Iranian shorts win awards at Argentine labor film festival

Iranian shorts have won three awards at the 2019 Construir Cine International Labor Film Festival in Argentina.

‘The Respectful Gypsy’ by Mehdi Ghafouri received best short fiction award.

The 22-minute film is about a group of gypsy women packed like animals in the back of a truck, which goes to the city center every day to sell all kinds of goods and products to drivers who stop at traffic lights.

However, behind this itinerant street work, there is a man who runs the business and ends up taking most of the profits.

The male chauvinism, the constant debt, and the enslaving force of this practice mean that the vendors do not find economic freedom that will allow them to escape in the future from the circle of violence to which they are being subjected.

‘Breathing’ by Frashid Ayyoubinejad grabbed a mention of merit at the short fiction section.

The 13-minute flick tells the story of a group of Iranian men who, without medical care or protection from any regulatory body, earn their living working in a stone factory.

They have to hide each time the insurance agent arrives. Confined in a small room while waiting to return to their posts, those dissatisfied with their working conditions consider the idea of rebelling against the manager and leaving the job.

As the minutes pass, the tension in the bunker increases, claustrophobia spreads and the atmosphere thickens. One of them suffers an asthma attack, but little by little the air becomes scarce for everyone.

‘A Step to Go’ by Rebwar Mahmoudpour won a mention of excellence in the short documentary category.

The 23-minute documentary is about Saman, an Iranian boy who has to leave his parents’ house to take a new path and continue his studies outside the country. The definitive decision was a pivotal and painful fact for the family.

The sadness for Saman’s departure left his mother ten days without food and introduced an expectation to embrace him again that was put off more and more until reaching eight years.

This tearful and emotional documentary goes through the rendezvous of the family circle with that member who, for a long time, was present in the form of videos and photographs stuck in the corner of the house.

The Construir Cine is a one-of-a-kind festival in Argentina. Its primary purpose is finding and promoting films that address universal issues that affect workers around the world.

The 2019 edition of the event took place in the capital city of Argentina on May 2-15.

MG/MG