The first works of 12 movie directors, including renowned Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, were screened at the 60th International Film Festival of Valladolid, in Spain.
In a section titled ‘New Talents of the 21st Century Never Released in Spain’, the debut feature film of major under-50 directors of global contemporary cinema were shown, Mehr News Agency reported.
‘Dancing in the Dust,’ Farhadi’s first film produced in 2003 had two shows at the festival.
Co-written by Farhadi, Alireza Bazrafshan and Mohammadreza Fazeli, the film tells the story of a poor man who is obliged to divorce his wife because his relatives insist. The only thing he can do for his ex-wife is to pay her alimony in installments, but he faces a tough time to raise the amount.
The 90-minute feature has attended many international events and garnered several nominations and prizes. It won three awards for the best director, screenplay and supporting actress at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival, best actor award at the 25th Moscow International Film Festival and the special jury award for the best film at Fajr Film Festival.
Faramarz Qaribian, Yousef Khodaparast, Baran Kosari and Jalal Sarhad-Seraj are in the cast.
The film was screened along with works by Cannes 2014 Palme d’Or winner director Nuri Bilge Ceylan from Turkey, Romanian filmmaker and winner of the Palme d’Or in 2007 Cristian Mungiu, 2014 Academi Awards winner Paolo Sorrentino from Italy and the Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul who won the 2010 Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or prize.
Farhadi, 43, who has directed six films, received the Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2012 for ‘A Separation’.
He has started pre-production for his seventh film ‘The Seller’ featuring stellar actors Shahab Hosseini and Taraneh Alidoosti, who have both worked with him in the past.
The 2015 edition of the festival was held October 24-31. Ida Panahandeh’s ‘Nahid’ was the only film from Iran which took part in the competition section. Film director and actress Niki Karimi was also an Iranian member of the international jury.
