Iranian ‘Serok’ wins in Italy

Iranian short film ‘Serok’ has won two awards at the 15th edition of the Corti a Ponte film festival in Italy.

The short grabbed CIAS and UNICEF awards at the “Picocolo” section of the festival.

Directed by Zhivar Farajzadeh, the five-minute flick follows a day in the life of Serok, a young boy, forced to stand in as the shepherd for his father's flock during the summer.

“No matter where we live or what we do, financial struggles usually impact the children most - education suffers; dreams take a back seat. We hope that, at least, Serok gets the opportunity to become a policeman and drive his car. Only time will tell,” a brief plot of the film reads.

Some of the global events attended by ‘Serok’ include the CinéStudent International Film Festival in France, the Inshort Film Festival in the UK, the Philadelphia Environmental Film Festival in the US, the International Children’s Rights Film Festival in Turkey, the Covellite International Film Festival in the US, the Busan International Kids and Youth Film Festival in South Korea, the Cefalù Film Festival in Italy, the Realtime International Film Festival in Nigeria, and the Golden Bull Film Festival in Turkey.

According to the official website of Corti a Ponte, “the festival is unique in Italy for the presence of a large international section dedicated to children and young people, with projections of short films made by children and young people from all over the world selected for quality and cultural value.”

There is a special section of the festival for the films that are made by children and youth that is called “Piccolo Festival”.

The 2022 edition of the Italian festival was held on May 9-21.

PR/MM