Radio Dreams is a 2016 American film by Iranian-born film director

Babak Jalali Babak Jalali () is an Iranian–British film director and producer, notably directing '' Radio Dreams'', for which he won the Hivos Tiger Award at the 45th International Film Festival Rotterdam. Early life Jalali was born in Gorgan, Iran, and g ...

. Inspired by a group of real life Iranian

Metallica Metallica is an American heavy metal band. It was formed in Los Angeles in 1981 by vocalist and guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, and has been based in San Francisco for most of its career. The band's fast tempos, instrume ...

fans, calling themselves the ''Persian Magnetic'', and the realities of expatriate life of the

Iranian diaspora The Iranian diaspora (collectively known as Iranian Expatriate, expats or expatriates) is the global population of Demographics of Iran, Iranian citizens or people of Iranian descent living outside Iran. In 2021, the Ministry of Foreign Affair ...

in the United States. The film ''Radio Dreams'' won the 2016 Tiger Award at the

International Film Festival Rotterdam International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is an annual film festival held at the end of January in various locations in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, focused on independent and experimental films. The inaugural festival took place in June 1972, ...

, and Jalali won the Best Director Award at Andrey Tarkovsky Film Festival in Russia. In 2016 the film was shown at the 32nd

Warsaw Film Festival Warsaw Film Festival (; WFF), also known as Warsaw International Film Festival, is an annual international film festival held every October in Warsaw, Poland. The 40th edition of the festival will take place from 11 to 20 October 2024. Histor ...

in the "Discoveries" section.

Plot

Hamid Royani is the station manager at Pars-FM Radio, the Bay Area's premiere

Persian language Persian ( ), also known by its endonym and exonym, endonym Farsi (, Fārsī ), is a Western Iranian languages, Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian subdivision ...

radio station. As everyone at Pars-FM looks forward to a continuously delayed

jam session A jam session is a relatively informal musical event, process, or activity where musicians, typically instrumentalists, play improvised solos and vamp over tunes, drones, songs, and chord progressions. To "jam" is to improvise music without ...

by Afghan rock band Kabul Dreams with metal legends

, Royani despairs. As a respected man of the arts in his homeland, he must struggle against the commercial demands of the station's owners; erudite and eloquent in his own tongue, he must face the ups and downs of everyday life in a land where he can hardly speak the language.

Cast

Mohsen Namjoo Mohsen Namjoo () is an Iranian singer-songwriter, composer, and musician. His style of music is influenced by blues and rock as well as Iranian folk music. Early life and education Namjoo was born on 4 March 1976 in Torbat-e Jam, a small town ...

as Hamid Royani *

Lars Ulrich Lars Ulrich (; ; born 26 December 1963) is a Danish musician who is the drummer and a founding member of American heavy metal band Metallica. Along with James Hetfield, Ulrich has songwriting credits on almost all of the band's songs, and the ...

as himself * Boshra Dastournezhad as Maral Afshar * Kabul Dreams (Sulyman Qardash, Siddique Ahmed, Raby Adib) as themselves * Bella Warda as Sherbet * Mohammad Talani as Reza Gerami * Babak Mortazavi as Jamshid * Mahmood Schricker as Morad * Keyumars Hakim as Sohrab Afshar * Leila Shahrestani as Leila Shahrestani * Ali Tahbaz as Yashar * Mansur Taeed as Dr. Jim Rakhshandeh * Larry Laverty as TV reporter * Kyle Kernan as wrestling coach * Casimir Carothers as little drumming boy * Fat Dog as guitar salesman * Litz Plummer as opera singer

Production

, a producer of community documentaries, was looking to produce her first fictional feature and approached Babak Jalali to helm it. A personal friend of Mohsen Namjoo, Moghimi introduced him to Jalali; at the same time Kabul Dreams had just decided to relocate to the United States, and around these cast members the story was written. With a minimal budget of US$300,000, a virtue was made of necessity and the story that developed staged the action within the span of a day within the confines of a radio station. This setting in turn was to play a part in the lighting and camera setups used by

cinematographer The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the recording of a film, television production, music video or other live-action piece. The cinematographer is the chief of the camera ...

Noaz Deshe. The design of the film poster was made by design agency, Ceft and Company New York.

Reception

Neil Young of ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'' described the film as, "presenting a nuanced, intelligent and consistently droll take on hot-button subjects of immigration, identity and cultural assimilation..." and that it "stand comparison with the finest radio-themed enterprises of the current century..." Writing in ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'', critic Catherine Bray called the film a "quietly satisfying gem..." and a "deserving Tiger competition winner at Rotterdam..."

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* * *
''Radio Dreams'' at ''Reel Suspects'' (distribution company website)
{{Authority control (arts) 2016 films Iranian comedy-drama films Films set in the San Francisco Bay Area Films about radio Iranian-American films American comedy-drama films