iFilm exclusive report on Iran Cinéma vérité Int’l section

iFilm exclusive report on the international section of Iran’s 10th International Documentary Film Festival – Cinéma vérité held in the capital city of Tehran.

The festival’s audience includes Pakistan filmmaker Amar Aziz, Sarajevo screenwriter Elma Tataragic, Italian film critic delegate John Asaro and German filmmaker Levin Peter, among others.

Below is a transcription of the report's highlights.

iFilm: The international section of this festival consists of eight segments. There are three segments for short, under 90 minutes and feature-length movies.

The other five segments are non-completion sections, which include segments called the Exclusive Segment, Our Times, Reflections of a Festival, A Look at Italy and Portray.

Three thousand movies were sent to the festival. From among them, 70 were selected for the competition section. A film bazaar will also be held here. Those interested can come and take a look around.

Aziz: I’m here in Iran for the first time and it’s beautiful.

My film is called ‘A Walnut Tree’. It’s a film about an old man who lives at a refugee camp and he wants to go back to his village, and it’s a film about his nostalgia.

I would like to thank the festival for inviting me all the way from Pakistan. It’s a very well-organized festival. I think one of the most important festivals in the region and I’m so glad to be here.

Tataragic: I’m invited to be here on the jury, so I’m quite happy that I’m here as one of the international jurors for the film festival.

Actually, I grew up here (Iran)… I was living here and then we came back, my whole family, to Bosnia. I’ve been back and forth. In the past 20 years, this is probably my fifth or sixth time I’m here.

I actually co-produced a film with Iran, the film ‘Snow’. It was in 2008. It was actually with the documentary and experimental film center. So I know the team for this festival – so I know this festival quite well. We had screened the film at Fajr and had won one of the awards.

Personally for me, it’s one of the cinemas which has inspired me as a scriptwriter, as a filmmaker in general. I was very much influenced by Iranian cinema and still am. It’s one of the rare cinemas which managed to keep up with the trends.

You have this big trend of Korean cinema, but it could happen that kind of vanishes and fades away. But that’s not the case with Iranian cinema. It keeps up steadily and brings something new to world cinema. I’m a big fan.

Asaro: Thank you for inviting me as a guest at Cinéma vérité. My name is John Asaro. I’m the general delegate of the Venice International Film Critics Week that takes place in Venice during the Venice Film Festival. It’s a great honor to be here in Tehran.

I will be speaking here at the workshop about the criteria which we select and evaluate films that are submitted to us, coming from all over the world.

We will also be talking about the new ways of cooperating and collaborating with filmmakers and production from Tehran, in order to have stronger ties to Iranian cinema.

Peter: My name is Levin and I’m here with my film, with my long feature, ‘Beyond the Snowstorm’.

It’s a great chance to go to a very different country, very different to Germany. Before I go, I was so curious about the audience this year.

Tomorrow in the morning my film will be shown and I’m very curious to see how the people will react, especially in my case. My film is about the relationship between two generations and I’m curious how it’s here.

It’s a film about me and my grandfather. We spent one year together. It was the last year of his life. It’s about his memories to the Second World War when he was a soldier in Ukraine.

It’s a film about not what he is remembering. It’s about the way he is remembering.

AI/AG