Ashkan

Ashkan (Persian: اشكان‎‎, also Romanized as Ashkān) is a common first name, mostly in Iran. It has roots in the ancient Persian male name Ashk commonly used in Parthian Empire (Ashkanian) in ancient Iran. The name translates to "Parthian King".

Ashkan is also the name of a village in Gowharan Rural District, Gowharan District, Bashagard County, Hormozgan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 223, in 45 families.

References

Assistant director

The role of an Assistant Director on a film includes tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, and maintaining order on the set. They also have to take care of the health and safety of the crew. The role of an Assistant to the Director is often confused with Assistant Director but the responsibilities are entirely different. The Assistant to the Director manages all of the Director's in development, pre-production, while on set, through post-production and is often involved in both personal management as well as creative aspects of the production process. Historically, Assistant to Director was a stepping stone to directing work; Alfred Hitchcock was an AD, as was James McTeigue. This transition into film directing is no longer common in feature films. It is more common now for an Assistant to the Director to transition to a production management or producer role than to directing. In America, an Assistant to the Director is not a unionized role, but Assistant Directors of every level require membership to the Director's Guild of America. The DGA strictly monitors and regulates employment frequency and duration, salary, and promotions of Directors and are usually completely different from the requirements of filmmaking and should not be confused.

Mania Akbari

Mania Akbari (Persian: مانيا اکبری ‎‎, born 1974) is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker, actress, artist and writer whose works mostly deal with themes of sexual identity, women, marriage, abortion, infidelity and lesbianism. Her style, unlike the long tradition of melodrama in Iranian cinema, is rooted in modern visual arts and the avant-garde. Akbari, because of the themes discussed in her films and her opposition to censorship, is considered as one of the most controversial filmmakers in Iran. As an actress, she is probably best known for her role on Abbas Kiarostami's Ten.

Biography

Mania Akbari was born in 1974 in Tehran, Iran. Her artistic activities, as a painter, started in 1991 when she took part in various exhibitions in Iran, as well as abroad.

Later she was exposed to cinema by working as a cinematographer and assistant director in documentary films.

In 2002, Akbari and her son, Amin Maher, and her sister, Roya Akbari appeared in front of Abbas Kiarostami's camera for a documentary called 10. The following year Akbari directed her debut film, a documentary called Crystal. In 2004, she wrote, acted in and directed her first feature-length film 20 Fingers, which won the best film prize at the Venice Film Festival's Digital Cinema section.

List of True Blood episodes

True Blood is an American television drama series created by Alan Ball and based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries (also known as The Sookie Stackhouse novels) by Charlaine Harris. It aired on HBO from September 7, 2008 to August 24, 2014. A total of 80 episodes of True Blood were broadcast over seven seasons.

The series revolves around Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), a telepathic waitress who is living in the rural town of Bon Temps, Louisiana two years after the invention of a synthetic blood called Tru Blood that has allowed vampires to "come out of the coffin" and allow their presence to be known to mankind. Now they are struggling for equal rights and assimilation, while anti-vampire organizations begin to gain power. Sookie's world is turned upside down when she falls in love with 173-year-old vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) and for the first time must navigate the trials, tribulations and terrors of intimacy and relationships. Other characters include Tara Thornton (Rutina Wesley), Sookie's tough-talking best friend, her womanizing brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten), thousand year old vampire and Sheriff of Area 5, Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgård), and her shape-shifting boss Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell). True Blood follows a serialized format, with every episode ending on a cliffhanger that leads directly into the next. Episode titles are taken from the name of a song that appears on the soundtrack of that episode.