Australian award goes to Iranian ‘Lady of the City’

The 7th edition of the Women Media Arts and Film Festival (WMAFF) in Australia has awarded Iranian movie ‘Lady of the City’.

Produced by Pegah Ahmadi and directed by Maryam Bahrololoumi, the movie won the best film award at the Australian event.

‘Lady of the City’ is a social drama telling the story of a family dealing with an unspecified challenge.

It follows Shahrbanou, a woman who has been sentenced to life in prison for being a drug mule.

After eleven years in jail, she is released from prison for a few days to attend her son’s wedding.

The temporary freedom helps her see a new aspect of her life and that of her family before returning to prison.

“One of the worst punishments is to imprison yourself forever in the middle of an unintentional mistake or wrong wish, as if you have no way forward, no way back, and no place to stay and no place to go,” a synopsis of the movie reads.

The cast list of the movie includes Freshteh Sadr-Orafaee, Behnaz Jafari, Gelareh Abbasi, Saman Saffari, Mohammad Valizadegan, Ali Kian-Ersi, Tarannom Kazemi, Behrang Alavi, and Yousef Teymouri.

‘Lady of the City’ went on screen at some global events, including the Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival in Armenia, the Dhaka International Film Festival in Bangladesh, and the Venice Film Week in Italy.

It was nominated for two awards at the 8th North Hollywood International Film Festival in the US and won the best film award at the Sydney World Film Festival in Australia.

The WMAFF is a new screen culture and audience development initiative by Cinewest in partnership with Sydney Olympic Park Authority.

The main program consists of award-winning short and feature-length films and media artworks produced, written and directed by women from Australia and around the world.

The 7th edition of the WMAFF was held on May 1-7 in Sidney.

MG/AG