Fadjr Theater fest to honor stage elites

The 39th edition of the Fadjr International Theater Festival (FITF) has scheduled to honor four Iranian theater elites with lifetime achievement awards.

The festival director Hossein Mosafer-Astaneh said veteran photographer of theater Akhtar Tajik, theater critic Homayoun Aliabadi, veteran actor Bahram Ebrahimi, and prominent actor Jamshid Davarpanah are the four veterans who will be honored.

“Among all the arts, the art of theater is the only one that has played a major role in helping people feel at peace,” he added.

The festival director noted that “Due to the current situation of coronavirus restrictions and the pandemic in the world, the big loss was for the theatrical figures, and they could not produce or perform their theatrical productions.”

“However, they have tried to produce some new plays to inject happiness and hope to into the life of the public. I believe they have tried as hard as the health staff and those who fought hard during the eight years of the Iraq-Iran war,” Mosafer-Astaneh also said.

He explained that due to the limited number of visitors and the halls, some of the plays could not find their ways into the festival this year.

A total of 28 plays have been selected for the national competition section of the 39th FITF.

The lineup includes ‘Pandemic’ by Reza Pourtorabzadeh, ‘Bob Bara’ by Nima Imanzadeh, ‘Awakening in Time of Blood’ by Ehsan Janami, ‘Growing’ by Shoaib Maktabdari, ‘Reboot’ by Amir-Hossein Ajir-Arshad, ‘Uninvited’ by Alireza Mahmoudi, ‘I Am Staring at the Sea so No One Takes It Away’ by Hassan Sobhani, ‘The Ring’ by Nesa Soleimani, ‘General’ by Saeed Badini, ‘Soldier of the Commander’ by Amin Pourmand, ‘Commander of the Shrine’ by Amir Amini, ‘Messenger’ by Hessameddin Iranmanesh, ‘No One Is a Man like You’ by Behnam Kaveh, and ‘When Hell Freezes Over’ by Mehrdad Kavous-Hosseini.

The list goes on with ‘Smoking Room’ by director Saeed Zarei, ‘Pinocchio’ by Mohammad-Reza Mahmoudi, ‘Bodies’ by Alireza Maroufi, ‘Rashomon’ by Ehsan Abdolmaleki, ‘Bloody Tuesdays’ by Mohammad-Mehdi Khatami, ‘Naskh’ by Amir-Hossein Ghaffari, ‘Those Years’ by Bahareh Saeedinia, ‘His is Champion Akbar’ by Mostafa Dehdasht and Bahar Bordbar, ‘Cocoon of the Revolution’ by Pouya Emami, ‘Life with the Taste of Gunpowder’ by Mojtaba Khalili, ‘In the Name of’ by Akbar Qahremani, and several provincial award-winning plays.

‘Ajax’ by Fateh Badparva, ‘Among a Great Number of Fish’ by Amir Delfani, and ‘A Cassette’ by Mohammad Akbari are the plays in the guest section.

This year, 12 plays have been picked for the Soldier of the Revolution section dedicated to street theater.

The 2021 edition of the festival will be held on January 30-February 9.

According to Mosafer-Astaneh, the international competition of the 39th FITF will not be held due the coronavirus pandemic.

Read more:

Fadjr Theater fest to host 107 works

MG/AG