‘Ganj Dareh’ wins top prize at Italy's Paolo Orsi fest

Iranian documentary ‘Ganj Dareh’ has succeeded to scoop the top prize of the 2021 RAM Film Festival known as Paolo Orsi in Italy.

The RAM jury grid describes ‘Ganj Dareh’ as saying, “It tells how a few years ago, a group of Danish archaeologists went to Iran to work for the first time with their Iranian colleagues in one of the most important and popular "prehistoric" sites in the Middle East. The excellent reconstruction of an important chapter in the history of archeology was appreciated, which created a significant bridge between Iran, Canada and Denmark.”

‘Ganj Dareh’, by Iranian filmmaker Keyvan Tabatabaee-Samimi, was captured in Ganj Dareh, which was once an Iron Age settlement in western Iran. The site is also one of the cradles of agriculture and livestock domestication in West Asia.

The 39-minute documentary, which took two years to be filmed, is a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the country, conducted by a joint Iranian-Danish team of cultural heritage experts.

Discoveries were made in Mar-Gurgalan (Sarab) cave that is believed by the experts to be inhabited some 50,000 years ago.  

Supervised by Iran’s Research Institute of Cultural Heritage & Tourism, the project was co-led by Iranian archaeologist Hojjat Darabi and Professor Tobias Richter from the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen.

The doc has so far participated in several international archaeological events in Turkey, Spain, and the US.

Launched in 1990, the RAM Film Festival is a biennial screening event that aims to reach and raise “awareness among the general public on the themes of archaeological research and the protection of cultural heritage.”

The 2021 edition of the RAM festival brought 62 documentaries from 25 different countries to the big screen of the Zandonai Theater in Rovereto.

The films “explore themes concerning archaeological research, the protection and enhancement of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, the history and traditions of peoples and cultures,” writes the official website of the festival.

The event was held on October 13-17, 2021.

MM/FM