About the film Pearls on the Ocean Floor, directed by Robert Adanto:
Robert Adanto's Pearls on the Ocean Floor presents a who's who of contemporary Iranian women artists in frank and enlightening 1:1 interviews. His subjects - including artists such as Shirin Neshat and CJG gallery artist Taravat Talepasand challenge stereotypes and caricatures obscuring the vibrant and robust culture in Iran and its diaspora. Facing issues of identity, gender, and social restrictions, the artists featured in Pearls on the Ocean Floor speak with a compelling quiet reserve and a striking boldness. Their work reveals encounters between religion and secular modernity, change and tradition, contemporary life and history. These brave women know now more than ever that their voices must be heard and their people understood. Through their words and their art, the real Iran will be discovered and this important historical moment has been documented.
About Robert Adanto:
Robert Adanto's debut feature-length documentary film, The Rising Tide, explored China's meteoric march toward the future through the work of some of the Middle Kingdom's most talented photographers and video artists, including Wang Qingsong, Cao Fei, Xu Zhen, Yang Yong, Chen Qiulin and O Zhang. Shot in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen in the summer of 2006, this unflinching and incisive study captures the confusion and ambiguity that characterize the new China. "An often surprising and thought-provoking documentary," wrote WICN's Mark Lynch, "The rest of us better make an effort to grasp what their work is about, or get out of the way. An "eye-opener" in every sense of the word, if you are an artist, curator or art teacher be sure to catch this film." Richard Vine, Senior Editor, Art In America and author of New China, New Art, wrote, "If you want a living sense of China's contemporary art scene-and the artists who are shaking it up-check out Robert Adanto's "The Rising Tide." It reveals some of the brightest and best new talents, capturing their works, their words, and their faces amid a swiftly changing environment."