Iran’s Elephant King Trumpets at Russian Theaters

TEHRAN. (Iranart) – Iranian director Hadi Mohammadian’s animated movie The Elephant King had its premiere in Russia on Thursday, Iran’s Farabi Cinema Foundation announced on Monday.

Produced by the Honar Pooya Group, the film is about Shadfil, a funny baby elephant who must quickly find the courage to be the successor to his father as the leader of the elephants.

The screening will continue for one week at about 400 theaters in Russia. 

The Elephant King will then go on screen in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan.

The movie had its premiere Iran during the 36th Fajr Film Festival in Tehran in January 2018.

In an interview published by the Tehran Times at that time, Mohammadian said that his movie has over 60 percent of the quality of the latest works produced by world-renowned companies.

He also added that Pixar and many other similar companies would consider his movie to be incredible if they knew how a small group in Iran was able to do the project on a tight budget.

“People judge our works by the standards applied to those movies that are being produced at many old-line overseas companies… but they should know that, for example, Pixar spent over $200 million to make the acclaimed movie ‘Coco’, while we only spent one-200th of that amount to make ‘The Elephant King’,” Mohammadian said.

“That sum of money would not even cover their expenditures for coffee and cake for their staff when they were working on ‘Coco’,” he noted.

Source: Tehran Times