'American Bull' wins at Bangladeshi festival

Iranian short film 'American Bull' by Fatemeh Tousi has won an award at the 2020 Dhaka International Youth Film Festival in Bangladesh.

The 1st round of the Dhaka Int’l Youth Film Festival bestowed the best film award on 'American Bull' from Iran.

The 14-minute short film, produced in 2019, follows the story of a teenage boy called Saheb who owns the only American bull of his village. Saheb earns a living by renting the bull to other bull owners for mating.

Ali-Akbar Sharhanzadeh is the sole cast member of ‘American Bull’ which has been produced in collaboration with the Iranian Youth Cinema Society.

'American Bull' has had many international screenings; the most notable of which was at the 65th Oberhausen Int’l Short Film Festival in Germany, the 27th Sguardi Altrove international women’s film festival in Italy, the 2019 Sapporo Short Film Festival in Japan and the 2019 Int’l Amateur Film Festival of Kelibia (FIFAK) in Tunisia.

The 2020 Dhaka International Youth Film Festival was launched through an online inaugural ceremony streamed on the website and Facebook page of the festival.

With an aim to provide new filmmakers with a platform to screen their works, the festival was inaugurated with acclaimed Bengali filmmakers as the guests of the virtual inauguration.

A group of young filmmakers from Bangladesh, India and Iran evaluated the submitted films and selected a total of 58 films from 25 countries.

This year’s edition of the festival took place on July 29-31.

MM/FM