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LISA MULLINS: The US has not had diplomatic ties to Iran since the Islamic Revolution 30 years ago. Relations have been especially strained in recent years, largely over Iran's nuclear program. But a team of nine Hollywood actors and movie industry officials is in Tehran today on a good will mission. The delegation includes actresses Annette Benning and Alfre Woodard, and the President of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Sid Ganis. Mr. Ganis spoke with us as he and his colleagues were joining some Iranian filmmakers for a meal.

SID GANIS: We are having dinner with 40 documentarians visiting with us. Members of the Academy, actors and directors and writers and executives and producers from America.

MULLINS: Well, let me ask you this, Mr. Ganis. With all the tension that's going on right now between Iran and not just the US, but the international community pretty much as a whole, what is the impulse for you and the people, including actors and actresses that you're with right now, to talk to Tehran about filmmaking cooperatively with the US? Why now?

GANIS: Well, simply, you know, film and the art of film, transcends political issues, it's about art. So we're here to talk to our fellow artists. And in the four days now that we've been here, it turns out that film artist to film artist, we're finding amazing similarities exactly halfway around the world. And you know, we're not here to negotiate treaties, we're here to talk about movies.

MULLINS: One of the things that the Iranian government has been saying, at least that we've heard on this end, is that in denouncing the meeting that you're having, they've said that Hollywood needs to apologize for “insulting the Iranian nation” with films that they believe that have denigrated Iran. One of them I think was mentioned was, back in 1991, the film “Not Without My Daughter”, a Sally Field film about a woman trying to escape Iran where she's trapped by her husband's family. This is one of the films they have objected to. That kind of image of Hollywood, at least – are you finding yourself having to defend what Hollywood has done in the past regarding Iran as a subject?

GANIS: The answer to that is no. People want to know sometimes why actors get paid so much as they do in Hollywood, not the political issue and not content, because the Iranian filmmakers produce as edgy content as American filmmakers and British filmmakers and French filmmakers. They do. You know, they do it under different circumstances, but they do produce movies that are controversial. So nobody has in any way directly, or even indirectly, except in the press and this one gentleman who we understand it is an advisor to the government – nobody's said anything. Annette Benning is too busy talking to other actors and actresses and so is Alfre Woodard. And I'm too busy as a producer and the head of the Academy you know, explaining what the Oscar process is. Nope. This is all about film. No politics whatsoever.

MULLINS: All right. Mr. Ganis, thank you very much. Speaking to us from Tehran, that's Sid Ganis, who is the President of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Very nice to speak with you.

GANIS: You're welcome.

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