Iranian ‘Beloved’ wins Tatar award

The 15th edition of the Kazan International Muslim Film Festival in the Russian Republic of Tatarstan has honored Iranian documentary ‘Beloved’.

The Iranian documentary won the best feature documentary award and a diploma at the Kazan event.

Directed by Yasser Talebi, ‘Beloved’ is about the difficult but favorable life of an 83-year-old mother named Firouzeh who runs a unique life in the Alborz Mountains in north Iran.

Firouzeh hikes across the rugged landscape carrying bundles of wood. When she was a young girl, a marriage was arranged for her with an older man, with whom she had 11 children. Now, none of her children come to visit her and her attempts to get closer to them remain futile.

The 63-minute documentary has attended many global event, including the 2018 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in the Netherlands, the 16th Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in the US, the 69th Berlin International Film Festival in Germany, the 37th Fajr Film Festival in Iran, the 38th International Istanbul Film Festival in Turkey, and the 67th Trento International Film Festival in Italy where it won the jury special mention and a UNESCO honorable mention.

Most recently it took the first place among the top five mid-length films selected by the Canadian audience at the 26th Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto and received a special mention at the 25th Shanghai TV Festival in China.

Launched in 2005, the Kazan International Muslim Film Festival is being held in the capital city of the Russian Republic of Tatarstan.

The festival screens products which promote peaceful ideas, humanity and intercultural dialogue on the basis of principles reflecting spiritual and moral values as well as cultural traditions, supporting the ideas of peacemaking, tolerance and humanity regardless of the nationality and religious affiliation of the authors.

The motto of the festival is “To the dialogue of cultures through the culture of dialogue”.

The main aim is the formation of the objective views of the world community about Muslims and Islam, which is the religion of peace, kindness and creation. The festival has an educational, aesthetic and spiritual mission.

MG/MG