Three Awards for Iran at Estonian Film Festival

Iranian woman filmmaker Narges Abyar received the best director award for ‘Breath’ at the awards ceremony of the 20th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival which drew to a close on Saturday, November 26, in the Estonian capital.

The movie had its international premiere at the festival, and vied in the main competition section to win the bronze wolf statuette and a cash prize of euro 5000 ($5327) for Abyar, ISNA reported.

The film centers on a young girl who experiences the 1979 Islamic Revolution and 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war during her childhood.The jury presented the award to the film “for its profound journey into the innocence and magic of childhood.”

Abyar’s third feature film ‘Breath,’ after ‘Objects in the Mirror are Closer Than They Appear (2013) and ‘Track 143’ (2014), was premiered at the Fajr Film Festival in February. It is currently on screen at cinemas across Iran and has collected positive reviews by critics as well as welcomed by the public.

Sareh Nour-Mousavi, Pantea Panahiha, Mehran Ahmadi, Jamshid Hashempour and Shabnam Moghadami are in the cast.

Two Awards for ‘Duet’

Further, ‘Duet’ directed by the young director Navid Danesh, 31, which participated in the First Features competition section, won the first feature film award.

It was the world premiere of the movie which tells the story of a woman who takes her husband to meet his ex-sweetheart, rekindling an inevitable series of forgotten memories.

As the jury said, the award went to the movie “for its finely observed exploration of love, desire, regret and fidelity and its nuanced understanding of gender politics in a society defined by tradition and belief”.

The renowned Iranian filmmaker Reza Mirkarimi was one of the jury members in this section.

‘Duet’ also received the NETPAC Award of the festival “for brilliant dramatic story, executed via refined and brave playing with basic elements of narrating construction,” the jury commented. “The director reveals heroes’ inner experience in an elegant laconic manner”.

The movie is Danesh’s debut feature after making several short films. Ali Mosaffa, Hedieh Tehrani, Negar Javaherian, Morteza Farshbaf and Kaveh Kateb are in the cast.

Black Nights Film Festival was launched in 1997. From the first focus on Nordic cinema the festival has grown to represent all continents and many genres. It aims to present Estonian audiences a comprehensive selection of world cinema in all its diversity, providing a friendly atmosphere for interaction between the audience and filmmakers from across the world.