‘Golnesa’ grabs Tanzanian fest nods

‘Golnesa’ feature film by Sattar Chamani-Gol has grabbed three nods at the 2nd Sinema Zetu International Film Festival (SZIFF) in Tanzania.

The feature participated in the ‘World Cinema’ section of the festival and succeeded to grab nom for Best Screenplay (Vida Salehi), Best Director (Sattar Chamani-Gol) and Best Cinematography (Mohammad Fakouri).

Golnesa’ tells the story of a young Afghan couple, Golmammad and Golnesa, who are illegal immigrants in Iran.

Working in a traditional brick-making kiln in the suburbs of Tehran, they have to deal with challenges of illegal immigration as well as routine life hardships.

The film has so far taken part at some global film events, including 51st WorldFest-Houston Int’l Film Festival, 21st Brooklyn Film Festival in the US, 3rd R.E.D Int’l Film Festival in Norway, 14th Kazan Int’l Festival of Muslim Cinema in the Russian Republic of Tatarstan, 3rd Slemani Int’l Film Festival as well as 17th Dhaka Int’l Film Festival (DIFF) in Bangladesh.

Some of the accolades won by ‘Golnesa’ are award for best director and best director of photography from the 14th Kazan Int’l Festival of Muslim Cinema and best feature film award from the 2018 Global Nonviolent Film Festival in the US.  

The 2nd round of the festival kicked off on 1st of January 2019 and the Award Night is schedule on 23rd of February in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The 53-days long festival focuses on ‘Swahili Panorama’ and ‘World Cinema’.

Swahili Panorama represents feature films, series, dramas, short films and documentaries produced in Swahili.   ‘World Cinema’, however, represents movies from any country/language, produced or subtitled in English.

World Cinema screen movies from 19 countries including Afghanistan, China, Estonia, India, Iran, Italy, Indonesia, Germany, Kenya, Nigeria, Philippines, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda and Zambia.

Festival Director Jacob Joseph commented that the festival will bestow ‘Certificate of Excellence & Cash Awards’ to filmmakers as a tribute to their creativity, innovation and commitment.

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