‘Leo’ to compete at Fajr Filmfest

Award-winning Iranian short film ‘Leo’ is scheduled to vie at the Fajr Film Festival in Iran.

Directed by Moeen Rouholamini, the film will be screened at the short films section of the 40th edition of the event.

Directed by Moeen Rouholamini, the film is “dedicated to children all over the world who do not give up on their sweet dreams in the most difficult situations of their lives,” according to the filmmaker.

In July, ‘Leo’ won Best Super Short Film at the Andaras Traveling Film Festival in Italy “for the ability to combine talent, intelligence, sensitivity, pathos, interpretation and the ability to surprise in sixty seconds”, according to the website of the Italian festival.

“In one minute, one enters the story of Leo's report which gets brutally interrupted by a guard’s baton. It takes the viewer from a dimension of childish play with the shower receiver transformed into a microphone to the brutal, barren, desperate, obtuse reality of a football game played in a refugee camp,” the website also wrote about the short.

Since its establishment in 1982, the Fajr Film Festival, which also runs in an international version, has played a vital role in the development of Iranian Cinema.

The FFF coincides with the ten-day Fajr (Dawn) ceremonies across Iran, marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iran’s Fajr International Film Festival (FIFF) has recently been accredited by the FIAPF, a Belgium-based regulator of international film festivals.

The international version of the event will be held later in 2022.

Supervised by Iran’s Ministry of Culture, the festival annually hosts veteran directors and new filmmakers from Iran and across the globe.

FM/FM