‘Once Hamoun’ to compete in Water Docs Fest

The short environmental documentary film ‘Once Hamoun’ directed by Mohammad Ehsani is to be screened at the 8th edition of the Water Docs Film Festival.  

The 35-minute ‘Once Hamoun’ will be displayed on World Water Day on March 22, 2019 in the section "Water Effects: What happens if there is not enough water?".

The film reviews the numerous environmental and social problems caused by the shrinkage of Lake Hamoun in the southeastern Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan.  

Ehsani is a member of the Iranian Documentary Filmmakers Association. Concerned about environmental issues, he traveled to southeastern Iran for his latest documentary where the Hamoun-Helmand straddles a large border region in Iran and Afghanistan.

Hamoun is a shallow, marshy oasis located in the Sistan region of eastern Iran and western Afghanistan and fed by the Helmand River, which starts in the Hindu Kush Mountains in Afghanistan.

‘Once Hamoun’ brought Ehsani award before from the Slovakia international environmental film festival known as “Eco Top”.

It also won the Jury Prize at the Cine’Eco, an international environmental film festival in Portugal.

The documentary was previously screened at the 6th Greenpoint Film Festival in New York.

Ehsani has portrayed several environmental crises of the time in his previous films.

His documentary ‘Lady Urmia’ is well-known in Iran and elsewhere. The 30-minute film was made in 2012. It is a poetic documentary about Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran narrated in the voice of the lake itself that demands help and international aid to save it from drying up.

Water Docs Filmfest is primarily about film while it “informs, educates and activates audiences about water and water issues because the likelihood of having enough clean, fresh water is diminishing everywhere.”

The festival is slated for March 21 to 24, 2019 in Toronto, Canada.

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