Arbaeen Int’l Award honors winners

Organizers of the 3rd Int’l Arbaeen Photos and Videos Award have announced and honored the winners.

The winners were honored during a ceremony held at the Iranian Academy of Arts in Tehran on Sunday.

Head of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization (ICRO) Abouzar Ebrahimi-Torkaman as well as a number of cultural officials and representatives of some foreign countries attended the ceremony.

From more than 2500 photos from 20 countries that were submitted to the secretariat of the program, the panel of judges selected eight works as top winners after a three-phase assessment process.

The winners in the photos category are from Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The jury also selected seven works from Kuwait, Iran, Sweden, Lebanon, Oman and Azerbaijan in the category of video clips. Some 88 video clips from 15 countries were submitted to the secretariat of the program.

An exhibition of the selected photos was opened at the Academy of Arts after the ceremony.

The organization annually holds the international program to draw attention to different features of the Arbaeen pilgrimage which marks the 40th day after the martyrdom of the third Shia Imam, Imam Hussein (AS), and his household in Karbala tragedy.

Films and photos presented to the festival, captured by phone or camera, depict the passion of people who walk long distances to mourn the martyrdom anniversary in Karbala.

Every year a large number of pilgrims come together in the holy city of Karbala to observe mourning rituals of Arbaeen near the holy shrine of Imam Hussein (AS).

According to the official statistics Karbala has annually hosted more than 20 million pilgrims on Arbaeen Day of the recent years.

MG/MMF