Golden Gazelle of Australian filmfest goes to Iranian ‘Dressage’

Golden Gazelle Award for Best Feature Film at the 7th edition of the Persian International Film Festival in Australia has gone to ‘Dressage’.

Directed by Pouya Badkoubeh, ‘Dressage’ tells the story of Golsa and her friends who, motivated primarily by boredom rather than greed, decide to rob a corner shop.

While evaluating the robbery, they are dismayed to realize that they forgot to bring along the CCTV footage; so one of them must return to the crime scene and the vote falls on Golsa.

Ali Mosaffa, Shabnam Moqaddami, Houshang Tavakkoli, Alireza Sanifar, Alireza Aqakhani, and Siamak Adib are among the cast.

The Iranian feature has won Best First Film Award at the 36th Fajr International Film Festival and received jury award at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) in Germany.

It has also gone on screen at several global festivals, including the 8th “On the Edge” Sakhalin Film Festival in the US, the 2018 Melbourne International Film Festival in Australia, the 21st Shanghai International Film Festival in China, the 11th Granada International Film Festival in Spain, and the 65th Sydney International Film Festival in Australia.

The Best Short Film award of the 2018 Persian International Film Festival went to ‘AniMal’ by Bahman and Bahram Ark.

Founded in 2011, the Persian event showcases films by Persian-speaking filmmakers around the world, and celebrates this rich cinematic culture with Australian communities.

The 7th edition of the festival was held in Sydney from August 30 to September 2. The festival will go on in Melbourne on September 6-9.

MG/AG