3 Iran films win awards at Italian festival

Three Iranian films have won awards at the 2019 Middle East Now festival in Italy.

One of the award-winning films is Iranian doc ‘I Stay’ directed by Fatemeh Marzban. It has received Special Mention from the Italian event.

‘I Stay’ narrates the story of a man who raises horses and some other farm animals single-handedly on the lonely peninsula of Miankaleh in the Iranian province of Golestan.

The next documentary that has won two awards is Azadeh Bizargiti’s ‘Water Folks’. It accomplished taking home ‘Best OFF’ award for the best short film by the OFF cinema association and the Middle East Now Staff Award which is launched at this edition of the event with a value of 500 Euros.

This successful hit shows the lives of two fishermen who venture on fishing trips almost every day to make their ends meet.

The last but not least is ‘Tehran: City of Love’. The applause of the cinema La Compagnia went to the film director Ali Jaber-Ansari and the producer Babak Jalali.

The film chronicles the events that happen in three individuals’ lives leading to their exodus of self discovery. The three start off as lonely souls who learn a big deal about themselves once life shows them its other faces.

The latest edition of the Italian film event also had two-time Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi as a special guest. The event screened a number of Farhadi’s films, including ‘Fireworks Wednesday’, ‘A Separation’, ‘About Elly’, ‘The Past’, and ‘The Salesman’.

The 10th edition of the Middle East Now festival took place in the Italian city of Florence on April 2-7, 2019.

AA/MG