Short film ‘Malekieh’ by Iranian director Mohammad-Bagher Shahin won the Audience Award at the ‘Three-Minute Quickie’ section of the Hamburg International Short Film Festival.
The Iran-Syria joint production is about a girl who narrates the destiny of her father, brothers and uncles who stay at home like all other men of Almalekieh village, in Aleppo, Syria, to protect their home and properties. When the women and children return home, they come across a horrible scene, reports Fararu.
The ‘Three Minute Quickie’ is a special section for films of no more than three minutes in length on a predetermined subject. The topic of the 2015 edition of the festival was ‘Based on a true story’.
Shahin’s two-minute film won the award of this section worth 1000 euros. A 2014 production, ‘Malekieh’ has collected seven awards in 23 national and international festivals.
Born in the southern Iranian city of Ahwaz, Shahin, 24, has made five experimental and documentary movies.
Since its foundation 28 years ago, the Hamburg Festival has been celebrating short films as an independent art form, while offering an opportunity for film makers from all over the world “to reach out to an eager audience and with each other.” The international competition mirrors current global aesthetic tendencies and narrative structures.
The proliferation of short films as an art form, the support of the independent creation of films and the discovery and support of hitherto unknown filmmakers are among the main tasks of the festival.
Around 400 films were screened in the festival’s international and national competitions as well as special programs, in Hamburg, Germany from June 9-15.
