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Narges Abyar’s ‘Breath’ Submitted for Oscars

The movie follows the young, imaginative and joyful ‘Bahar’ as she grows up in Iran during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. A deep and well-crafted film, it depicts a child’s complex experience of family, school, friendship,
The film poster
The film poster

The feature film ‘Breath’ written and directed by Narges Abyar has been selected as Iran’s official submission to the 90th Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

It is Abyar’s third feature film which received an award with a ‘National View’ at the 34th Fajr Film Festival in 2016, had a successful screening in Iran last year, collected positive reviews by critics and was welcomed by the public, Mehr News Agency reported.

It has attended many festivals across the globe and won several awards including best director awards at the 12th Vancouver International Women in Film Festival, Canada, in March, and at the 20th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia last year. It also won the best script award at the 17th Hafez Cinema and TV Ceremony in Tehran in August.

 Revolution & War

‘Breath’ is a story about a young, imaginative and joyful girl ‘Bahar’ as she grows up in Iran during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. A deep and well-crafted film, it depicts a child’s complex experience of family, school, friendship, literacy and social ambition.

Bahar lives in her childish and surreal world full of dreams and fantasies. It is a profound journey into the innocence and magic of childhood.

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

  Based on Novel

“The story is based on a novel that I wrote myself. A part of it is from my own memories as well as the experience of people around me,” the director told Screen Daily.

Born in Tehran, Abyar, 46, has written nearly 30 story and fiction books for children, young adults and adults. She has also made several short and feature-length documentaries.

Her first and second films, ‘Objects in Mirror’ and ‘Track 143’ respectively, have  won several awards at prestigious festivals overseas.

The 90th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, will honor the best films of 2017 and will take place on March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles.

So far 52 countries have submitted their selected films to the Oscars. The deadline for submissions is October 2 and the academy will announce a list of eligible films at a later date. From the long list, nine finalists from among the dozens of entries will be shortlisted late this year, with the final five nominees to be announced early in 2018.

  3 Nominations, 2 Wins

The first time Iran sent a film to the Oscars was in 1977. After that it did not happen until 1994. Since then, Iran has annually submitted a film to the Oscars except for 1996 and 2012.

By 2017, Iran had 23 submissions out of which three received nominations and two won.

Last year, a record 89 countries submitted a film to the academy. Iran’s renowned filmmaker Asghar Farhadi won the award for ‘The Salesman’ at the Oscars on February 26. That was his and Iran’s second Oscar after ‘A Separation’ in 2011.

‘Children of Heaven’ written and directed by celebrated filmmaker Majid Majidi was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998.

 

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