Italian festival puts spotlight on Iranian cinema

TEHRAN –(Iranart)- A lineup of thirteen Iranian movies has been selected to go on screen in the Focus on Iran section of the 2020 Middle East Now, a film festival in the Italian city of Florence running online from October 6 to 11.

At its 11th edition, the festival shows the reality of life in West Asia. 

Focus on Iran is one of the initiatives in memory of Felicetta Ferraro, the former Italian cultural attaché to Iran who died on June 2, 2019 in Florence.

She was a collaborator in and an enthusiast of the festival, and curator since the first editions of the program relating to this area of the world. 

The festival will open with “Sunless Shadows” by Mehrdad Oskoui. 

“Sunless Shadows” builds a remarkable relationship with a group of adolescent girls who are serving their sentences for the grave crime of murdering their father, their husband or another male family member in an Iranian juvenile detention center.

The lineup includes “Starvation” by Zahra Rostampur, “Shouting at the Wind” by Siavash Jamali and Ata Mehrad, and “Command” by Farshid Abdi.

Also included are “Elephant Bird” by Amir-Masud Soheili, “Zhirleh” by Bahar Ruhani, “Life Is Gone with the Wind” by Siavash Saedpanah and Omid Gharibi, and “The Wasteland” by Ahmad Bahrami.

“The Wasteland” is about an old brick manufacturing factory that is going to be shut down, and all that matters to the factory supervisor is to keep his lover unharmed.  

“The Friend’s House” by Mohammadreza Eyni, “Cutting through Rocks” by Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni, “Silent Lighthouse” by Farshad Ghaffari and Payam Laghari,“Harmonica” by Ashkan Saedpanah and “Formerly Youth Square” by Mina Akbari are other Iranian films.

Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi was a special guest at the 2019 edition of the festival. 

source: Tehran Times