Iran doc wins award at French fest

Iran documentary ‘Starless Dreams’ has succeeded to win Best Film Award from the 27th edition of Traces De Vies Film Festival in France.

The Iranian documentary has been selected out of 830 films sent to the festival’s secretariat. Oskouei’s documentary was among the 45 top documentaries which were selected to participate in the competition section of the French film event.

Director Mehrdad Oskouei, one of Iran’s most prominent filmmakers, spent seven years securing access to this all-female facility, and he makes the awkwardness of being a male filmmaker in their environment a poignant and powerful aspect of his project.

‘Starless Dreams’ follows a group of under-18-year-old girls taken into a rehabilitation and detention center on the outskirts of Tehran for a variety of reasons ranging from drug dealing and trafficking to pick-pocketing and manslaughter.

Though bored with their incarcerated life they are, nevertheless, scared about what might happen to them once outside; as the New Year approaches, they all hope to celebrate it with their families.

Founded in 1991, Traces De Vies Film Festival deals with films from different genres based on a specific theme in each edition of the event.  The main aim of the festival organizers is to create a celebration of documentary cinema that attracts people from different ages.

The 27th edition of French festival was held on November27-December 3, 2017.

MMF/MMF