Vahid Jalilvand’s multi-award winning drama “No Date, No Signature” has been selected as Iran’s official submission to the 2019 Academy Awards in the best foreign language film category.
According to Cinematicket.org, Farabi Cinema Foundation, the main body responsible for cinema affairs in Iran, was responsible for selecting the nominee for this year’s Oscars.
An 8-member committee, comprising seven cineastes and an official from Farabi, reviewed 110 movies screened locally in the past year and on Saturday said Jalilvand’s second feature film will represent Iran at the Oscars this year.
“No Date, No Signature” made its debut at the 35th Fajr Film Festival and won the best director and best supporting actor awards. Since then, the film has been a success overseas.
In its international premiere at the Horizons sections of the 74th Venice Film Festival last September, it won best director award for Jalilvand and best actor award for Navid Mohammadzadeh.
Last November it won the Special Jury Award as well as the FIPRESCI Jury Award at the 58th Thessaloniki International Film Festival in Greece. Jalilvand also won best director award at the 12th Andrei Tarkovsky International Film Festival “Zerkalo” (Mirror) in Russia in June.
Its latest honor was five major awards from the 20th House of Cinema ceremony two weeks ago, including best film, best director and best screenplay as well as best actor and actress in supporting roles.
The film tells the story of a forensic doctor who has a car accident with a motorcyclist and injures the rider’s 8-year-old son. Next morning in the hospital, he finds out that the same boy is in the office for an autopsy due to a suspicious death. The physician is in a dilemma. Is he responsible for the child’s death or did the boy die of food poisoning as his colleagues seem to suggest?
The 104-minute feature has Amir Aghaee, Navid Mohammadzadeh, Hediyeh Tehrani, Zakiyeh Behbahani, Saeed Dakh and Alireza Ostadi in the cast.
2 Previous Awards
The Academy Award for best foreign language film is presented annually to a feature-length motion picture produced outside the US that contains primarily non-English dialogue. So far, 50 nations have introduced their nominations to the Academy. The deadline for submissions is October 1.
Last year, a record 92 countries submitted their films. Narges Abyar’s war drama “Breath” was Iran’s submission which did not make it to the final five nominees. Sebastián Lelio became the first Chilean director to win the award for “A Fantastic Woman”.
Iran has submitted films to the Oscars regularly since 1994. Prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, it sent only one film in 1977.
A total of 24 Persian-language films have been sent to the Academy for consideration by Iran and three films have received a nomination: Majid Majidi’s “Children of Heaven” (1998) and Asghar Farhadi’s “A Separation” (2011) and The Salesman (2016). Of the three films, A Separation and The Salesman won the award.
The 91st Academy Awards ceremony will be held on February 24, 2019, at the Hollywood’s Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, California. The final nominations will be announced on January 22.
Add new comment
Read our comment policy before posting your viewpoints