Nine Arbaeen march titles apply for 12th Cinema Verite

The 12th Cinema Verite, Iran’s major documentary film festival, has received nine films on the Arbaeen march.

Announcing the news on Sunday, the organizers said 'The Guest' by Masoud Dehnavi, 'The Fortieth Day' by Hamid Kouhpaei, 'The Lovers’ Gathering' by Hamed Koljei and 'Maternal Logistics' by Yazdan Parvandeh are among the submissions.

The religious ritual of Arbaeen is performed to observe the end of the 40-day mourning period following the martyrdom of the third Shia imam, Imam Hussein (AS), and his loyal companions on Ashura. Arbaeen falls on October 30 this year.

In order to visit the holy shrines of Imam Hussein (AS) and his brother Hazrat Abbas (AS), pilgrims from various Iranian cities start their journey to the Iraqi city of Karbala (mostly on foot) a few days before Arbaeen.

Organized by the Documentary and Experimental Film Center, the first edition of Cinema Verite was held in 2007.

Over the past decade it has emerged as one of the important events on Iran's documentary film calendar.

The Cinema Verite aims at protecting the nation's identity, promoting creative documentary, reinforcing the link between documentary cinema and social facts and events, introducing new global developments in documentary cinema, providing financial support for documentarians by distributing and screening their works in other festivals and removing hurdles to film production.

The 12th edition of the Cinema Verite is slated for December 9-16, 2018, in Tehran.

MG/AG