Thai cinematography award goes to Iranian ‘Kupal’

Acclaimed Iranian feature ‘Kupal’ has won best cinematography award at the 4th edition of the BangkokThai International Film Festival (BangIFF).

Directed by Kazem Mollaie, ‘Kupal’ narrates the story of Dr. Ahmad Kupal, who is a taxidermist hunter, when he faces a challenge just before the New Year.

The main cast of the movie is the late actor Levon Haftvan and a smart dog named Sharon plays a key role.

Nazanin Farahani, Pourya Rahimi-Sam, and Hossein Shamsabadi are also among the notable cast of Mollaie’s flick.

Mollaie’s feature film debut attended the competitive section of the Fajr Film Festival in February 2017 and won the best feature award at the ‘Around’ Film Festival in Amsterdam, the best foreign film award at the 26th Berkeley Video & Film Festival in the US, and the 16th Ischia Film Festival in Italy.

Attending the Cine Pobre Film Festival in Mexico and the 4th Iranian Film Festival of Zurich in Switzerland, as well as winning Best Cinematography Award from the 5th Fine Arts Film Festival in the US and Best Cinematography award at the 3rd Realtime International Film Festival in Nigeria are also among the achievements by ‘Kupal’.

Most recently, it went on screen at the 2018 New Horizons International Film Festival in Poland, the 2018 Long Island International Film Expo as well as the 4th Middlebury New Filmmakers Film Festival in the US, and received Special Mention from the 7th Cebu International Film Festival in the Philippines.

Its star, the Iranian-Armenian Haftvan died March 10 at the age of 51 following an incident which occurred on the set of a new production he was shooting.

The latest edition of the BangIFF was held on October 14-17 and the winners were announced on October 18.

MG/MG