Hong Kong fest awards Iranian 'Alien'

The 44th edition of the Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) has awarded Iranian short ‘Namo’ (Alien).

The Best Actor award of the event went to Bakhtiyar Panjehee for his appearance in the Iranian film, the HKIFF44 announced on Thursday.

Panjehee has also received the same award at the 66th edition of the Taormina Film Fest in Italy.

Directed by Nader Saeevar, ‘Namo’ narrates the story of a family who has to move to Kordestan Province in  Iran because of the father's profession who is a teacher. The film follows their life in the new environment.

Some of the cast members are Sevil Shirgir, Nader Mehdilou, Nasser Hashemi, Hadi Eftekharzadeh, Firouz Aqeli and Tara Aqajani.

The HKIFF promotes Asian, Hong Kong and Chinese film culture. The festival aims to discover new areas of filmmaking in Asia and China.

Some competitive sections of the festival such as Firebird Awards and FIPRESCI Prize were held with online judging and the winners were announced on August 20.

The 14-day event was formerly scheduled to take place in March, but it has been postponed, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, to begin on August 18.

MG/AG