Kerala screening Iran’s ‘6.5 per Meter’

The 24th edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) in India has been screening Iranian ‘6.5 per Meter’ (Just 6.5).

Directed by Saeed Roustaee, ‘6.5 per Meter’ is a social drama that deals with the issue of illegal drug trade and trafficking.

The city is brimming with drug addicts, many of whom are homeless. Samad, a member of Anti-Narcotics Police Task Force, is looking for a drug kingpin, Nasser Khakzad. After several operations, Samad manages to track him down at his penthouse, where he’s committed suicide but is still alive.

Nasser goes through legal steps that lead to his death penalty and execution, but along the way, Samad comes to realize that Nasser was drawn to this path because of broken down social conditions, imposed on him. Nasser is ultimately executed, and Samad who has been promoted to the station chief, resigns from his post. He has come to believe all the arrests and executions in all these years, did not have any effect on society’s drug problems. The end result of all the violence has been that the number of addicts has gone from one million to 6.5 million!

Payman Maadi, Navid Mohammadzadeh, Parinaz Izadyar, Houman Kiaee, Farhad Aslani, Marjan Qamari, and Mohammad Ali Mohammadi are on the cast list of the 134-minute movie.

Premiered at the 37th Fajr Film Festival in Iran, the film was screened at several global events, including the 76th Venice International Film Festival in Italy, the 35th Warsaw International Film Festival in Poland, the 2019 Chicago International Film Festival in the US, the 43rd Sao Paulo International Film Festival in Brazil, the 50th International Film Festival of India, the 60th Thessaloniki International Film Festival in Greece, and the 17th Chennai International Film Festival in India.

‘6.5 per Meter’ opened the 15th Zurich Film Festival in Switzerland where it won the jury special mention.

“Samad is nobody’s fool. The narcotics officer has seen his share of a drug dealer’s lies and games, and his patience has come to run thin. While searching for the infamous drug baron Nasser Khakzad, he and his colleague Hamid scour the streets of Tehran, turning an overcrowded prison on its head ... Director Saeed Roustaee landed a huge Iranian box office hit with his second directorial work. This great action thriller is far more than just a fast-paced, skillfully staged cat-and-mouse game,” the Zurich Film Festival’s website praised the 135-minute ‘6.5 per Meter’.

‘6.5 per Meter’ also inaugurated the 32nd Tokyo International Film Festival in Japan where Roustaee received Best Director award and Mohammadzadeh won Best Actor award.

The movie was also nominated at the 13th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) in Australia.

Iranian actress Fatemeh Motamed-Arya has been chosen as the chairperson of the jury panel at the 24th IFFK in India.

The Indian event is also screening ‘Castle of Dreams’ by Reza Mirkarimi and ‘The Warden’ by Nima Javidi, both from Iran.

The IFFK is one of the prominent film festivals in India. The event has come to be known as Asia’s best managed and probably the world’s most people-centered film festival.

The festival hosts renowned directors, technicians and spectators from around the world. It aims to present a selection of the best international films.

The IFFK has an exclusive competitive section for films from Asian, African and Latin American countries.

The 24th edition of the IFFK has been slated for December 6-13, 2019.

MG/MG