Duhok fest picks Iran director as juror

The 7th edition of the Duhok International Film Festival (Duhok IFF) in Iraq has picked acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Ida Panahandeh as a member of the jury panel.

The jury panel for the World Cinema category of the Duhok IFF is headed by the founder and CEO of Telescope Film and the senior programmer of the Seattle International Film Festival in the US, Justine Barda.

The other members of the World Cinema jury are Turkish filmmaker Mahmut Fazil Coskun, Danish producer Marie Schmidt Olesen, and Lebanese critic Hauvick Habechian.

The jury will judge ten films from Turkey, Sweden, France, Ukraine, Kosovo, Italy and some other countries.

The 6th Duhok IFF presented New Talents Award for World Cinema to Panahandeh for her feature ‘Israfil’.

She also won the Promising Future Prize at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival for ‘Nahid’ as well as some other international awards for her ‘Israfil’, including the NETPAC Award of the Iranian Film Festival Australia and two awards at the CineIran Festival in Canada.

‘Israfil’ is a meticulously constructed reflection on lost love, loneliness and life choices, viewed through the prism of three intersecting lives.

The 100-minute film starts with a fight that erupts at the funeral of Mahi’s young son – a successful wrestler who died suddenly in a car crash. Behrouz, a figure from Mahi’s past, has turned up to pay his respects.

An unexpected and unwelcome guest, he has returned after two decades in exile to sell his land and meet his fiancée Sara for the first time. Having spent a lifetime caring for her disabled mother, Sara is at odds with her brother about how to care for their mother and determined to take a step towards enjoying a life of her own. But Mahi and Behrouz’s reunion stirs up a painful past.

The flick features Pejman Bazeghi, Hedieh Tehrani, Merila Zarei and Hoda Zeinolabedin.

Click here to watch a highly admired music video on ‘Israfil’.

The Duhok IFF is an annual film festival held in Duhok, Iraqi Kurdistan Region. Each year the Duhok IFF presents new and exciting cinema from the Kurdish Cinema and beyond.

The 7th Duhok IFF is slated for September 9-16, 2019.

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