the Iranian people.
Lovely, and sad.
I believe Los Angeles has the largest Iranian community outside of Iran. I wonder how are they reacting to Mr. Khoshtinat’s work? With support, I hope.
Thanks to you guys for searching for and publicizing all these worthy films.
We have fun doing it. 🙂 I appreciate the kind word, Pat.