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Please find below the announcement for the new round of UNESCO-Aschberg Bursaries for Artists Programme for 2009. The programme consists of a global network of bursaries for international residencies. This year it is focusing on visual arts, creative writing and music, so please pass the information to anybody who may be interested.

Among the UNESCO-Aschberg Bursaries for Artists Programme, the 18th Street Art Center (Santa Monica, CA, USA) is offering a fully funded artist residency in visual arts to an Iranian artist for 2009.
For information on application procedure and requirements please visit their site.

This is a great opportunity for Iranian artists, especially those inside Iran, to showcase their art outside of the country and we strongly urge all artists to apply for this.

I just came across this news yesterday, while looking for inspiration on combining Persian calligraphy with animal shapes. The news itself is a couple of years old: back in 2006, an illustrated book of 10 Hafez poems had won the British Book Design & Production Awards in the literary category, thanks to the beautiful work of a talented British-Iranian artist Jila Peacock.

I can't wait to see the book for myself (I couldn't find it on amazon.ca), but judging from the snapshots I saw online and on Peacock's website the design is pretty stunning. Peacock has used the words in each poem (written in curvy and organic calligraphic style) to create outlines of shapes that symbolize the poem itself ; a deer, a lion, a peacock. This is no doubt a laborious task, but the results are beautiful and I'm glad that Peacock's efforts were recognized and rewarded.

You can see more of these shapes, as well as other artwork by Jila Peacock by visiting her website.

Incidentally, the same calligraphic series have been a subject of an animated film called "Tonge of the Hidden". I could only find this short clip of it online. Imagine peacock's creatures come to life on screen, a fantasia-esque series of moving pictures. I wish we could see more of this online, it seems to be very interesting. The director by the way is David Anderson.

If you are in Rhode Island, you can catch the film this Saturday at the Rhode Islan Film Festival.

As many other Persians, the first comic book I ever read (in my case, the first book) was a "Tintin" by the great Belgian artist "Herge". It was very interesting for me to notice a "Miniature" painting in one of the pages of "King Ottokars Sceptre". Later I read an article that even compared the characters in the book with Iranian king and his royal guard.
Also another icon of French-Belgian comic book arena, who explored the Persian culture was Jacques Martin. Martin collaborated with Herge on his Tintin Journal. Alix was hero of Martin's stories. In "Les Voyages d'Alix: Persepolis", Alix explores Apadana, the Hall of a Hundred Columns, Naghsheh Rostam and Pasargardae and many other splendid locations that are recreated by Jacques Martin. We are invited to discover what if felt like to live at the time of King Darius and Xerxes not only amongst the nobility but amongst the inhabitants of the great city.

Top: The Legendary Hergé and Jacques Martin creator of Alix collaborated for the Journal de Tintin a weekly magazine. Bottom: The Alix Album by Jacques Martin introduces life in Persepolis.

Gilles Chaillet worked with Martin on Alix before creating his own hero Vasco a medieval knight of the Middle Ages. Two of his adventures are set in Persia at the time of Bahram Gur when Persia and the Byzantine Empire were rivals. Poussière D'Ispahan aka Sands of Ispahan and Les Chiens de Bahram Ghur aka The Dogs of Bahram Gur.

In these books, Gilles Chaillet offers us magnificent and precise reconstructions of the splendid medieval towns of Shiraz and Isfahan. The life and customs, religious and political intrigues and mindset of that distant era come to life.

There might be a reason for this influence of Persian art and history on French comics. In 1873, Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar first modern Persian monarch to visit Europe. After that French Kings, President, diplomats, writers, historians and voyagers traveled to Persia and vice versa.

And the last artist, but not least, is the Persian-French Marjane Satrapi and her Persepolis comics that are explored thoroughly in this blog.

[images and some extracts courtesy of Darius Kadivar, for a more in depth look at Persian influences on French comic books see his great article here]

Editor's Note: Arash is a new contributor to Project 300. He is a computer engineer and he writes from Vancouver. Among his interests, comics probably outrank the rest, which include movies and miniature paintings.

I've breifly mentioned Rostam Comics in the past, but it definitely deserves its own post. Utilizing the comic-friendly stories of the Shah Nameh (see previous post), a team of LA entrepreneurs (Bruce Bahmani, Jamie Douraghy, and Cameron Douraghy) started a few years ago what is the first (and still, the only) action-hero comic book with Persian heros.

I am extremely picky when it comes to comics and there are only about a handful of comic artists in the wolrd whose work I fancy. I admit when I first saw images from the first Rostam comic a few years ago, I was a bit underwhelmed by the quality of the art. I was also disappointed that none of the artists working on the project came from a Persian background.

But it was only after I talked with Cameron last month that I truly realized the great value of these comics. It is easy to sit and pass judgement on some comic screenshots, but when you consider the huge financial burden of producing a comic book, the immense difficulty of finding Persian comic artists who would be willing to take on a huge project such as this, and the generally indifferent attitude of the Persian community towards comics, you realize that this project is to be supported and commended.

Besides that, having bought both comics (there are currently two issues available) and having seen them up close, I was delighted to see the major improvement in all aspects of the second comic compared to the first one (most notably in the area of coloring). I have no doubt that the third issue, which is to be released very soon, will be even better than the second and I can't wait to buy it when it comes out.

I recently found out about a fantastic project called the Shah Nameh (thanks to reader Sepehr) and I was very impressed by the undertaking.

Originally, the Shah Nameh or the "Book of Kings" is a 10th century epic poem written by Iranian poet Ferdosi, narrating stories of ancient Persian heroes and myths.

Project Shah Nameh, as its press release states "consists of a succession of four feature length films based on the original text by Ferdosi."

The man behind this project is Mehrdad Mojir-Shirazi, and Iranian raised in France who is self-admittedly getting in touch with his own heritage and aims to "revive a part of the Persian legacy along with its culture, lifestyle, and mysteries."

From the teaser it is apparent that the project is a mix of 3D animation with more traditional illustration techniques.

I'm digging the environment and background art. The character concept sketches also look wonderful, and I feel that a lot of their charm is lost in the 3D modelling.

Regardless, with a Persian director in charge, I feel a great deal of satisfaction in that we are finally in charge of telling our stories ourselves, allowing us to maintain historical and cultural accuracy. From the director's statement, it is apparent that his goal is to remain "faithful to the historical merits of the narrative and the Persian cultural identity (notably in terms of clothing and architecture)".

I can't wait to hear more about this and hopefully see the whole thing come out. Meanwhile, I have included some of the concept art here. To see the rest, check out the project's website.

You haven't lived until you've seen Ramin Rahimi's flash doodles. Many of us in the Persian webosphere have seen his cute 7-sin animation at one point or the other, usually through other websites that link to it. What most of us probably haven't seen is his other delicious doodles like the beautifully retro 7-sin 2 trailer, stylishly grotesque sensitivity, and the amazingly cinematic demo clips (one and two) for "the horrible story of a painter's death".

Seriously, check them out.

It's a huge shame that none of the image galleries on his website work. I would love to see more of his art.

In the past, attempts at fusing Jazz music with Persian sounds have been few and for the most part, unsuccessful. The two sounds just seem to clash and I have never heard a true Persian/Jazz blend that I had actually enjoyed listening to. That is until I heard from Babak Maddah.

I had interviewed Lloyd Miller, an Ameircan artist who used to live in Iran during the 70s, and his attempts at Persian Jazz a few years ago. Luckily Babak somehow found the interview and got in touch with me to let me know about his own attempts.

If you are a fan of Jazz and like me you've always yearned for hearing an enjoyable Persian/Jazz fusion, I strongly recommend that you check out Babak Maddah Group's myspace page and listen to some of their tunes.

Babak comes from the southern region of Iran, where the local music has strong Afro, Arab influences. He currently lives in Amsterdam where he graduated with a masters degree from the Amsterdam Conservatory in Jazz music and drums.

His Persian Jazz tunes seem to flow quite effortlessly. I particularly like the way he uses the Pesian Zarb percussion and blends it in with the prominently Jazzy foreground.

I saw Persepolis over the weekend. While I have mixed feelings about how it works as a movie, from an artistic point of view it was beautiful. Shabnam Rezaei of Persian Mirror has recently sat down with Marjan Satrapi (creator and co-director of Persepolis) for an interview which is definitely worth a read.

For many years there has been talks of a big-budget British production of Cyrus, the movie. After an initial hype (with such reports as it being the most expensive British movie ever made), the project seemed to wither away from public attention. But if the website of the production team is anything to go by, the project seems to still be alive. According to the website, the status on this film is: Finished Script, Treatment, Storyboards.

Here are some storyboards (courtesy of the chahayagroup website) you can check out:

Also of note is the cast wish-list:
Cyrus: Hugh Jackman, Ralph Fiennes, Jude Law,
Safron: Claire Forlani, Angelina Jolie
Kaleb: Edward Norton, Billy Zane
Astayages: Sean Connery
Harapagus: Luis Guzman, Ray Liota
Tando: Laurence Fishburne, Jean Reno
Shervin: Guy Pearce, Ethan Hawke
Ravin: Christian Bale, Robert Downey Jr.
Cambyses: Ben Kingsley, Daniel Day Lewis
Casadane: Liv Tyler, Tara Reid
Mandane: Ashley Judd

With a budget break-down of only $26,777,214 for the cast, the above wishlist seems as realistic as a winged bull.

Anyway, I have no idea how this is going to turn out (if it's ever made). One thing is for sure, movies with even slight references to ancient Persia have raised many controversies in the past. So making a movie about one of its most endeared historical figures, unless historically accurate, will have a very hard time pleasing Persian critics.

Speaking of which, I'm not digging the storyboard art too much.

update: oops! I just found out the last news item on that site is from 2003 and that the above information is at about five years old. I had never seen the storyboards before and they got me excited. So for the record, the project seems to be as good as dead!

Amin Fara(marzian) comes from an artistic family in Tehran. He is, as his website says, a "storyboard man, character designer, and animator". But he also has lots of illustrations and photography work on his site. His style is breathy and minimalistic, and is empowered by good composition. His website was frustratingly slow when I visited, but it's worth the wait. Check it out here.