Mobarak Puppet Theater Festival opens with dedicated works

The 21st Tehran-Mobarak International Puppet Theater Festival opened in Tehran on Friday.

It is bringing together artists and puppetry enthusiasts for highlighting the power of puppetry to address contemporary social and humanitarian issues.

The opening ceremony was held at the Cinematheque of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts (TMoCA,) with festival director Poupak Azimpour-Tabrizi highlighting the event’s four-decade history and this year’s challenging situation.

The director said she was honored to lead the 42-year-old festival and highlighted the festival’s collaboration with the internationally renowned Bread and Puppet Theater and its founder, Peter Schumann, who created two puppet film-theater works specifically for the festival.

The two works, screened during the opening ceremony, were produced in response to the war in Gaza and were dedicated to the martyred children of Shajareh Tayyebeh School in Minab, south of Iran, as well as journalists killed in Gaza.

John T. Bell, a longtime member of the Bread and Puppet Theater, also addressed the ceremony online, talking about the history and artistic approach of the group and Schumann’s work.

The opening ceremony concluded with the unveiling of the official poster of the 21st Tehran-Mobarak International Puppet Theater Festival, designed by Farzad Adibi.

Since its inception in 1989, the Tehran-Mobarak Festival has established itself as a prestigious cultural gathering in Iran, attracting puppet theater troupes from around the world.