'The Salesman' by the Iranian Academy Award winner director Asghar Farhadi will compete in the 41st Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in Canada.
It will be the North American premiere of the suspense drama which narrates the story of a young couple (played by Hosseini and Taraneh Alidoosti) whose happy relationship gets tense after a tragic event occurs in their new flat, Mehr News Agency reported.
Since its debut screening in the 69th Cannes Film Festival in May, the movie has so far won two awards at Cannes for best screenplay and best actor for Farhadi and Shahab Hosseini respectively, and the top prize at the 34th Munich Film Festival in Germany in July.
The movie will be released locally before the end of September so that it has a chance to be introduced to the Academy Awards as Iran's submission. According to the Oscar rules for foreign language films, the selected movie must be first released in the country submitting it no earlier than October 1, 2015, and no later than September 30, 2016, and be first publicly exhibited for at least seven consecutive days in a cinema.
The Paris-based company Memento Films Distribution, which has coproduced the film with Farhadi, will distribute it in Europe while Amazon has purchased the rights for the US release. Memento is planning to release 'The Salesman' in France in November.
Iranian distributor Filmiran has purchased the right for the local screening of Farhadi’s 7th feature film. Due to the good reception of his previous films in Iran, the expectations are high for the movie to be among the bestsellers of the year.
Further, five other feature films by Farhadi will be screened in a limited number of cinemas simultaneously with the release of 'The Salesman'. 'Dancing in the Dust', 'Beautiful City', 'Wednesday Fireworks', 'A Separation' and 'The Past' are the five movies which all have been among the hits in their screening year.
Competing with 'The Salesman' in the Canadian festival there are several strong productions including Paul Verhoeven’s 'Elle', Andrea Arnold’s 'American Honey', Jim Jarmusch’s 'Paterson' and Nate Parker’s 'The Birth of a Nation'. Founded in 1976, TIFF is now one of the most prestigious events of its kind in the world. The TIFF will open with Antoine Fuqua’s remake of the famous western 'The Magnificent Seven' on September 8 and run through September 18.
