Iranian filmmaker receives US fest $5000 award

Afsaneh Salari, the director of ‘The Silhouettes’ and the producer of ‘The Forbidden String’, has won the Emerging Non-Fiction Filmmaker award at the 2021 Thin Line Festival in the US.

The value of the award bestowed to Salari is 5000 US dollars. According to Film Freeway website, “This award will go to the documentary filmmaker that shows the most promise for a successful career. Typically this would be a first-time feature filmmaker but it could also be a filmmaker that has a larger body of short film work”.

Both Salari’s documentaries are about Afghan migrants and have been internationally screened and praised.

Directed by Hassan Nouri, ‘The Forbidden Strings’ tells the story of four young Afghans who have been making music together for years, despite the disapproval of the people around them.

Akbar, Soori, Mohammed and Hakim, the children of some Afghan parents who fled to Iran in the 1980s, have formed a rock band.

Despite the danger they will face, they dream of performing in Afghanistan. They travel on a perilous route to get there and realize what they are up against soon after arriving.

‘The Silhouettes’ is about an Afghan family that had left their homeland 40 years ago to start a new life in Iran.

Now their son who is an engineering student wants to return to Afghanistan to live and work there, but the family opposes his plan.

Lunched in 2007, the Thin Line Film Festival is a blended event including documentary film, multi-genre music, and photography.

The event was held on March 23-28, 2021.

PR/MM