Conversation: Filmmaker Ramin Bahrani

One night in Winston-Salem, N.C., a man gets into a cab, asks to be driven to a movie theater, and also arranges several days hence to be taken to a remote mountain peak. He's offering a lot of money and says he wants to be left there. The cab driver, a Senegalese immigrant named Solo, asks jokingly, "What are you going to do, jump off?" That's the starting point for the film, "'Goodbye Solo'":http://www.goodbyesolomovie.com, the third film by 34-year-old director Ramin Bahrani. The film won the Critic's Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 2008, and is just beginning to be seen in selected theaters around the country. Ramin Bahrani lives in New York and Winston-Salem, and he joined me by phone: