Radio Dreams


Radio Dreams is a 2016 United States-Iranian film by Iranian born film maker Babak Jalali. Inspired by a group of real life Iranian Metallica fans, calling themselves the Persian Magnetic, and the realities of expatriate life of the Iranian diaspora in the United States, Radio Dreams won the 2016 Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and Jalali won the Best Director Award at in Russia. In 2016 the film was shown at the 32nd Warsaw Film Festival in the "Discoveries" section.

Plot

Hamid Royani is the station manager at Pars Radio, the Bay Area's premiere Persian language radio station. As everyone at Pars looks forward to a continuously delayed jam session by Afghan rock band Kabul Dreams with metal legends Metallica, 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

Marjaneh Moghimi, 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 Noaz Deshe. The design of the film poster was made by Alexis Ink, an illustrator hired by design agency . Art Direction completed by Christian Hamrick.

Reception

Neil Young of The Hollywood Reporter 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, critic Catherine Bray called the film a "quietly satisfying gem..." and a "deserving Tiger competition winner at Rotterdam..."

Awards and nominations