Iranian filmmaker to attend Berlinale Talents

Young Iranian filmmaker and scriptwriter Alireza Qasemi has been picked to present Iran at the script station and the 2022 Berlinale Talent Camp in Germany.

Qasemi was selected out of about 3,000 applicants from 116 countries; and will represent Iran at the event along with Iranian filmmaker Aryan Vazir-Daftari.

Born in 1990, Qasemi has written and directed a number of short films, including ‘Better than Neil Armstrong’, ‘Frequency’, ‘Extra Sauce’ and ‘Arezou’.

His most acclaimed short film ‘Lunch Time’ has attended various film festivals and won a number of awards, including the best student short film award at the Jozi Film Festival in South Africa, best student short film award at the Snakes Alley Festival of Film in the US and the best short award at the Inerrobang Film Festival in the US.

In 2017, ‘Lunch time’ won a nomination for the Short Film Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in France.

Qasemi was also among five other young talents from around the world to attend ‘The Residence’ section in the Cinefondation category of the Cannes Film Festival in 2019.

Since its establishment in 2003, the Berlinale Talents is dedicated to training emerging filmmakers from around the world.

Berlinale Talents offers “an extensive summit program of master classes and panel discussions with top-notch experts, as well as a range of Project Labs for further developing and presenting one's own project,” writes the official website of the event.

Founded in 1951, the Berlin International Film Festival is one of the world’s leading film events which is annually held in Germany in February.

This year, due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus, the Berlinale Talent Camp will be held virtually from February 12 to 17, 2022.

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