Four Films at Melbourne Festival

Jafar Panahi’s docudrama “3 Faces” will be screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival, slated for August 2-19, along with three other Iranian films, namely “Dressage” by Pouya Badkoubeh, “Pig” by Mani Haqiqi, and “Ava” by Sadaf Foroughi.

It is Panahi’s eighth appearance in MIFF in his three-decade career. 3 Faces follows Behnaz Jafari, a popular Iranian actress, as she looks for a young girl in northwestern Iran with her friend Jafar Panahi, a director, after watching a video of the girl asking for help to leave her conservative family.

The movie received the Award for Best Screenplay at the 71st Cannes Film Festival in May, Cinematicket wrote.

The directorial debut of Badkoubeh portrays a group of rich kids who rob a grocery store motivated by nothing but teenage boredom. Upon realizing they have left the security footage behind, they pressure the one poorer member of their gang, Golsa, to retrieve it. She complies but resists demands to hand the footage over and instead hides it in the stable where she keeps her horse.

“Allegorical and unsettling, Dressage shows a 16-year-old girl commit a crime and get away with it. Soon she realized that she has lost her moral bearings in the self-centered, materialistic world of her parents and friends,” Hollywood Reporter wrote about Badkoubeh’s film.

Dressage is the winner of special mention in the Generations 14plus section of Berlinale and Best First Film at Fajr International Film Festival.

Mani Haqiqi’s Pig is a satire about a serial killer beheading famous filmmakers and a director who is outraged simply because he has not been targeted!

Foroughi’s film is about Ava, a 16-year-old girl, and her relationship with her family that is challenged after her mother takes her to a gynecologist.

Ava’s life is dictated by rules. Coming of age, she faces pressure to rise to the expectations of her parents, her school, and friends. When Ava learns that her parents were once lawless themselves, she begins to rebel against acceptable social norms.

MIFF was established in 1952. It is the leading film festival in Australia and one of the world’s oldest film festivals, alongside Cannes and Berlin.