Synopsis
Mina Akbari, a reformer Iranian journalist, decides to look for her other colleagues who were gathered in a picture frame 20 years ago. These journalists were all reformists who tried so hard in order to use the media power for some positive change in Iranians situation. She turned on her camera and goes after each person in that frame. Surprisingly, almost none of them remained a journalist. They all have left this job due to the pressure on Iranian journalists as a result of the political situation. We see all of them; one of them is a farmer now, one of them has opened a coffee shop outside of Tehran, one of them is an actor, two of them have left the country, and Mina, herself, who is a filmmaker now. We hear their voice, see their situation through Mina’s point of view, and through this, we review the media and journalism situation in Iran in the past 20 years
Director
Mina Akbari in an Iranian journalist who was born in Iran in 1977. She graduated from Communication and Media Studies from Tehran University. She started her career as a journalist in 1995 in “Jame’e” newspaper in social section. “Jame’e” was the first reformist newspaper among the Iranian media when Mohammad Khatami, the former president of Iran who was a reformist was in power. Mina Akbari continued her career as the editor of culture and art in different media such as “Toos”, AKhordad”, Fath”, “Hamshahri”, “Etemad”, “Etemad Melli” Newspapers and etc. All of these media were banned from publishing after a while from the governments. Mina Akbari is one of the most important Iranian journalists in cinema and culture section who has won different prestigious awards in journalism so far. She has worked with Abbas Kiarostami, Masoud Kimiaee, Fereydoon Jeirani, Niki Karimi in the Iranian cinema. After 20 years working in Iranian media, she decided to change her career. The reason of this change, made her to make a documentary of this which is “Formerly Youth Square”. This documentary was very well-received by the audiences in Iran and won different prizes. She is working on her next documentary which is going to be around “the impact of social and political changes in Iran on the portrait of Iranian women in cinema”.
