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Houman Seyyedi at Shanghai Film Festival

Houman Seyyedi at Shanghai Film Festival
Houman Seyyedi at Shanghai Film Festival

The Iranian feature film ‘Sound and Fury’ written and directed by the young filmmaker Hooman Seyadi is the only Iranian production in the main competition of the 19th Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) slated for June 11-19.

Seyyedi, 36, participated in last year’s edition of the event with ‘13’ and won the Best Cinematography and Best Film awards in the Asian New Talent section. This year, he will compete for the Golden Goblet, the festival’s top award, with 13 other movies including prominent German filmmaker Werner Herzog’s ‘Salt and Fire’, which is a world premiere.

The lineup also includes films by Chinese directors and movies from the Philippines, Japan, Finland, Poland, Germany, Austria and Italy, Honaronline reported.

‘Sound and Fury’ is about a pop singer who lives a hectic life with his wife and their son. His life gets complicated when he begins a relationship with a female fan.

The movie won the jury’s special prize at the 34th Fajr Film Festival (FFF) in February. Tanaz Tabatabaei, Navid Mohamadzadeh, Rana Azadivar and Saeed Changizian are in the cast.

Seyyedi has won the New Current Award at the 2014 Busan International Film Festival and the Netpac Award for Best Asian Film at the 2014 Warsaw International Film Festival for his previous film ‘13’.

The SIFF main jury will be led by the Serbian auteur Emir Kusturica. The Chinese fest also features retrospectives dedicated to the works of American filmmaker Woody Allen and the late Russian and Italian movie directors Andrei Tarkovsky and Luchino Visconti. Allen’s most recent film ‘Cafe Society’ which debuted in Cannes last month, will get its Asian premiere in Shanghai.

There is also a program for the 400th death anniversary of English playwright Shakespeare. English veteran actor Sir Ian McKellen will discuss his lifelong commitment to performing Shakespeare’s works on stage and screen.

Moreover, all eight volumes of the Harry Potter movies will be screened. Organizers have promised some sort of “surprise” involving the novel author J. K. Rowling herself during the event.

Founded in 1993, the SIFF is the only Chinese competitive film festival approved by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations. It aims to build an international platform and promote cooperation between Chinese and foreign film industries.

 

Financialtribune.com