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Goodbye Solo

Directed by Ramin Bahrani

Backgammon

Directed by Ramin Bahrani
Director in Person
Screening on Film
$10 Special Event Tickets

00:00 / 00:00
      Goodbye Solo introduction and post-screening discussion with Haden Guest and Ramin Bahrani.

      PROGRAM

      • Goodbye Solo

        Directed by Ramin Bahrani.
        With Souleymane Sy Savané, Red West, Diana Franco Galindo.
        US, 2008, 35mm, color, 91 min.

      Bahrani’s latest film tells the story of the friendship that reluctantly grows between an improbable pair—a Senegalese taxi driver living and working in North Carolina and an aging curmudgeon who hires the cabbie to leave him on a desolate mountain far out of town without telling him why. Filmed in Bahrani’s native Winston-Salem, Goodbye Solo reveals the director’s fascination with the increasingly multicultural patterns of American life by focusing on the group dynamic between the African driver, his Mexican girlfriend, her spirited bilingual daughter and the Southern retiree. Buoyed by the irrepressible performance of first time actor Souleymane Sy Savané, Goodbye Solo’s intense character study offers a cross between Kiarostamian observation and Cassavetian intensity, marrying two of Bahrani’s key influences. Leaving behind the urban grit of Bahrani’s two previous films, Goodbye Solo captures an autumnal lyricism that imbues the friendship of the protagonists with a poignant melancholy.

      • Backgammon

        Directed by Ramin Bahrani.
        With Sheema Regimand, Manucher Marzban.
        US, 1998, 16mm, color, 10 min.
        English and Persian with English intertitles.

      In this early short film, Bahrani already shows his ability to convey character subtly by integrating image and performance. A young Iranian American girl looks to backgammon as a way to get to know her grandfather, recently arrived from Iran. Bahrani uses this simple encounter to illustrate the intersections of family and nationality, the generation gap and cultural difference.

      Part of film series

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      The Films of Ramin Bahrani, or Life at Street Level

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      Jessica Sarah Rinland’s Collective Monologue

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      David Lynch, New Dimensions

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      Albert Serra, or Cinematic Time Regained

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