Iran International Documentary Film Festival Cinema Verite, slated for mid-December, will screen documentaries from around the world in two competition and non-competition sections.
Films in the competition section are in three categories based on their duration, under 30 minutes, between 30 and 60 and over 60 minutes, Mehr News Agency reported.
The non-competition section, including 10 categories, will showcase world documentaries, each dealing with a subject of topical interest.
Dok Leipzig
A total of six documentaries selected from Dok Leipzig Festival will be screened in the ‘Mirror of a Festival’ category, non-competition section.
Dok Leipzig, one of the oldest documentary festivals in the world, takes place every year in Leipzig, Germany.
Founded in 1955 as ‘1st All-German Leipzig Festival of Cultural and Documentary Films,’ it is an international festival for documentary and animated films and was the first independent film festival in former East Germany.
The 9th Cinema Verite will screen six of the best productions, from 2011 to 2014, shown at Dok Leipzig editions.
Reality or Dream
The festival will also review the contemporary US society by screening a lineup of documentaries in a special category entitled ‘Reality or Dream’.
Films in this part center on a variety of topics like, an FBI counterterrorism sting operation, a group therapy conducted at a California residential facility for young soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and a Californian military base which is a transit point for young marines who stay there after returning from Iraq or Afghanistan.
The documentaries have won international awards in global events like Sundance Film Festival in the US and Cannes Film Festival and Cinema du Reel in France.
Black Continent
In the category of Black Continent in the non-competition section, five new documentaries about Africa’s post-colonial state and the continent’s social issues will be screened.
The acclaimed documentaries, made between 2013 and 2015, have so far attended international documentary events including Watch Docs in Poland, Big Sky in the US, Hot Docs in Canada, IDFA in the Netherlands and Munich Film Festival.
Organized by Iran’s Documentary and Experimental Film Center, the annual Cinema Verite seeks to express the relationship between reality and truth through documentary films.
The slogan for this year’s edition ‘Truth is the Best Guide’ has been taken from a saying by Imam Ali (AS), the first Imam of the Shias.
The festival will run from December 13 to 19 at Tehran’s Palestine and Sepideh cinemas.
