Polish Edukino fest to screen ‘Where the Winds Die’

Iranian short animation ‘Where the Winds Die’ with a theme upon Iraq’s 1987 chemical attack on the Iranian town of Sardasht in West Azarbaijan has been selected to go on screen at the 13th Films Against War Festival (Edukino) in Poland.

Directed by Pejman Alipour, the 13-minute film will compete at the 2022 Polish film event along with Iranian short flick ‘Doll’.

Produced by the Documentary and Experimental Film Center (DEFC), ‘Where the Winds Die’ is a symbolic and formalistic animation.  

“Sardasht, a Kurdish city in Iran is the first city in the world to be victim of chemical weapons with mustard gas bombs. This creative film is about before/ after the bombing, the post-war effects and the impact on daily lives – loves and families. It is a creative concept showing everything through the metaphor of reflections and utilizing a unique animation style,” writes the event’s official platform.

“The film has a poetic look at the daily life in Sardasht three months before the chemical attack, the moment when the attack happened and years after the tragedy,” Alipour describes his movie.

The former dictator of Iraq bombarded Sardasht with chemical weapons on June 28, 1987, killing more than 1,000 and injuring more than 8,000 civilians, many of whom were permanently disabled.

The flick is also the recipient of the best human rights award at the Music Film Festival in France, the best animated film award at the 6th online monthly Filmmaker's Space Film Festival and the best short animation award at the 9th Fantastic Film Festival – Galacticat in Spain.  

The film has already been on screen at a number of global events, including the 32nd MEDIAWAVE International Film and Music Gathering in Hungary, the 32nd World Festival of Animated Film (Animafest Zagreb) in Croatia, the 17th Athens ANIMFEST in Greece, the Chaniartoon Int’l Comic & Animation Festival in Greece and the 12th Kaohsiung International Film Festival in Taiwan.

The theme of the Edukino festival is war in the broad sense of the word. The event aims for its audience to see the war in full focus and from different perspectives – to become aware not only of the atrocities and consequences of it between nations, but also of the actions, phenomena and mechanisms that lead to conflicts and fuel them, as well as such that may extinguish them.

This year’s edition of the fest is set for September 22-23.

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