For this conversation, recorded in fall 2020, director Ramin Bahrani sat down with critic Hamid Dabashi, a former professor of his at Columbia University, to discuss the director’s early cultural and cinematic influences and their impact on MAN PUSH CART.
Inspired by the work of Abbas Kiarostami and other filmmakers of the Iranian New Wave, Ramin Bahrani drew on his Persian heritage for the 1998 short film presented here, about a young girl looking to challenge her grandfather to a backgammon match.