‘Return’ to vie at Grand Off filmfest

Mostafa Gholami’s ‘Return’ is scheduled to vie at the World Independent Short Film Awards-Grand Off in Poland.

The short flick will attend the 2020 edition of Grand Off to mark its seventh international premiere.

‘Return’ is a 60-second short film about self-sacrifice and organ donation in the social genre. This film shows one minute of the vital and critical life stage of a patient in need of transplantation. The clock hands show 23:59, indicating that the patient's life will end 60 seconds later; and the clock body becomes white and the image loses its brightness simultaneously while the second is rotating, which indicates despair, end of life, and a color change in the patient's life.

The second hand stops at the second "45", and the image also gets blurry. Then, it suddenly gets clear and the clock body returns to its normal color and the image becomes as bright as it originally was. The second continues its path.

The patient's life was saved in the final moments and the organ donation was performed successfully.

In April 2019, ‘Return’ made its global debut in the competition program of the 60 Second Intl. Film Festival - 60SIFF in Pakistan. To make its second international appearance, the flick attended the 7th Lift-Off Global Network Sessions in the UK in 2019.

Following its global premieres, ‘Return’ made its third hit in the 3rd edition of the Wirksworth 3 Minute Film Festival in the UK. In December 2019, Gholami made finalist in the 1st Big SYN International Short Film Festival in the UK where it won the special mention award of the event.

The accolades go on with making the semi-finalist at the 3rd Annual Video Art + Film Festival held in 2019 in California. 

Gholami’s short title will be also attending the 8th Mister Vorky One-Minute and Short Film Festival to be held in Serbia on August 19-23 as well as the 6th Herat International Women’s Film Festival (HIWFF) set for August 26–30, 2020 in Afghanistan.  

As the most important initiative promoting independent Cinema in Poland and one of the most important initiatives in the world, Grand Off was brought to life in 2006.

World Independent Cinema Awards GRAND OFF is a cultural event that draws attention on the phenomenon of independent cinema and gives it a proper rank, seriousness and prestige.

The event will be held on November 23-30, 2020 in Warsaw, capital of Poland.

MM/FM