Lublin filmfest honors ‘Eleventh Step’

The 14th edition of the Lublin Film Festival (LFF) in Poland has presented an Honorary Award to Iranian short animation ‘The Eleventh Step’.

In a statement published by the organizers of the LFF, the jury said the award went to the movie “For a beautiful palette of colors and a wise story about going beyond your limits. We wish an eleventh step to everybody!”

Directed by Maryam Kashkoulinia and produced by the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (IIDCYA), the 11-minute animation has been made based on the story of Iranian children’s author Susan Taqdis with the same title.

“A little lion cub, born in a zoo, lives in a cage that is only ten steps long. On the eleventh step, he bangs his head against the bars, but one day the zookeeper leaves the cage door open; however, the lion cub never dares to take one more step toward its freedom,” a plot summary of ‘The Eleventh Step’ reads.

The 33rd International Film Festival for Children and Youth in Iran honored the animation with the Golden Butterfly for best animated short.

‘The Eleventh Step’ has also gone on screen at a number of global, including the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France, the Supertoon International Animation Festival in Croatia, the Zlin Film Festival in the Czech Republic, the Indie-AniFest in South Korea, the International Children’s Film Festival - Cinekid in the Netherlands, and the Sedicicorto Film Festival in Italy.

The LFF is “the most thematically, stylistically and formally varied, the most extensive international film festival in Lublin,” its website reads.

The festival is made by the film enthusiasts for film enthusiast to express themselves through independent cinema and reward those who do it best.

The 2020 edition of the LFF took place fully online, based in the Polish city of Lublin, on November 23-28.

MG/MG