Whanganui Film Society screens animated film Persepolis

Iranian film maker and graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi with her alter ego from Persepolis.

Animated film Persepolis is Whanganui Film Society's screening next Monday.
The 2007 film directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud is an adaptation of Satrapi's graphic novel.

The autobiographical tale is based around the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and Satrapi's escape to live in Europe where she could freely indulge her passions for punk, Iron Maiden, Michael Jackson and Abba.

The film was co-winner of the Jury Prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and was released in France and Belgium.

New Zealand International Film Festival critic Bill Gosden praised the film when it screened in 2008.

"Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis is one of the wonders of the last year, an animated feature that's more richly populated and more vigorous, succinct and shrewdly funny than many a flesh-and-blood drama," he wrote.

"Working with comic artist Vincent Paronnaud, expatriate Iranian Satrapi has adapted her own popular autobiographical graphic novels relating how she survived childhood under the Shah, adolescence after the Islamic revolution and early adulthood in Europe where her parents sent her for a liberal education."

The film is in English, Persian, French and German with English subtitles.

Film Society half-year memberships are available to purchase online at whanganuifilmsociety.org.nz at $45 or $40 discounted (for students, Gold Card holders and Community Service Card holders).

Memberships can also be purchased at the theatre before screenings.

Persepolis screens at Davis Theatre, Whanganui Regional Museum, Watt St, on Monday, August 20 at 7pm.