‘Life & Life’ wins top award at Dhaka filmfest

‘Life & Life’ has been garnered the best director award for Iranian filmmaker Ali Qavitan at the 21st Dhaka International Film Festival (DIFF).

Following his previous biopic movie 'Dream of Sohrab' about the life story of the leading Persian modern poet and painter, Qavitan has now made a comeback to his cinematic vision with ‘Life & Life’.

Also written by Qavitan, ‘Life & Life’ follows a teacher who is concerned about the students who have not attended online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

She decides to visit them. She buckles her four-year-old daughter into the car and takes off for the students’ houses. Her goal for this trip is to look in on the students, but she has another purpose. She tells her daughter about her own life, and the girl begins to understand the world as she meets other people.

Since 1977, the DIFF has been promoting a healthy culture in the film industry in Bangladesh with the main theme of “Better Film, Better Audience, Better Society”.

Some 200 films from 60 countries compete at the DIFF in the following categories: Asian Competition Section, Retrospective, Bangladesh Panorama, Cinema of the World, Children’s Film, Short and Independent Film, Women Filmmakers Section, and Spiritual Films Section.

The festival’s website states that the “DIFF is a bold expression of resistance against the decadence, vulgarity and cheap commercialism that pervades the mainstream Bangladesh film industry”.

The 2023 edition of the event took place in the Bangladeshi capital from January 14 to 22.

MM/FM