Venice Film Festival to screen Iranian ‘As I Lay Dying’

The 75th edition of the Venice Film Festival has scheduled to screen Iranian feature ‘As I Lay Dying’.

Mostafa Sayyari’s debut ‘As I Lay Dying’ will represent Iran at the competition section of Horizons to vie with 18 other titles from Italy, the US, Thailand, India, Kazakhstan, Uruguay, Brazil, Turkey, France, Russia and Indonesia.

‘As I Lay Dying’ is loosely based on a novel with the same name written by American author William Faulkner.

The feature tells the story of a broken-apart family that take a trip to the south of Iran upon their father’s will. The recently-deceased father had asked his offspring to bury him in a village where they have never heard anything about.

The 73-minute film's main cast include Nader Fallah, Elham Korda, Majid Aqakarimi, Vahid Rad, and Mohammad Rabbani.

Iranian actress Fatemeh Motamed-Aria and Iranian-American cineaste Ramin Bahrani will respectively serve on the panels of jury for the Horizons and First Films sections.

In 2017, Iranian feature film 'No Date, No Signature' directed by Vahid Jalilvand respectively brought the best director and the best actor awards of the Horizons section to the director and Navid Mohammadzadeh.

Founded in 1932, the Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival (Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia) is the oldest film festival in the world and one of the Big Three film festivals alongside the Cannes Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival.

The 75th edition of the Venice International Film Festival is slated for August 29 to September 8, 2018.

MG/MMF