Pooya Badkoobeh wins Best Director for ‘Dressage’

Pooya Badkoobeh, director of the Iranian movie ‘Dressage’ has been awarded Best Director for his film at the 17th Dhaka International Film Festival in Bangladesh.

Written by Hamed Rajabi, ‘Dressage’ is a film about an Iranian teenage girl from the Tehran suburbs who decides to rob a convenience store along with her friends out of boredom.

While dividing the money they realize that they forgot to take the security camera footage along with them and decide that one of them needs to go back in order to retrieve the evidence.

Among the film’s cast are actors Negar Moqaddam, Ali Mosaffa, Shabnam Moqaddami, Houshang Tavakkoli, Ali-Reza Aqakhani, Ali-Reza Sanifar, Jalal Fatemi, Yasna Mirtahmasb, and Siamak Adib.

The award-winning film has received the Best First Film Award at the 36th annual Fajr International Film Festival in Iran, best debut film at the 4th CineIran Festival in Canada, Golden Gazelle Award for Best Feature Film at the 7th Persian International Film Festival in Australia, and a jury award at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival in Germany.

The 17th annual Dhaka International Film Festival (DIFF), themed “Better Film, Better Audience, Better Society” according to its website, featured about 170 films with filmmakers from 60 countries around the world.

Various competitions were held at DIFF highlighting a wide range of interests from Asian to international cinema, children’s films, women filmmakers, short and independent films, and spiritual films.

DIFF's 17th annual event held its closing ceremonies today.

MB/FM