Afghan Oscar entry to vie at Swedish filmfest

Iran-Afghan movie ‘Rona, Azim’s Mother’ has been scheduled to compete at 2019 Gothenburg Film Festival in Sweden.

The film starring Iranian talented actor and comedian Mohsen Tanabandeh and directed by Afghan cineaste Jamshid Mahmoudi has been selected to compete at the Five Continents section of the 42nd edition of the Swedish film event.

‘Rona, Azim’s Mother’ that is set to be Afghan cinema’s Oscar entry this year has so far had a number of international presence and has also won awards including the Jiseok Award at the 23rd Busan International Film Festival in South Korea.

The 89-minute family drama shows an Afghan family that has lived in Iran for around 15 years as refugees. Azim as the eldest son is considered to be the family’s head and with that he has all the responsibilities for his folk.

On the movie we’ll see how Azim’s brother is about to illegally enter Germany leaving his mother who is recently diagnosed with diabetes behind. Once again the burden falls on Azim to take care of his ailing mother.

The film shows acutely distressing situation shared by many Afghans around the world in our time.

Mojtaba Pirzadeh, Fatemeh Hosseini, Fereshteh Hosseini, Fatemeh Mirzaei, Alireza Ostadi, Saeed Changizian and Mohsen Tanabandeh star in the movie.

Gothenburg Film Festival is the biggest film festival in the Nordic countries, according to the festival's official website. The event runs in ten days screening almost 450 films from about 80 countries.

The latest edition of the festival is slated to kick off on January 25 and end on February 4, 2019.

AA/FM