Fajr filmfest to honor deceased scholar Akbar Alemi

The 40th edition of the Fajr Film Festival (FFF) in Iran has been set to pay tribute to the late film scholar Akbar Alemi.

The late cinematic figure will be commemorated with speeches by Seifollah Samadian and Shahbeddin Adel on the subject of “Everlasting Education in Cinema” at Tehran’s Milad Tower during the FFF.

Alemi died of COVID-19 at the age of 75. He was the dean of the Animation Department at Tehran’s Tarbiat Modares University, one of the documentary making pioneers in the country, and a promoter of modern methods in documentary genre.

Making some TV programs, including ‘Other Side of the Coin’, ‘Seventh Art’, and ‘Beyond Cinema’ during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the late scholar helped revive academic cinema while it was about to fade away in the country.

Active as writer and translator many books, he was a jury member at several Iranian and international film and animation festivals.

Presided over by Masoud Naqqashzadeh, the 40th FFF will take place in Tehran on February 1-11, 2022 in two cultural and competitive sections.

The FFF coincides with the Ten-Day Fajr ceremonies across Iran, marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Since its establishment in 1982, the FFF has played a vital role in the development of Iranian Cinema.

Supervised by Iran’s Ministry of Culture, the festival hosts veteran directors and new filmmakers from Iran every year.

MG/MG