Pearls on the Ocean Floor to Screen at Pacific Design Center, 8687 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, CA. on April 26th. “With so much impressive art to draw on, this film is a visual treat, but what really elevates it as a documentary is the strength of the interviews - strong voices with sometimes clashing agendas, each offering a unique perspective on a country “which seems to have a revolution every 30 years.” Iran is in flux and none of the women speaking here is sure what the outcome will be, though many are hopeful. It’s often said that suffering makes a great artist, and this film suggests that the suffering of a nation can have a similar effect.” Film critic Jennie Kermode in Eye For Film Design Loves Art is pleased to announce: PEARLS ON THE OCEAN FLOOR Directed by Robert Adanto Silver Screen Theater Pacific Design Center Tuesday, April 26 at 7:30pm RSVP at kauaikind@gmail.com Robert Adanto's Pearls on the Ocean Floor will screen at The Pacific Design Center on Thursday, April 26th at 7:30 pm. The evening will also feature a post-screening discussion with leading Iranian academics, including Vassar sociologist Farzin Vahdat and UCI Professor Nasrin Rahimieh. Robert Adanto’s Pearls on the Ocean Floor, a thought-provoking, feature-length documentary lifts the veil on Iranian female artists, by examining the lives and works of leading visual artists living and working in and outside the Islamic Republic. This unflinching and incisive study, featuring interviews with art luminaries Shadi Ghadirian, Shirin Neshat, Parastou Forouhar and others, captures the uncertainty of this momentous time in Iran’s history. Speaking with grace and honesty, these brave women express what is seldom seen in the western media: unique individual perspectives regarding issues of identity, gender, and the the role Art plays in challenging the traditional stereotypes often associated with women in Iran. The post-screening panel will include: Farzin Vahdat is a sociologist interested in notions and conditions of modernity and their applications to Iran, Islam and the Middle East. He is the author of God and Juggernaut: Iran's Intellectual Encounter with Modernity (Syracuse University Press, 2002) as well as the forthcoming book, Islamic Ethos and the Specter of Modernity which deals with some Iranian and non-Iranian Islamic intellectuals and their discourses in relation to the forces of the modern world. Vahdat has taught at Tufts, Harvard and Yale Universities and Vassar College and is currently conducting research at Vassar. Nasrin Rahimieh’s research has focused on intercultural encounters between Iran and the West, modern Persian literature, literature of exile and displacement, women’s writing, and post-revolutionary Iranian cinema. Her publications include Oriental Responses to the West: Comparative Essays on Muslim Writers from the Middle East (Brill, 1990) and Missing Persians: Discovering Voices in Iranian Cultural Heritage (Syracuse University Press, 2001).