Ahmadreza Darvish’s ‘Al-Qurban’ won the grand prize for the best long feature film at the 7th Baghdad International Film Festival (BIFF).
The film which competed in the long fiction official competition was announced winner on Monday, Mehr News Agency reported.
While wishing for global peace and prosperity, Darvish dedicated his prize to the victims of the stampede tragedy in Mina on September 24 during the ‘Stoning of Devil’ ritual which claimed the lives of over 2,000 hajj pilgrims, including 465 Iranians.
Darvish and producer Taghi Aligholizadeh were officially invited by the festival to attend the opening ceremony on October 1, where ‘Al-Qurban’ was screened in its international premiere and was welcomed by 1000 guests who watched it at the Iraqi National Theater in Baghdad, Iraq.
Besides the Iranian cast, the movie features seven Arab actors including, Jamal Suliman from Syria, Dawood Hussain from Kuwait, Rizwan Aqili from Syria and Fouad Ibrahim from Lebanon.
A religious-historical film which has been dubbed in English, French and Arabic, Darvish’s production narrates the Battle of Karbala on the Day of Ashura and the uprising of Imam Hussein (AS) in 680 AD against Yazid, the caliph of that time.
The music is composed by Oscar-winning English composer Stephen Warbeck and the film is edited by Tariq Anwar, an Indian-born US based film editor.
Iranian short film ‘The Fish and I’ which attended the official competition of the short drama also won the first prize of the section.
It recounts the story of a blind man trying to save his fish. Babak Habibifar is the writer, director, editor, actor and composer.
Previously, it had been awarded several prizes at international festivals in the US, Serbia and Spain.
