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Arvand Festival Concludes

Arvand Festival Concludes
Arvand Festival Concludes

The 52nd Regional Festival of Youth Cinema, Arvand, concluded on Monday (Feb. 23), awarding the winners.

The festival comprised three sections of short films, screenplays, and photos, and after four days of movie screenings and holding specialized meetings, the closing ceremony was held at Naft Cinema in the southern city of Abadan, MNA reported.

The socio-cultural deputy at the High Council of Free Trade Zones secretariat Mohammad-Ali Zam said “short films convey important messages and can be more influential than feature films.”

However, he noted that short films “have usually been neglected” and as a result the number of productions in this field “is not as many as it should be.”

Filmmakers Hassan Barzideh, Mohammad-Ali Basheh-Ahangar, and Danesh Aghbashavi, as well as war photographer Jasem Ghazbanpour, all from Abadan, were honored at the ceremony with commendation plaques.

The festival, organized by the Iranian Youth Cinema Society (IYCS), awarded the best of each section with the ‘Headless Palm’ statuette, a symbol of the palms burnt, cut or destroyed in the province - an area known for its palm trees - during the 1980-88 imposed war.

Among a total of 430 films, 87 were selected by the selection committee; out of 1003 photos received by the secretariat 50 qualified; and 13 screenplays among 258 works were recognized worthy of entering the festival.

  Special Sessions

Head of Iran Cinema Organization Hojatollah Ayoubi, president of the IYCS Habib Ilbeigi, the honorary secretary Hamid Farrokhnejad, IYCS and Arvand Free Zone Organization officials, and a number of cineastes attended the event.

Sessions on specific issues were held during the first three days of the festival. The famous cinematographer Mahmoud Kalari attended the first session on the subject of cinematography on day one. The second day, Habib Ahmadzadeh held the session on experimental cinema, and Oscar-winner Asghar Farhadi talked about script writing on the third day.

Well-known filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, who had announced his participation in the special meetings, could not partake in the event due to illness.

 

Financialtribune.com