Fajr Manifestation of National Will section awards ‘The Elephant King’

36th Fajr Film Festival’s Manifestation of National Will competition section has awarded Iran animation ‘The Elephant King’ with the Cinema Organization award. 

The closing ceremony of this section of 36th Fajr Film Festival was held on Thursday, February 22 in the Iranian city of Abadan.

Hadi Mohammadian, the director of the animated movie ‘The Elephant King’, says world giant animation studios like Pixar would praise his work if they knew how a small group in Iran was able to do the project on a tight budget.

“People judge our works with the standards applied to those movies that are being produced at many old-line overseas companies… but they should know that, for example, Pixar spent over $200 million to make the acclaimed movie ‘Coco’, while we only spent one-200th of that amount to make ‘The Elephant King’,” Mohammadian said.

Set in Africa, the animated film ‘The Elephant King’ narrates the story of an elephant who rules over its group like a king.

The queen bears him a son and everybody expects the son to replace his father as heir to the throne.

The clumsy baby elephant, however, disappoints them all with its clumsy and incredible propensity to cause destruction and sabotage for the group.

The 90-minute animation has more than 200 people involved in production.

During the event, Mostafa Razagh Karimi's 'Grand Dame of Iran' received the first award of Cinema Organization of Iran and 'Women with Gunpowder Earrings' directed by Reza Farahmand won the fourth award, while the second and third award went to Hadi Mohammadian and Hamed Jafari, the director and producer of 'The Elephant King'.

FM/MMF