Canada Kids Film Festival to screen 5 features from Iran

The Canada Kids Film International Festival 2017 has set to screen five movies from Iran.

Narges Abyar’s anti-war drama ‘Breath’ will go on the silver screen on September 22, 2017, at 10 am in North York Civic Centre of the Toronto Public Library.

Recently selected as Iran’s submission to the 90th Academy Awards, ‘Breath’ shows how hopes and dreams of many Iranian children shattered by the flames of the war that Iraq lit in 1980.

The story of the film begins in the late 1970s in a suburb of Karaj, where Bahar, Nader, Kamal and Maryam live with numerous colorful dreams of their childhood along with their father and granny. The mother of the household, however, has died a few years ago.

The father, who suffers from asthma, works for a shoemaking company. In her dreams, Bahar, who narrates the story of the film, wishes to treat him when she becomes a doctor.

Iranian actors and actresses Gelare Abbasi, Mehran Ahmadi, Jamshid Hashempour, and Shabnam Moqaddami star in ‘Breath’.

The flick won a number of Crystal Simorghs, including the one for Best Film with National View at the 34th edition of the Fajr Film Festival in February, 2016, in Tehran. It has also been honored at various international cinematic events.

Soheil Movaffagh’s ‘Chocolate’ will also be screened on September 22, 2017, at 4 pm in North York Civic Centre of the Toronto Public Library.

‘Chocolate’ is about a 13-year-old boy who has inherited a big bankrupt chocolate factory. He tries to help the business gear up with support from his friends, but there are obstacles on the way.

Produced by Iraj Mohammadi-Rouzbahani, actors Mohammad-Reza Hedayati, Mohammad-Reza Shirkhanlou, Arzhang Amirfazli, Shabnam Moqaddami, and Nasser Hashemi star in the 80-minute flick.

The event will also screen ‘Houra’ by Gholmreza Sagharchiyan on September 23, 2017, at 10 am in North York Civic Centre of the Toronto Public Library.

The 79-minute film tells the story of a teenager named Hadi who lives in a small garden with his family in the surroundings of the desert. The garden is drying up as its water way has been destroyed by a railway expansion project.

Hadi attempts to preserve the only memory his mother has left behind. He hopes that his younger sister, Houra, who has become ill and refuses to talk after their mother’s death, will recover soon.

Seyed-Reza Khatibi-Sarabi’s ‘A Hell of a Wedding’ will go on screen on September 23, 2017, at 4 pm in Etobicoke Civic Centre, the Eatonville neighborhood of Toronto, Ontario.

The 96-minute comedy is about a wedding reception where children are not allowed and they are sent to a cottage at the end of the garden.

The children find out that the hosts are drug dealers so they decide to disrupt the wedding ceremony and then the adventures begin.

‘Coldness’ directed by Bahram and Bahman Ark will also go on the festival’s screen.

The 86-minute feature is about a family who is facing financial difficulties and due to this their 8 year old son is constantly anxious and wets himself at school. His social anxiety forces him to continuously hide under his mother’s chador (long black veil).

To help her son to overcome his fears and to make him forget the bad habit, his mother decides to take her chador off whenever she picks him up from school.

The 2017 edition of the Canada Kids Film International Festival is slated for September 21-24.

MG/MF