Japanese, Iranian photographers share Abbas Kiarostami prize

Japanese photographer Chiharo Hara and Iranian photographer Saeed Rezvanian have shared the Abbas Kiarostami Gold Camera at the 5 International Photo Award.

The prize was launched for the first time this year to honor the top work in the New Look category in the fourth edition of the award ceremony held at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art on Thursday, which was the birth anniversary of Kiarostami, the world-renowned Iranian filmmaker and photographer.

The prize consists of a sculpture depicting Kiarostami's hands gripping a golden camera.

The awarding ceremony started with reciting poems from “Wind and Leaf”, a book containing Kiarostami’s selected poems. 

The reciting done by Nazanin Farahani and Armin Deylam in Persian and Italian was accompanied by cellist Anahita Izadparsa.

The performance was followed by a short speech by 5 International Photo Award president Mehdi Shadizadeh who expressed his thanks to all supporting the event.

The photographers Serkan Çolak from Turkey and Fatemeh Rohani from Iran shared the 5 International Photo Award this year.

Sajjad Dadpour won the award in the video art category and several prizes were also awarded on the side sections by the sponsors of the event, including the Tehran Institute of Technology.

Japanese photographer Takehiko Nakafuji, the jury president, could not attend the award ceremony, and jury member Behdad Najafi read the jury’s statement.

The statement praised more than 2700 submissions from Italy, Thailand, France, Afghanistan, Turkey, Japan and dozens of other countries.    

“We are not the ones who were previously looking and this is a great lesson we learned from the photos,” the statement reads.

Kiarostami’s frequent visits to a single almost 500-year-old tree of Juniper species near the village Aro in the Damavand region inspired the photo award. The tree was the subject of numerous photographs taken by Kiarostami at different times in various seasons.

In addition, the award’s title refers to “Five Dedicated to Ozu”, Kiarostami’s 2003 documentary which is a tribute to Japanese filmmaker Yasujirō Ozu whose works deeply influenced Kiarostami’s films.

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5 Photo Award names prize after Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami

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