Slovakia honors ‘No Date, No Signature’

Iranian acclaimed movie ‘No Date, No Signature’ has snatched two awards at the 19th Bratislava International Film Festival in Slovakia.

The festival’s FIPRESCI Jury Award went to the award-winning Iranian drama and Navid Mohammadzadeh won the best actor award.

The festival’s official website wrote “FIPRESCI Jury Award for a convincing example of Iranian cinema dedicated to the ethical labyrinths of modern life goes to film ‘No Date, No Signature’ (Bedoune Tarikh, Bedoune Emza) directed by Vahid Jalilvand.”

During the award ceremony held at Kino Lumiere on Tuesday, messages from director of ‘No Date, No Signature’, Vahid Jalilvand, and the film star Mohammadzadeh pled the audience to hold a moment of silence in tribute to the victims of the recent earthquake in the western Iran.

Jalilvand and Mohammadzadeh who could not attend the ceremony expressed their thanks to the organizers via video messages and the Iranian deputy ambassador Hamidreza Madad received the awards on their behalf.

Jalilvand said “Sorry if I don’t feel so very happy, because I was informed hours ago that many of my compatriots in western Iran were killed in a devastating earthquake.”

“I don’t know if I should be happy or sad now as many people in Kermanshah and Ilam, my homeland, have been killed in the earthquake,” Mohammadzadeh said in the video message.

Mohammadzadeh dedicated his award to the victims of the natural disaster, which claimed lives of approximately 500 people.

Jalilvand’s movie produced by his brother Ali, stars Hediyeh Tehrani, Amir Aqaei, Saeed Dakh, Alireza Ostadi and Navid Mohammadzadeh.

The movie narrates the story of Kaveh Nariman, a doctor who works at the Iranian Legal Medicine Organization. He has to examine the corpse of someone that he used to know in the past.

‘No Date, No Signature’ was premiered at the 35th edition of the Fajr Film Festival and received three Crystal Simorgh awards for best director, best actor in a supporting role and best sound mixer.

The movie has so far taken part at a number of international events. More recently, the flick scooped Best Director and Best Actor awards at the Venice Horizons section of the 74th Venice Film Festival, Italy.

It also won the Special Jury Award ‘Silver Alexander’ as well as the FIPRESCI Jury Award at the 58th edition of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in Greece this November.

Established in 1999, International Film Festival Bratislava has earned a prominent place among domestic film festivals and other cinema events and developed a stable base of festival-goers.

Every year it provides a platform for inspiring meetings of cinema laymen, aficionados and professionals from Slovakia as well as abroad to cultivate the domestic film audience and adding an international context to Slovakia’s film culture.

The 19th edition of the Slovakian event was held on November 9-16, 2017.

MG/MG