Croatian film festival honors Iranian short ‘Gaze’

Iranian short ‘Gaze’ has won the Golden Pram Award at the 16th edition of the Zagreb Film Festival in Croatia.

The Iranian short piece shared the award with Serbian feature film ‘The Load’ by Ognjen Glavonić.

Directed by Farnoush Samadi, ‘Gaze’ is about a woman who witnesses something happening inside a bus while commuting back home from work. She has to decide whether to reveal it or not, according to the website of the festival.

The 15-minute fiction film recently grabbed the Audience Award at the 36th Uppsala International Short Film Festival in Sweden and went on screen at the 60th Zinebi International Festival of Documentary and Short Films in Spain.

Written by Ali Asgari, the short film has so far represented Iran at a number of globally acclaimed film festivals, including the 70th Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, the 34th Tehran Short Film Festival in Iran, and the 31st American Film Institute Festival in the US.

‘The Load’, co-produced by Iranian producer Pouria Heydari-Oureh, deftly navigates politically complex grounds with exacting form and content, the horrors of war redefine the seeming banality of everyday life. Dreams of the future exist against all odds in the exquisite and humane film.

The Zagreb Film Festival has from the very beginning been focused on promotion and presentation of film debuts and emerging filmmakers.

The 16th Zagreb Film Festival took place on November 11 to 18 in Zagreb. The festival offered more than a hundred screenings, films and programs.

MG/AG