Cinema Celebration picks A House for You

The 11th edition of the Independent Celebration of Iranian Documentary Cinema has presented the best documentary award to ‘A House for You’.

Directed by Mehdi Bakhshi-Moqaddam and produced by Mehdi Shahmohammadi, the documentary is about Davoud who has been diagnosed with lung cancer; now his dream is to build a house for his beloved wife.

‘A House for You’ also brought Mohammad Haddadi the award for best cinematographer.

Best director award went to Mehrdad Zahedian for ‘It Is Winter’. The film is about Tehran’s Lalezar Street, which was considered as Iran’s Broadway during the 1950s and 1960s.

A special jury award was presented to director and producer Hadi Masoumdoust for ‘The Day That Went’. The film is about the historical structure of the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad, which has been destroyed by new urban planning projects over the past two decades.

The documentary also brought Masoumdoust the award for best research of the year. The award for best sound engineer was presented to Amir-Hossein Qasemi for his collaboration in ‘The Day That Went’.

The award for best film in the mid-length documentary category went to ‘The Little Owl’s Song’ co-produced by Mehdi Nourmohammadi and Sediqeh Khodaee. The doc is about two owls that live peacefully in a forest, but the calm is disturbed as man steps into the forest.

‘Goodbye Party’ brought best director to Loqman Khaledi. The film is about a 60-year-old house and art center sold due to the owner’s financial problems. The building is set to be demolished to make way for a tower; so the family and art students gather in the building to hold a goodbye party.

The award for best composer went to Habib Khazaeefar for the same film.

Esmaeel Monsef won the award for best editor for ‘Time’ directed by Maria Mawouti. It is about an Iranian man and his family who move to Turkey to start a new life, but an unexpected move separates him from his wife and children.

In the short documentary section, Mohammad-Reza Jahanpanah won best short documentary award for ‘The Hidden’ and Mina Mashhadi-Mehdi won best director award for ‘Where the Wind Blows’.

The Independent Celebration of Iranian Documentary Cinema is part of Iran Cinema Celebration.

The Iranian House of Cinema holds the celebration every year to commemorate Iran’s National Day of Cinema on September 12.

But this year’s celebration was slated for a few weeks earlier due to the coincidence of September 12 with the mourning lunar month of Muharram.

The 11th Independent Celebration of Iranian Documentary Cinema was recently held at the conference hall of the National Library and Archives of Iran.

MG/MG