‘Starless Dreams’ goes on US screen

A New Yorker museum has started screening Iranian documentary ‘Starless Dreams’ by Mehrdad Oskouei.

The Museum of the Moving Image, a media museum located in Astoria, New York started the screening program with English subtitle on January 20, 2017.

Located in New York City Borough of Queens, the museum will continue the screenings until January 29.

The 76-minute ‘Starless Dreams’ shows young women in an Iranian juvenile detention center reflecting on the crimes they have committed and the circumstances that have shaped their lives.

"Director Mehrdad Oskouei, one of Iran’s most prominent filmmakers, spent seven years securing access to this all-female facility, and he makes the awkwardness of being a male filmmaker in their environment a poignant and powerful aspect of his project," the museum's website wrote.

The documentary has grabbed a number of prestigious awards and titles from various film events. Just in 2016, the film won the Amnesty International Film Prize at the 66th Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlinale-Generation 14plus in Germany as well as the True Vision Award at the 13th True/False Film Festival in the US.

Oskouei’s production has also received the Grierson Award for the best documentary at the 60th BFI London Film Festival and the Children’s Rights Award at the 31st Osnabruck Independent Film Festival in October.

The Museum of the Moving Image advances the understanding, enjoyment, and appreciation of the art, history, technique, and technology of film, television, and digital media by presenting exhibitions, education programs, significant moving-image works, and interpretive programs, and collecting and preserving moving-image related artifacts.

Each year the Museum screens some 400 titles in a stimulating mix of the classic and the contemporary. With outstanding new films from the international festival circuit, Museum programs are recognized for their quality as well as their scope.

MG/HY