'Dressage' picked as best debut at CineIran in Canada

'Dressage' has been selected as best debut film at the 4th edition of the CineIran Festival in the Canadian city of Toronto.

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 as well as Golden Gazelle Award for Best Feature Film at the 7th Persian International Film Festival in Australia and received jury award at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) in Germany.

It has 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, the 65th Sydney International Film Festival in Australia, the 37th Vancouver International Film Festival in Canada, the 2018 Buster Copenhagen International Film Festival for Children and Youth in Denmark, the 16th Pyongyang International Film Festival in North Korea, the 8th Istanbul International Crime and Punishment Film Festival in Turkey, the 32nd Cineuropa Film Festival in Spain, and the 2018 Ale Kino International Young Audience Film Festival in Poland.

Hediyeh Tehrani and Hamed Behdad received the Best Actress and Best Actor awards at the CineIran for their roles in Arash Lahouti's feature film 'Orange Days' and Kamal Tabrizi's 'Sly', respectively.

The CineIran, a partner festival of Toronto International Film Festival, aims to bring the most acclaimed Iranian films of the year to Toronto's screens in an effort to present a comprehensive cross-section and showcase the depth and diversity of this national cinema, according the website of the event.

The latest edition of the event took place on November 16-18, 2018, in Toronto.

MG/AG