Arts and Entertainment

Docunight film to take place in alternate location on Oct. 3

Credit: Penn StateCreative Commons

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — For the October showing of Docunight: Iran Via Documentaries, the film “Poets of Life” will be presented at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 3, in W315 Pattee Library on the University Park campus. Future screenings will resume in November in Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library — the series' usual monthly location.

“Poets of Life” (2017), a selection from the Karestan Documentary Film Series directed by Shirin Barghnavard, will be shown in Persian with English subtitles, and follows activist and sustainable farmer Shirin Parsi as she attempts to bring social and environmental change to her community and the world.

Docunight is an initiative to encourage cultural exchange and understanding of Iran through screenings of documentary films about, around or in Iran, or made by Iranians. Co-sponsored by the Iranian Student Association and Penn State University Libraries, Docunight events are free and open to the public.

Docunight screenings began in the United States in February 2014 with events in Los Angeles and San Francisco and now take place in more than 20 cities across North America. Organized by the efforts of Ahmad Kiarostami, an entrepreneur who has worked in cinema and software for nearly three decades, Docunight was a collaborative initiative in all American cities with the National Iranian American Council. Kiarostami’s hope was to create opportunities for cultural exchange and provide proper context for a foreign audience to better understand Iranian society through prominent documentaries.

For more information on the event, or for questions about accommodations or the physical access provided, contact Mark Mattson, global partnerships and outreach librarian, at 814-863-2480 or mam1196@psu.edu in advance of your visit.

Last Updated October 31, 2018