Cinema Verite to screen ‘As a Soldier’ on Leader’s accounts

The 14th edition of Cinéma Vérité, Iran’s major international festival for documentary films, is to screen a documentary named ‘As a Soldier’ that presents Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei’s accounts of the first year of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

‘As a Soldier by Mehdi Naqavian is made using archival footage from Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting and several other organizations, mostly due to the limitations the pandemic has imposed on documentarians.

Naqavian said in a press release on Saturday that he made this film because there are few documentaries providing information about the war in its beginning year.

“In addition, the information has been extracted from the Leader’s memories of the war, and this makes the documentary unique and more compelling,” he added.

“This film is based on the Leader’s accounts of the war and it makes the job more sensitive, because the film should not create an improper perception of the event,” the filmmaker noted.

The 14th Cinema Verite will be running online from December 15 to 22 in Tehran.

A lineup of documentaries praised at various international film events across the world will be screened in the World’s Best section of Cinema Verite.

Among the films are ‘Rockfield’ by Hannah Berryman from England, ‘Tony Driver’ by Ascanio Petrini from Italy, ‘Two Roads’ by Radovan Sibrt from Czech and ‘Acasa, My Home’ by Radu Ciorniciuc from Romania.

The World’s Best section of the festival will also review the Russia and Qatar co-production ‘Froth’ and Dutch documentary ‘Punks’.

MM/FM