Music Box Films is proud to present the US Theatrical release of FIFI HOWLS FROM HAPPINESS, the award-winning documentary film by Mitra Farahani. The film had its World premiere as the Official Selection at the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival and screened at numerous film festivals including New York, Telluride, and Seattle. FIFI HOWLS FROM HAPPINESS will open at the Lincoln Plaza in New York on August 8, and at Laemmle Theaters in Los Angeles on August 15. A national release will follow.
Mitra Farahani's lyrical documentary explores the enigma of provocative artist Bahman Mohassess, the so-called "Persian Picasso," whose acclaimed paintings and sculptures dominated pre-revolutionary Iran. Irreverent and uncompromising, a gay man in a hostile world, Mohassess had a conflicted relationship with his homeland-revered by elites in the art scene and praised as a national icon, only to be censored later by an oppressive regime. Known for his iconoclastic art as well as his scathing declarations, Mohasses abandoned the country over 30 years ago for a simple, secluded life in Italy. While the new Iranian government destroyed many of his works, Mohasses himself obliterated even more-- in rage at man's inhumanity to man, environmental destruction, and the futility of idealism. Ranging from tender to playful to haunting to grotesque, these unforgettable pieces were as mercurial as the man himself, a chain-smoking recluse with the mouth of a sailor and the soul of a poet, touched by a mischievous spark and as likely to lapse into a political rant as a burst of eccentric laughter.Videos