The Global Lens series of films from around the world continues at Bates College with My Tehran for Sale by Iranian director Granaz Moussavi, showing at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 29, and at 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 1, at the Ronj, 32 Frye St.

Hosted by the Bates College Museum of Art, the series continues on Fridays and Saturdays throughout the fall. Admission is $5. Made in 2009, My Tehran for Sale is in Farsi and English with English subtitles (97 min.). For more information, please contact 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.

The Global Film Initiative produces the series in an effort to promote cross-cultural understanding through the medium of cinema by showing little-known, skillfully made independent films to American audiences. The initiative believes that “a powerful, authentic narrative can foster trust and respect between disparate cultures and mitigate the social and psychological impact of cultural prejudice.”

In this riveting insider’s perspective on life in Iran’s capital city, Marzieh — a terminally ill actress — wearily relates her desperate quest for political asylum through a series of interviews with an unsympathetic government official. Set against the backdrop of Tehran’s thriving arts culture, and framed through a series of artful and dramatic flashback sequences, Moussavi boldly registers the trials of a modern woman struggling to flourish in Iran’s contemporary political climate.

Marzieh recounts her struggle to work as an actress under Iran’s current regime, her hope for a future ultimately dashed by the devastating discovery of her illness, and her need to “escape” the only home she has ever known.

Born in Tehran, in 1974, Moussavi is the author of four collections of avant-garde poetry and has directed and edited several short films and documentaries. She received a degree in screen studies from Flinders University and a postgraduate degree in film editing from the Australian Film Television and Radio School. My Tehran for Sale is Moussavi’s first feature film.

In this photograph by Randy Goodman, William Worthy (center) sets up a question-answer session at a Tehran hotel with Hossein Sheikholislam (left) and Massoumeh Ebtekar (right), spokespeople for the students who held 52 U.S. diplomats hostage for 444 days.

Ebtekar, often interviewed by U.S. journalists during the crisis, was dubbed “Screaming Mary” by the media. Now a professor of immunology in Tehran, she talked to Matt Lauer of the Today Show last September about the status of women in her country. Sheikholislam, meanwhile, became Iran’s deputy foreign minister and ambassador to Syria.

As a journalist, Worthy was drawn to societies that had revolted against oppressive, U.S.-backed regimes. At the same time, he believed the U.S. media’s foreign coverage favored American interests. “You have to talk about the imperialist press when you talk about the mass media,” he told an MIT audience in 1973.

Perhaps because of this, Worthy had the U.S. government frequently nipping at his heels. In a well-publicized incident in the 1950s, he couldn’t get his passport renewed after traveling to off-limits China. To a Senate subcommittee investigating the affair in 1957, Worthy said, “I want my passport. And I want it now.”

Worthy, self-described as a pacifist and civil libertarian with a “rebel temperament,” never tired of the hassle nor wavered from a belief in the value of his work in a democratic society. For that, he recently received the Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism from Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism.

Photographer Randy Goodman traveled with Worthy and recalls that “he just never rested. Sometimes I’d just want to get something to eat,” she laughs.

Worthy did eat — often while working. One night in Iran, he interviewed Hossein Sheikholislam over dinner, seeking insights into both the crisis and Iran’s Islamic Revolution. As Worthy later reported in The Boston Phoenix: “Martyrdom is a concept very dear…. If one is killed in the struggle, one’s ideas live on, and one’s work is picked up and carried to fruition by others.”

Here’s the complete schedule:

May 1. Where is the Friend’s Home? Directed by Abbas Kiarostomi (Iran, 1989). A boy defies his parents by searching for a friend’s home to return a notebook so that the friend will not be expelled from school. Farsi with English subtitles.

May 8. The Circle. Directed by Jafar Panahi (Iran, 1999). Women at the bottom of Iran’s social ladder who have no male relatives to legitimize them land in trouble with the law, often for little reason. The movie was banned in Iran until it began winning film festival winning awards, including the Golden Lion at the 2000 Venice Film Festival. Farsi with English subtitles.

May 15. Guelwar. Directed by Ousmane Sembene (Senegal, 1992). When the body of a Christian is mistakenly buried in a Muslim cemetery, a black comedy of red tape, corruption and petty village conflict breaks out. Wolof with English subtitles.

May 22. Ceddo. Directed by Ousmane Sembene (Senegal, 1977). The kidnapping of a beautiful princess during the Muslim expansion leads to a clash between the Muslims and the Ceddo, a feudal class of common people. Wolof with English subtitles.

The series is hosted by the anthropology department and funded by a grant from the Christian A. Johnson Foundation.

Wilma M. Ellis, administrator general of the Baha’i International Community in New York, will discuss We the Peoples in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives. The public is invited to attend at no charge.

Ellis’ talk is part of the series Transnationalism and the United Nations After 50 Years.

An executive with the Baha’i International Community since 1986, Ellis served as co-president of the 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago and was the 1994 baccalaureate speaker at Stanford University.

Previously she was vice president for development and public relations at Spelman College and an executive with the Equitable Life Assurance Society.