Iranian animation film 'Mobarak' directed and produced by Ali Najafi Emami will participate in South Korea's 21st Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) 2016, to be held October 6-15.
Earlier, Mobarak had been selected for the 2016 Annecy International Animated Film Festival (June 13-22) in France. The animation, a blend of realism and animatronics, then went on screen at the Montreal World Film Festival (August 25 – September 5).
The animation is now heading for South Korea's second largest city after Seoul to participate in BIFF, ISNA reported.
Celebrated Iranian actress Elnaz Shakerdoust, 31, has played the lead role in the film as the granddaughter of an old storyteller and recounts his stories with the help of the puppets that are fashioned after the characters of the national epic Shahnameh (Book of Kings), a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between 977 and 1010 AD.
Having dwelt too long in the world of myths and legends, the storyteller fears that the day will come when some "black entities from a mythical realm" would plunge the world into darkness.
Eventually, his eschatological concerns become so serious that his puppets cannot just stand by and watch. They become adventurous and along with the granddaughter, try to rescue Rostam, a hero in the Book of Kings, who is abducted by ghouls.
The main puppet characters in the film are: Mobarak, the traditional herald of the Persian New Year or Nowruz, a well known symbolic figure among Iranians. He often appears in the Iranian puppet show 'Siah-Bazi' and sides with the divs or demons of the story; White Div, who according to the Book of Kings, is one of a kind, and very cunning but not so in the film as he no longer fights against Rostam and in fact helps him in his battles; and Akvan, who is also different from the original character in the book.
Mobarak is a kind-hearted simpleton and very fond of Rostam. His goof ups are corrected by his wiser companion, Akvan.
