Iranian Director Massoud Bakhshi & 76 DAYS Director Hao Wu Up Next On Tom Needham's SOUNDS OF FILM

Hao Wu, the director of 76 DAYS, and Massoud Bakshi, the director of YALDA: A NIGHT OF FORGIVENESS, are Tom Needham's exclusive guests this Thursday on THE SOUNDS OF FILM.

YALDA: A NIGHT OF FORGIVENESS recently won the World Cinema Grand Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. The film is set almost entirely within the studio of Iran's most popular reality TV show, "Joy of Forgiveness." Maryam (Sadaf Asgari) is a young woman who has been sentenced to death for murdering her husband, and is seeking forgiveness.

Born in Tehran in 1972, Iran, Massoud Bakhshi has worked as film critic, scriptwriter and producer, before making 12 documentaries and short films which were awarded internationally. His first feature film A Respectable Family was selected at Cannes film festival 2012(Quinzaine des réalisateurs). YALDA is his second feature film.

On January 23rd, 2020, China locked down Wuhan, a city of 11 million, to combat the emerging COVID-19 outbreak. Set deep inside the frontlines of the crisis, 76 DAYS tells indelible human stories at the center of this pandemic-from a woman begging in vain to bid a final farewell to her father, a grandfather with dementia searching for his way home, a couple anxious to meet their newborn, to a nurse determined to return personal items to families of the deceased. These intimate stories bear witness to the death and rebirth of a city under a 76-day lockdown, and to the compassion and human resilience that persists in times of profound tragedy.

Hao Wu's documentary films have received funding support from The Ford Foundation JustFilms, ITVS, Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Institute, NYSCA and international broadcasters. His previous feature documentary, People's Republic of Desire, about China's live-streaming phenomenon, won the Grand Jury Award at the 2018 SXSW festival, among many other awards. It has screened at over 40 film festivals worldwide and broadcasted nationally on PBS Independent Lens.

THE SOUNDS OF FILM is the nation's longest running film and music themed radio show. For the past 30 years, the program has delivered a popular mix of interviews and music to listeners all over Long Island, parts of Connecticut and streaming live worldwide on the internet. Past people interviewed for the show include Jim Breuer, Cheech & Chong, Alec Baldwin, Billy Joel, William H. Macy, John Debney, Howard Shore, Kurtis Blow and Ralph Macchio.

Worldwide listeners can tune into the internet livestream of the SOUNDS OF FILM on Thursday at 6 pm EST at wusb.fm.