Melbourne hosting Iranian titles

Melbourne has been hosting the 9th edition of the Iranian Film Festival Australia (IFFA).

‘Zaferanieh’ by Seyyed-Ali Hashemi, ‘Alive’ (Life Hanging) by Hossein Doumari and Pedram Pour-Amiri, ‘Castle of Dreams’ by Reza Mirkarimi, ‘Repression’ by Reza Gouran, ‘Labyrinth’ by Amir-Hossein Torabi, as well as ‘Zero Floor’ by Ebrahim Ebrahimian are on the screening list of the festival.

The list goes on with ‘Old Men Never Die’ by Reza Jamali, ‘My Second Year in College’ by Rasoul Sadr-Ameli, ‘Symphony No.9’ by Mohammad-Reza Honarmand, ‘Oath’ by Mohsen Tanabandeh, ‘Tehran: City of Love’ by Ali Jaber-Ansari, and ‘Captain Khorshid’ by Nasser Taqvaee.

‘Oath’ will go on the Melbourne screen November 12 and ‘Symphony No.9’ is scheduled to hit the screen on November 13, 2019.

‘Oath’ tells the story of a woman, hell-bent on avenging her sister’s murder, who takes 50 men and women from her family on a bus trip to another town for them all to take an oath in front of a judge declaring her brother-in-law as the murderer. But the road has so many twists and turns.

Mahnaz Afshar, Saeed Aqakhani, Hassan Pour-Shirazi, and Mehran Ahmadi are on the movie’s cast list.

In ‘Symphony No.9’, Rahil is a surgeon and has lost her husband during surgery. She decides to kidnap her husband’s body and bury him next to his parents based on his will, although his husband’s family disagrees. On the way, Rahil confronts the Angel of Death and realizes she no longer has the chance to fulfill her husband’s wish. But surprisingly the Angel of Death in his last mission on earth falls in love with Rahil instead of transporting her soul and this is against the rules!

The movie stars Hamid Farrokhnejad, Sareh Bayat, Mohammad-Reza Foroutan, Mehrdad Seddiqiyan, Pejman Bazeghi, Hoda Zeynolabedin, Alireza Kamali, Marivin Vankhol, and Hamid Molana.

Commenced in 2011, the IFFA is the only nation-wide Australian Festival dedicated to Iranian Cinema. Its aim is to showcase a diverse range of the best and most interesting of current Iranian cinema, one of the world’s most exhilarating national cinemas, and through cinema to introduce Iranian culture to Australians.

The 9th IFFA was held on October 24-30 in Brisbane, November 1-3 in Canberra, October 31-November 6 in Sydney, and is underway on November 7-13 in Melbourne.

Perth and Adelaide will be the next destinations of this year’s IFFA which will come to an end on November 20.

MG/AG