Iran film to vie in Canadian fest

Award-winning Iranian film 'Yalda' has been scheduled to vie at the Vancouver International Film Festival.

Masoud Bakhshi's movie, which so far has had high-grossing screenings in Germany, will compete at the 39th edition of the Canadian event.

‘Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness’ will be screened in Cinema of Our Time section alongside works from first-time directors from around the globe.

The feature, which is a joint production of Iran, Switzerland, Germany, Lebanon and Luxembourg, follows the story of a young Iranian woman sentenced to death and seeking to obtain forgiveness from her accusers via a popular reality TV show.

She has killed her husband and now it is up to his only daughter to forgive her or not.

Behnaz Jafari, Faqiheh Soltani, Fereshteh Sadr-Orafaee, Bahram Afshar, Fereshteh Hosseini and Babak Karimi are among the cast members of the flick.

The Vancouver International Film Festival is one of the largest film festivals in North America. It is typically attended by over 100,000 people and features more than 300 films each year.

The festival showcases internationally-acclaimed and award-winning films as well as lesser known movies.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Vancouver 2020 will go online to observe the health protocols.

The 39th edition of the festival is slated for September 24 - October 7, 2020.

FM/MM