Cyrus Nowrasteh
Encyclopedia
Cyrus Nowrasteh born September 19, 1956, is an American screenwriter and director of theatrical films, television shows, and made-for-TV movies
. He is best known for his involvement in the controversial docudrama The Path to 9/11
.
descent, he was born in Boulder, Colorado
, and grew up in Madison, Wisconsin
. He graduated from Madison West High School
in 1974 and was a city boys high school tennis champion. Nowrasteh attended New Mexico State University
and later transferred to the University of Southern California
to attend the School of Cinema, graduating in 1977. Currently, he is married to wife Elizabeth G. Nowrasteh (born March 9, 1953) commonly referred to as "Betsy."
. He went on to work on other series (Falconcrest, D.E.A.), and wrote the pilot for the USA network
show La Femme Nikita (1996). He also worked on independent films such as the American/Brazilian production The Interview (1997, writer/co-producer), which played at Sundance
and on the Showtime network; and Norma Jean, Jack and Me (1998), a film that was not theatrically released but played the festival circuit and aired on HDNet.
In 2001 he wrote and directed the Showtime presentation The Day Reagan Was Shot, which starred Richard Dreyfuss
as Alexander Haig
and was executive produced by Oliver Stone
. The following year he wrote 10,000 Black Men Named George, the story of the Pullman strike of the 1930s, for Showtime.
For both of the above films Nowrasteh received the Pen USA West Literary Award for Best Teleplay—the only writer in the history of the Pen awards to win two years in a row in the same category. The Day Reagan Was Shot also received the Eddie Award and the Golden Satellite Award for Best Motion Picture for Television, 2001, as well as a SAG nomination for Best Actor (Richard Dreyfuss).
More recently Nowrasteh wrote the "Manifest Destiny" episode of the highly regarded (16 Emmy nominations) Steven Spielberg and TNT miniseries presentation, Into the West
.
docudrama The Path to 9/11
(see below), which he wrote and co-produced, Nowrasteh came under scrutiny for exhibiting an alleged "conservative bias," but he describes himself as more libertarian than conservative and has expressed a desire to not "just be a conservative version of Michael Moore.".
The allegation of conservative bias was based partly on his association with conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh
, who described Nowrasteh as a friend on his radio show. By Nowrasteh's own account, however, the extent of his "friendship" with Limbaugh (quotations his) is "a connection limited to two social encounters."
Nowrasteh has been a featured speaker and columnist for the Liberty Film Festival- a conservative film festival which merged in 2006 with David Horowitz
's Center for the Study of Popular Culture (now the David Horowitz Freedom Center
) to form a joint conservative film organization. He also provided the Liberty Film Festival with an advance copy of The Path to 9/11
. In addition, in 2006 the group awarded him "with a special Freedom of Expression Award."
He was quoted in an article on conservatives in the film industry as saying "You're safer being a child molester [than right-wing] in some circles in Hollywood,"
Nowrasteh also came under fire for The Day Reagan was Shot, for its perceived lack of historical accuracy. In this case, criticism of the film arose predominantly from conservatives.
" aired under much controversy. Critics said it fictionalized the lead-up to the September 11, 2001 attacks
in order to direct blame to the Clinton administration.
Although Nowrasteh's screenplay for The Path to 9/11
was billed by the ABC network as having been "based on the 9/11 Commission Report
", there were accusations that the screenplay evidenced political bias because of its allegedly contrafactual portrayal of events.
Nowrasteh admitted dramatic license in the movie. However, he maintained that a certain amount of dramatic license must be allotted in the process of writing a dramatic script with a historical underpinning (see docudrama
and biopic). Although the precise conversations depicted in the script may never have taken place, he alleged that the general tone and content of events depicted in The Path to 9/11 were true. Nowrasteh was quoted in the conservative FrontPage Magazine as saying that the film "dramatizes the frequent opportunities the administration had in the 90’s to stop bin Laden in his tracks but lacked the will to do so.” When asked if he thought of the script as a "historical document," Nowrasteh has responded:
Critics, including 9/11 Commission
member Richard Ben-Veniste
pointed out that some scenes in the film were complete fabrications. Richard Miniter
- a conservative author and critic of the Clinton administration, said that a key scene with Sandy Berger
was based on "Internet myth": “If people wanted to be critical of the Clinton years there’s things they could have said, but the idea that someone had bin Laden in his sights in 1998 or any other time and Sandy Berger refused to pull the trigger, there’s zero factual basis for that.”.
Nowrasteh wrote about his work on Path To 9/11 in an opinion piece in the opinionjournal.com
on September 18, 2006. He stated:
Critics - including President Bill Clinton
, Sandy Berger
, Madeleine Albright
, former Clinton aides, an FBI agent who quit as a consultant to the film, 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee H. Hamilton
, and some conservatives including Bill Bennett
and John Fund
asserted that the film contained inaccuracies such as its depiction of Clinton as so distracted by the Lewinsky scandal that he neglected the terrorism issue (although the 9/11 Commission Report states that "we have found no reason to question" the testimony of Clinton aides who claimed that the Lewinsky scandal had no bearing on national security considerations). Nowrasteh is quoted in the documentary Blocking the Path to 9/11 as saying that his intention in depicting Clinton as "somewhat hamstrung" in his response to terrorism was, ironically, to make Clinton a more sympathetic figure.
and producer David Bossie
of Citizens United
premiered a documentary co-produced, written and directed by Ziegler entitled Blocking The Path to 9/11, which revisits the political controversy behind the ABC miniseries The Path to 9/11
. Through interviews with the Path to 9/11 filmmakers (including Nowrasteh) and others, news clips regarding the controversy, and footage from the miniseries itself, the documentary asserts not only that accusations of the filmmakers' covert political agenda were unfounded, but that they were generated by Clinton-era politicians concerned that the miniseries tarnished their political legacy, and were reported uncritically by bloggers and a biased news media. The documentary also claims that Disney/ABC ultimately shelved plans to release a DVD of the miniseries as a result of pressure from the political left, specifically the Clintons themselves. As noted in the documentary, Disney/ABC denies this and claims the decision not to release a DVD was purely a business decision.
Regarding the documentary's intention, filmmaker Ziegler stated, "...the point of my documentary is not to 'blame' 9/11 on Bill Clinton. We just want to expose the real history that led to the attacks and correct the historical record about what happened to this film so that we can help prevent this from happening again in the future."
is a 2008
American
drama film
adapted from French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam
's 1994
book of the same name based on the true story of a woman falsely convicted of adultery in Iran
and subsequently stoned
to death. The film version was directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh and written by Nowrasteh and his wife, screenwriter Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh. It stars Academy Award nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo
, as well as James Caviezel
and Mozhan Marnò
.
Because of its highly critical attitude toward the Iranian legal system, the controversial book, an international bestseller, was banned in Iran. Likewise, the film version of The Stoning of Soraya M.
, even before its release, made its way onto a list of American films that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad deemed offensive and for which he demanded an apology. But the film's release also drew enough attention to the issue of stoning in Iran that it sufficiently embarrassed the Iranian authorities into announcing consideration of a ban on stoning and other harsh legal punishments.
had its world premiere at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival
, where it won Runner-up for the Audience Choice Award. It also won Second Runner-up for the Cadillac People's Choice Award, as well as the Audience Award for Best Feature at the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival
. The film also won the Heartland Truly Moving Picture Award, and the 2009 Ghent Film Festival's Canvas Audience Award. At the 2009 Satellite Awards
, it was named one of the year's Top Ten Films and nominated for Best Drama Film, while its star Shohreh Agdashloo won Best Actress in a Drama.
In 2010, the film was hailed as one of Movieguide's Ten Best 2009 Movies for Mature Audiences and was the co-winner, with Invictus (film)
, of Movieguide's Faith and Freedom Award for Promoting Positive American Values for 2009. It also shared, with "Women in Shroud," the Cinema for Peace
Award for Justice in conjunction with the Berlin Film Festival and won Outstanding Foreign Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards.
Linking the film's June 2009 release to the 2009 Iranian election protests
occurring simultaneously, and referring to the continued practice of stoning in that country, Hugh Hewitt
wrote in the Washington Examiner
, "Every American who sees 'The Stoning of Soraya M' will emerge from the theater far wiser about what is driving the revolt of the people in Iran."
's book The Nightwalker and The Last Campaign, Thurston Clarke
's account of Robert F. Kennedy
's 1968 presidential campaign.
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
. He is best known for his involvement in the controversial docudrama The Path to 9/11
The Path to 9/11
The Path to 9/11 was a two-part miniseries that aired in the United States on ABC television from September 10 – 11, 2006, and also in other countries. The film dramatizes the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City and the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks.The film...
.
Biography
Of IranianIranian peoples
The Iranian peoples are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group, consisting of the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of Indo-European-speaking peoples...
descent, he was born in Boulder, Colorado
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...
, and grew up in Madison, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....
. He graduated from Madison West High School
Madison West High School
Madison West High School is one of four comprehensive four-year high schools in Madison, Wisconsin. It was established in 1930. Its mascot is the "Reggie the Regent," a lion, and its school colors are maize and blue...
in 1974 and was a city boys high school tennis champion. Nowrasteh attended New Mexico State University
New Mexico State University
New Mexico State University at Las Cruces , is a major land-grant university in Las Cruces, New Mexico, United States...
and later transferred to the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
to attend the School of Cinema, graduating in 1977. Currently, he is married to wife Elizabeth G. Nowrasteh (born March 9, 1953) commonly referred to as "Betsy."
History
Nowrasteh began his career in 1986 writing on the CBS television series, The EqualizerThe Equalizer
The Equalizer is an American television series that ran for four seasons, initially on CBS, between 1985 and 1989. It starred Edward Woodward as an aging New York vigilante with a mysterious past...
. He went on to work on other series (Falconcrest, D.E.A.), and wrote the pilot for the USA network
USA Network
USA Network is an American cable television channel launched in 1971. Once a minor player in basic cable, the network has steadily gained popularity because of breakout hits like Monk, Psych, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, Covert Affairs, White Collar, Monday Night RAW, Suits, and reruns of the various...
show La Femme Nikita (1996). He also worked on independent films such as the American/Brazilian production The Interview (1997, writer/co-producer), which played at Sundance
Sundance
Sundance Resort is a ski resort located northeast of Provo, Utah, spanning over on the slopes of Mount Timpanogos in Utah's Wasatch Range. Snow skiing began on the site in 1944...
and on the Showtime network; and Norma Jean, Jack and Me (1998), a film that was not theatrically released but played the festival circuit and aired on HDNet.
In 2001 he wrote and directed the Showtime presentation The Day Reagan Was Shot, which starred Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Stephen Dreyfuss is an American actor best known for starring in a number of film, television, and theater roles since the late 1960s, including the films American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Stakeout, Always, What About...
as Alexander Haig
Alexander Haig
Alexander Meigs Haig, Jr. was a United States Army general who served as the United States Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan and White House Chief of Staff under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford...
and was executive produced by Oliver Stone
Oliver Stone
William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, for which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. His work frequently focuses on...
. The following year he wrote 10,000 Black Men Named George, the story of the Pullman strike of the 1930s, for Showtime.
For both of the above films Nowrasteh received the Pen USA West Literary Award for Best Teleplay—the only writer in the history of the Pen awards to win two years in a row in the same category. The Day Reagan Was Shot also received the Eddie Award and the Golden Satellite Award for Best Motion Picture for Television, 2001, as well as a SAG nomination for Best Actor (Richard Dreyfuss).
More recently Nowrasteh wrote the "Manifest Destiny" episode of the highly regarded (16 Emmy nominations) Steven Spielberg and TNT miniseries presentation, Into the West
Into the West (TV miniseries)
Into the West is a 2005 miniseries produced by Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks, with six two-hour episodes . The series was first broadcast in the U.S. on Turner Network Television on six Fridays starting on June 10, 2005...
.
Political orientation
Due to the controversy surrounding release of the ABCAmerican Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
docudrama The Path to 9/11
The Path to 9/11
The Path to 9/11 was a two-part miniseries that aired in the United States on ABC television from September 10 – 11, 2006, and also in other countries. The film dramatizes the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City and the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks.The film...
(see below), which he wrote and co-produced, Nowrasteh came under scrutiny for exhibiting an alleged "conservative bias," but he describes himself as more libertarian than conservative and has expressed a desire to not "just be a conservative version of Michael Moore.".
The allegation of conservative bias was based partly on his association with conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh
Rush Limbaugh
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III is an American radio talk show host, conservative political commentator, and an opinion leader in American conservatism. He hosts The Rush Limbaugh Show which is aired throughout the U.S. on Premiere Radio Networks and is the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United...
, who described Nowrasteh as a friend on his radio show. By Nowrasteh's own account, however, the extent of his "friendship" with Limbaugh (quotations his) is "a connection limited to two social encounters."
Nowrasteh has been a featured speaker and columnist for the Liberty Film Festival- a conservative film festival which merged in 2006 with David Horowitz
David Horowitz
David Joel Horowitz is an American conservative writer and policy advocate. Horowitz was raised by parents who were both members of the American Communist Party. Between 1956 and 1975, Horowitz was an outspoken adherent of the New Left before rejecting Marxism completely...
's Center for the Study of Popular Culture (now the David Horowitz Freedom Center
David Horowitz Freedom Center
The David Horowitz Freedom Center is a conservative foundation founded in 1988 by political activist David Horowitz and his long-time collaborator Peter Collier...
) to form a joint conservative film organization. He also provided the Liberty Film Festival with an advance copy of The Path to 9/11
The Path to 9/11
The Path to 9/11 was a two-part miniseries that aired in the United States on ABC television from September 10 – 11, 2006, and also in other countries. The film dramatizes the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City and the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks.The film...
. In addition, in 2006 the group awarded him "with a special Freedom of Expression Award."
He was quoted in an article on conservatives in the film industry as saying "You're safer being a child molester [than right-wing] in some circles in Hollywood,"
Nowrasteh also came under fire for The Day Reagan was Shot, for its perceived lack of historical accuracy. In this case, criticism of the film arose predominantly from conservatives.
The Path to 9/11
The 2006 ABC/Disney miniseries "The Path to 9/11The Path to 9/11
The Path to 9/11 was a two-part miniseries that aired in the United States on ABC television from September 10 – 11, 2006, and also in other countries. The film dramatizes the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City and the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks.The film...
" aired under much controversy. Critics said it fictionalized the lead-up to the September 11, 2001 attacks
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
in order to direct blame to the Clinton administration.
Although Nowrasteh's screenplay for The Path to 9/11
The Path to 9/11
The Path to 9/11 was a two-part miniseries that aired in the United States on ABC television from September 10 – 11, 2006, and also in other countries. The film dramatizes the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City and the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks.The film...
was billed by the ABC network as having been "based on the 9/11 Commission Report
9/11 Commission Report
The 9/11 Commission Report, formally named Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, is the official report of the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks...
", there were accusations that the screenplay evidenced political bias because of its allegedly contrafactual portrayal of events.
Nowrasteh admitted dramatic license in the movie. However, he maintained that a certain amount of dramatic license must be allotted in the process of writing a dramatic script with a historical underpinning (see docudrama
Docudrama
In film, television programming and staged theatre, docudrama is a documentary-style genre that features dramatized re-enactments of actual historical events. As a neologism, the term is often confused with docufiction....
and biopic). Although the precise conversations depicted in the script may never have taken place, he alleged that the general tone and content of events depicted in The Path to 9/11 were true. Nowrasteh was quoted in the conservative FrontPage Magazine as saying that the film "dramatizes the frequent opportunities the administration had in the 90’s to stop bin Laden in his tracks but lacked the will to do so.” When asked if he thought of the script as a "historical document," Nowrasteh has responded:
No, but I stand by the original version of the movie, and I stand by the edited version... There has to be conflation of events. The most obvious problem any dramatist faces is that of sheer length. I had to collapse the events of eight and a half years into five hours. I don’t know any other way to do it except collapse, conflate, and condense.
Critics, including 9/11 Commission
9/11 Commission
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks", including preparedness for and the immediate response to...
member Richard Ben-Veniste
Richard Ben-Veniste
Richard Ben-Veniste , is an American lawyer. He first rose to prominence as a special prosecutor during the Watergate scandal. He has also been a member of the 9/11 Commission. He is known for his pointed questions and criticisms of members of both the Clinton and George W...
pointed out that some scenes in the film were complete fabrications. Richard Miniter
Richard Miniter
Richard Miniter is an investigative journalist and author of two New York Times best-selling books, Losing bin Laden and Shadow War....
- a conservative author and critic of the Clinton administration, said that a key scene with Sandy Berger
Sandy Berger
Samuel Richard "Sandy" Berger was United States National Security Advisor, under President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001. In his position, he helped to formulate the foreign policy of the Clinton Administration...
was based on "Internet myth": “If people wanted to be critical of the Clinton years there’s things they could have said, but the idea that someone had bin Laden in his sights in 1998 or any other time and Sandy Berger refused to pull the trigger, there’s zero factual basis for that.”.
Nowrasteh wrote about his work on Path To 9/11 in an opinion piece in the opinionjournal.com
OpinionJournal.com
OpinionJournal.com was a website featuring content from the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal. It existed separately from the news content at wsj.com until January 2008, when it was merged into the main website....
on September 18, 2006. He stated:
- "'The Path to 9/11' was set in the time before the event, and in a world in which no party had the political will to act. The principals did not know then what we know now. It is also indisputable that Bill Clinton entered office a month before the first attack on the World Trade Center. Eight years then went by, replete with terrorist assaults on Americans and American interests overseas. George W. Bush was in office eight months before 9/11. Those who actually watched the entire miniseries know that he was given no special treatment."
Critics - including President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, Sandy Berger
Sandy Berger
Samuel Richard "Sandy" Berger was United States National Security Advisor, under President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001. In his position, he helped to formulate the foreign policy of the Clinton Administration...
, Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Korbelová Albright is the first woman to become a United States Secretary of State. She was appointed by U.S. President Bill Clinton on December 5, 1996, and was unanimously confirmed by a U.S. Senate vote of 99–0...
, former Clinton aides, an FBI agent who quit as a consultant to the film, 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee H. Hamilton
Lee H. Hamilton
Lee Herbert Hamilton is a former member of the United States House of Representatives and currently a member of the U.S. Homeland Security Advisory Council. A member of the Democratic Party, Hamilton represented the 9th congressional district of Indiana from 1965 to 1999...
, and some conservatives including Bill Bennett
Bill Bennett
William Richards Bennett, PC, OBC , commonly known as Bill Bennett, was the 27th Premier of the Canadian province of British Columbia 1975–1986. He is a son of the former Premier, W. A. C. Bennett. He was a 3rd cousin, twice removed, of R.B...
and John Fund
John Fund
John H. Fund is an American political journalist and conservative columnist. Currently a senior editor of The American Spectator,...
asserted that the film contained inaccuracies such as its depiction of Clinton as so distracted by the Lewinsky scandal that he neglected the terrorism issue (although the 9/11 Commission Report states that "we have found no reason to question" the testimony of Clinton aides who claimed that the Lewinsky scandal had no bearing on national security considerations). Nowrasteh is quoted in the documentary Blocking the Path to 9/11 as saying that his intention in depicting Clinton as "somewhat hamstrung" in his response to terrorism was, ironically, to make Clinton a more sympathetic figure.
Blocking The Path to 9/11 documentary
In August, 2008, talk show host and documentary filmmaker John ZieglerJohn Ziegler (talk show host)
John Ziegler is a conservative radio talk show host turned documentary film writer/director.Ziegler's most prominent work in radio has been as the evening host of a radio talk show called The John Ziegler Show on KFI AM 640 in Los Angeles, California from January 12, 2004 until November 13, 2007...
and producer David Bossie
David Bossie
David N. Bossie is an American political activist. Since 2000 he has been President and Chairman of conservative advocacy organization Citizens United.-Early life:...
of Citizens United
Citizens United
Citizens United is a conservative non-profit organization in the United States. Its president and chairman is David Bossie.-Overview:Citizens United describes its mission as being dedicated to restoring the United States government to "citizens' control" and to "assert American values of limited...
premiered a documentary co-produced, written and directed by Ziegler entitled Blocking The Path to 9/11, which revisits the political controversy behind the ABC miniseries The Path to 9/11
The Path to 9/11
The Path to 9/11 was a two-part miniseries that aired in the United States on ABC television from September 10 – 11, 2006, and also in other countries. The film dramatizes the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City and the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks.The film...
. Through interviews with the Path to 9/11 filmmakers (including Nowrasteh) and others, news clips regarding the controversy, and footage from the miniseries itself, the documentary asserts not only that accusations of the filmmakers' covert political agenda were unfounded, but that they were generated by Clinton-era politicians concerned that the miniseries tarnished their political legacy, and were reported uncritically by bloggers and a biased news media. The documentary also claims that Disney/ABC ultimately shelved plans to release a DVD of the miniseries as a result of pressure from the political left, specifically the Clintons themselves. As noted in the documentary, Disney/ABC denies this and claims the decision not to release a DVD was purely a business decision.
Regarding the documentary's intention, filmmaker Ziegler stated, "...the point of my documentary is not to 'blame' 9/11 on Bill Clinton. We just want to expose the real history that led to the attacks and correct the historical record about what happened to this film so that we can help prevent this from happening again in the future."
The Stoning of Soraya M.
The Stoning of Soraya M.The Stoning of Soraya M.
The Stoning of Soraya M. is a 2008 American drama film adapted from French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam's 1990 book La Femme Lapidée, based on a true story...
is a 2008
2008 in film
This is a list of all major films made in 2008.-Highest-grossing films:Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top grossing films that were first released in the USA in 2008...
American
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
adapted from French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam
Freidoune Sahebjam
Freidoune Sahebjam was a French-Iranian journalist, war correspondent, and novelist who resided in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France....
's 1994
1994 in literature
The year 1994 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Kevin J. Anderson - Champions of the Force, Dark Apprentice and Jedi Search*Reed Arvin - The Wind in the Wheat*Greg Bear - Songs of Earth and Power...
book of the same name based on the true story of a woman falsely convicted of adultery in Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
and subsequently stoned
Stoning
Stoning, or lapidation, is a form of capital punishment whereby a group throws stones at a person until the person dies. No individual among the group can be identified as the one who kills the subject, yet everyone involved plainly bears some degree of moral culpability. This is in contrast to the...
to death. The film version was directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh and written by Nowrasteh and his wife, screenwriter Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh. It stars Academy Award nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo
Shohreh Aghdashloo
Shohreh Aghdashloo is an Iranian American actress.After establishing a theatre and film career in Iran, Aghdashloo moved to England during the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and subsequently became a citizen of the United States...
, as well as James Caviezel
James Caviezel
James Patrick Caviezel, Jr. is an American film actor, usually credited as Jim Caviezel. He is known for the roles of Jesus Christ in the 2004 film The Passion of the Christ, Bobby Jones in Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius, Detective John Sullivan in Frequency, Edmond Dantès in The Count of Monte...
and Mozhan Marnò
Mozhan Marnò
-Personal life:Mozhan was born in Los Angeles, California and received her M.F.A from the Yale School of Drama.-Career:Marnò is best known for her role as Soraya M...
.
Because of its highly critical attitude toward the Iranian legal system, the controversial book, an international bestseller, was banned in Iran. Likewise, the film version of The Stoning of Soraya M.
The Stoning of Soraya M.
The Stoning of Soraya M. is a 2008 American drama film adapted from French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam's 1990 book La Femme Lapidée, based on a true story...
, even before its release, made its way onto a list of American films that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad deemed offensive and for which he demanded an apology. But the film's release also drew enough attention to the issue of stoning in Iran that it sufficiently embarrassed the Iranian authorities into announcing consideration of a ban on stoning and other harsh legal punishments.
Awards
The Stoning of Soraya M.The Stoning of Soraya M.
The Stoning of Soraya M. is a 2008 American drama film adapted from French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam's 1990 book La Femme Lapidée, based on a true story...
had its world premiere at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
, where it won Runner-up for the Audience Choice Award. It also won Second Runner-up for the Cadillac People's Choice Award, as well as the Audience Award for Best Feature at the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival
Los Angeles Film Festival
The Los Angeles Film Festival, presented by the Los Angeles Times is an event held annually in June in downtown Los Angeles, California. The Los Angeles Film Festival began as the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival in 1995. The first LAIFF took place over the course of five days in a single...
. The film also won the Heartland Truly Moving Picture Award, and the 2009 Ghent Film Festival's Canvas Audience Award. At the 2009 Satellite Awards
Satellite Awards
The Satellite Awards are an annual award given by the International Press Academy. The awards were originally known as the Golden Satellite Awards.- Film :*Best Actor – Drama*Best Actor – Musical or Comedy*Best Actress – Drama...
, it was named one of the year's Top Ten Films and nominated for Best Drama Film, while its star Shohreh Agdashloo won Best Actress in a Drama.
In 2010, the film was hailed as one of Movieguide's Ten Best 2009 Movies for Mature Audiences and was the co-winner, with Invictus (film)
Invictus (film)
Invictus is a 2009 biographical sports drama film directed by Clint Eastwood starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon.The story is based on the John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation about the events in South Africa before and during the 1995 Rugby World...
, of Movieguide's Faith and Freedom Award for Promoting Positive American Values for 2009. It also shared, with "Women in Shroud," the Cinema for Peace
Cinema for Peace
The Cinema for Peace initiative aims to raise awareness for the social relevance of films and to make active use of the influence of movies and documentaries on the perception and resolution of global social, political and humanitarian challenges of our time...
Award for Justice in conjunction with the Berlin Film Festival and won Outstanding Foreign Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards.
Reviews
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, John Jurgensen said the film was shot over six weeks in a mountain village in Jordan. The stoning sequence itself took six days to shoot. Jurgensen reports that "some human-rights advocates call the film inaccurate and sensationalistic," but that director Cyrus Nowrasteh responds, “A movie like this needs to be absolutely uncompromising in its approach. The subject demands it.”Linking the film's June 2009 release to the 2009 Iranian election protests
2009 Iranian election protests
Protests following the 2009 Iranian presidential election against the disputed victory of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and in support of opposition candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi occurred in major cities in Iran and around the world starting June 13, 2009...
occurring simultaneously, and referring to the continued practice of stoning in that country, Hugh Hewitt
Hugh Hewitt
Hugh Hewitt is an American radio talk show host with the Salem Radio Network, lawyer, academic, and author. An outspoken Republican, evangelical Christian, he comments on society, politics, and media bias in the United States. Hewitt is also a law professor at Chapman University School of Law.-...
wrote in the Washington Examiner
Washington Examiner
The Washington Examiner is a free daily newspaper published in Springfield, Virginia, and distributed in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. It is owned by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz....
, "Every American who sees 'The Stoning of Soraya M' will emerge from the theater far wiser about what is driving the revolt of the people in Iran."
Upcoming projects
Among Nowrasteh's upcoming projects will reportedly be film adaptations of Thomas TessierThomas Tessier
Thomas Tessier is an American writer of horror novels and short stories. He has also written poetry and drama.- Overview :...
's book The Nightwalker and The Last Campaign, Thurston Clarke
Thurston Clarke
Thurston Clarke is an American historian, author and journalist.-Education and career:Clarke was educated at Yale University, Columbia University and the School of Oriental and African Studies, London....
's account of Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
's 1968 presidential campaign.
Filmography
- Veiled Threat, writer (1989)
- Norma Jean, Jack and Me, writer/director (1998)
- The Day Reagan Was Shot, writer/director (2001)
- 10,000 Black Men Named George, writer (2002)
- The Path to 9/11The Path to 9/11The Path to 9/11 was a two-part miniseries that aired in the United States on ABC television from September 10 – 11, 2006, and also in other countries. The film dramatizes the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City and the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks.The film...
, writer (2006) - The Stoning of Soraya M.The Stoning of Soraya M.The Stoning of Soraya M. is a 2008 American drama film adapted from French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam's 1990 book La Femme Lapidée, based on a true story...
, writer/director (2009)
Quotes
- On Michael MooreMichael MooreMichael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...
and producing movies: "To quote Team America, he’s an out of control socialist weasel (laughs). Listen. I’m probably more of a libertarianLibertarianismLibertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
than a strict conservativeAmerican conservatismConservatism in the United States has played an important role in American politics since the 1950s. Historian Gregory Schneider identifies several constants in American conservatism: respect for tradition, support of republicanism, preservation of "the rule of law and the Christian religion", and...
. In my writing and directing, I don’t want to just be a conservative version of Michael Moore. I’m here to tell a good story first and foremost - and that’s why I can navigate the networks and get my work produced." - "You're safer being a child molester [than politically conservative] in some circles in Hollywood,"
External links
- The Path to Hysteria - Nowrasteh's response to critics
- Dissection of Nowrasteh's "response" to critics
- Nico Pitney, "Writer of ABC’s 9/11 'Docudrama' Is Avowed Conservative Activist," Think Progress, September 1, 2006.
- Doug Moe, "West grad's 9/11 film stirs storm," The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin), September 2, 2006.
- Cyrus Nowrasteh, "The Path to 9/11: Committing the Truth," Written By (WGA)
- Cyrus Nowrasteh, "A Path to 9/11," Wall Street Journal
- "TORONTO ‘08 DISCOVERY INTERVIEW|'The Stoning of Soraya M' Director Cyrus Nowrasteh"
- "Persian Heritage Magazine Interviews Cyrus Nowrasteh" - Cover story