San Francisco Iran fest honors winners

The Annual Iranian Film Festival – San Francisco (IFF) in the US has honored the winners of its 14th edition.

The award for best director was presented to Mona Zandi-Haqiqi for ‘African Violet’ and Hamid-Reza Bababeigi received the award for best screenplay for the same movie.

The award for best actress went to Fatemah Motamed-Aria for her role in ‘African Violet’ and Amir-Hossein Fathi won the award for best actor for his role in ‘Slaughterhouse’ by Abbas Amini.

The best cinematography award was presented to Mehdi Rezaee for ‘Kulbarf’ directed by Milad Mansouri.

The award for best documentary went to ‘Duchenne Boys’ which is a personal narrative of its director, Sohrab Kavir, as, battling survivor’s guilt after the deaths of three of his brothers, he returns to Iran from the UK.

Once there, he embarks upon an epic quest to form a virtual football team made up of young sufferers of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, the same disease that took his brothers.

Farhad Delaram’s ‘Tattoo’ received the awards for best short and best director in the narrative short films competition.

The best screenplay award in the short films category was presented to ‘A Simple Examination’ written and directed by Meisam Saberifard. It tells the story of Shabnam and Pedram, who are about to get married; however, Pedram’s behavior causes Shabnam to be skeptical about marrying him.

Masoud Mirzaee, Babak Karimi, Mahshid Ajam, Ali Eskandari, Kaveh Azizi, Aidin Airannejad, Sara Namjou and Farzin Nobarani were the other honorees of the event in different categories.

Launched in 2008, the IFF is an annual event showcasing independent features and short films made by or about Iranians from around the world.

It is the first independent Iranian film festival outside Iran, with no affiliation to any political or religious organizations.

The IFF is also a platform for Iranian filmmakers living around the globe to express their vision and talent through the artistic medium of film.

It was established to support the Iranian film and culture in the Iranian-American community of the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.

The 2021 edition of the event was held virtually, due to the pandemic, on September 18-19.

MG/MG