‘Yalda’ wins award at Sofia Int’l Film Festival

The 24th edition of the Sofia International Film Festival (SIFF) in Bulgaria has awarded Masoud Bakhshi’s feature film ‘Yalda’.  

Also written by Bakhshi, ‘Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness’ won the Special Mention for best screenplay at the Bulgarian film event. 

‘Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness’, a captivating drama co-produced with Luxembourg's Amour Fou and awarded in Sundance Film Festival, follows a young Iranian woman sentenced to death and seeking to obtain forgiveness from her accusers via a popular reality TV show.

‘Yalda’ starrs Behnaz Jafari and Faqiheh Soltani among others.

The 2019 production has been already honored with the Grand Jury Award at the 2020 International Dramatic Film at Sundance Film Festival in the US.  

So far, Bakhshi’s 89-min ‘Yalda’ has gone on screen at the 15th Panorama of Maghreb and Middle Eastern Cinemas in France, the 55th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) in the Czech Republic, the 3rd PyeongChang International Peace Film Festival (PIPFF) in South Korea, the 6th Iranian Film Festival of Zurich in Switzerland, the 2020 Mediterranean Film Festival Split in Croatia as well as the Sofia International Film Festival (SIFF) in Bulgaria.  

As the biggest film festival in Bulgaria, Sofia IFF provides a great platform for filmmakers to screen their film in front of press, industry, and audiences.

“The festival aims to present the best of the contemporary cinema to local audiences and regional Bulgarian and Balkan cinema to international audiences, as well as to encourage cooperation between local and international filmmakers,” noted by the event’s official website.

The 24th Sofia Film Fest took place on March 12-22, 2020.

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Chance-medley and beauty of forgiveness in ‘Yalda’

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