DEFC holds record as Iranian top award winner

The Documentary and Experimental Film Center (DEFC) has produced the highest international award-achieving movies during the last Iranian calendar year.

According to media reports, DEFC productions succeeded to grab a total of 39 awards at over 130 international film events from March 21, 2019 to March 20, 2020.

Yasser Talebi’s ‘Beloved’, about an 82-year-old woman who prefers a hard, solitary herder’s existence with her cows to a more comfortable life among people, is the first top honory title which is the recipient of 21 awards.

The 63-minute documentary took the first place among the top five mid-length films selected by the Canadian audience at the 26th Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto.

It also received the best photography award and the High School Students Award at the Journey Section of the 14th Sole Luna Doc Film Festival in Italy.

To know more about ‘Beloved’ honors, click here.

‘Finding Farideh’, Iran’s submission to the 2020 Oscars, which is about a Netherland-based Iranian woman who was adopted by a Dutch couple forty years ago and returns to Iran to search for her family, is DEFC’s second most honorable production.  

Among the honors the film won was the best film award at the 1st edition of the Nostalgia Film Festival in Italy.

Co-directed by Azadeh Mousavi and Kourosh Atai, ‘Finding Farideh’ was named best documentary at the 5th Herat International Women’s Film Festival in Afghanistan.

Sam Kalantari’s 2019 multiple award-winning documentary film ‘No Place for Angels’ about the national Iranian women’s hockey team is also the most honored documentary of the center.

Directed by Sam Kalantari, the film received the special jury award at Cinéma Vérité, Iran’s major documentary film festival, which is organized by the DEFC in Tehran every year.

It also won Crystal Simorgh for Best Documentary Film at the 38th Fajr Film Festival in Tehran.

DEFC productions have also won 48 awards at Iranian events over the past Iranian calendar year.

The Documentary and Experimental Film Center (DEFC) is the main center for production, distribution and promotion of documentary, animated and experimental pictures in the Middle East.

In the past 12 months, DEFC has produced nearly 120 documentary titles and ten animated pictures.

DEFC is also actively involved in documentary co-production projects with international producers and TV channels.

MM/FM