‘Barrage of Bullets’ wins big at 13th Cinema Vérité

The 13th edition of the Cinema Vérité, Iran's major documentary film festival, has honored the winners.

The festival’s turquoise badge for best documentary went to ‘Barrage of Bullets’ (Golouleh Baran) directed by Mostafa Payeh-Shenas and produced by Morteza Shabani.

The festival’s director special award was presented to Farzad Khoshdast for ‘Narrow Red Line’ (Khatte Barike Qermez).

The award of art and experience section was shared by Sam Kalantari’s ‘No Place for Angels’ (Jaee Baraye Fereshteh-ha Nist) and ‘Narrow Red Line’.

The award of selected documentary by Documentary TV channel was presented to ‘Hundred Years of Loneliness’ (Sad Saal Tanhaee) directed by Mohammad-Ali Farsi.

‘I Want to Become King’ (Man Mikham Shah Besham) by Mehdi Ganji, ‘Dream of Water’ (Royaye Ab) by Mohammad Vaezi, and ‘Pen’ (Khodkar) by Mohammad Saqafi received the awards at the Entrepreneurship section.

In short and semi-short section, the awards went to ‘Then Comes the Evening’ by Maja Novaković from Serbia, ‘Asho’ by Jafar Najafi from Iran, ‘Breathless Animals’ by Lei Lei from China and the US, as well as ‘Spoon’ by Laila Pakalniņa from Latvia, Lithuania and Norway.

In feature length section, ‘Lunar Eclipse’ (Khosouf) by Mohsen Ostad-Ali from Iran, ‘Sheep Hero’ by Ton van Zantvoort from the Netherlands, ‘No Place for Angels’ from Iran, and ‘Ringside’ by Andre Hormann from Germany and the US grabbed the awards.

The awards of Shahid Avini section were presented to Hamed Saeedirad for ‘Cassette’, Amir-Hossein Norouzi for ‘Motorcycle Memories’ (Khaterate Motorsiklet), and Amir Osanlou for ‘Old Man & Singer’.

In the national section, Amir-Mehdi Hakim and Hojjat Bamorovvat won best writing award for ‘Mehdi Who was Born’ (Mehdi Ke Be Donya Amad) and Ensieh Maleki received best sound award for ‘Shredded Papers’ (Kaghaz Pareh-ha).

Habib Khazaeefar grabbed best music award for ‘No Place for Angels’, Babak Goudarzinezhad took best research award home for ‘The Untold of Crowded City’ (Nagofteh-haye Shahre Sholough), and best cameraman award was presented to Morteza Poursamadi for ‘Narrow Red Line’.

Morteza Payeh-Shenas received best editing award for ‘Barrage of Bullets’, special jury award was presented to Mohammad-Sadeq Esmaeeli for ‘Adour’ (Ador) and best directing awards went to Morteza Payeh-Shenas and Hossein Momen for ‘Barrage of Bullets’ as well as Mohsen Ostad-Ali for ‘Lunar Eclipse’.

And finally, ‘No Place for Angels’ won the audience choice award of the event.

Organized by the Documentary and Experimental Film Center, the first edition of the Cinema Vérité was held in 2007.

Over the past decade it has emerged as one of the important events on Iran's documentary calendar.

The 13th Cinema Vérité was held in Tehran on December 9-16, 2019.

MG/MG