Cinema Vérité 2020 to go noncompetitive in international section

TEHRAN – (Iranart)- The 14th edition of Cinema Vérité, Iran’s major international festival for documentary films, will be noncompetitive in its international section as the organizers published their annual announcement calling for submissions on Sunday.

The entries to the international section will only be screened at the festival, which will be organized entirely online during December due to a spike in coronavirus cases in the country.

Earlier in August, the Documentary and Experimental Film Center (DEFC), the main organizer of the festival, announced its plan to organize a review of movies acclaimed in previous editions of the festival.

A plan to dedicate a special section for screening documentaries on the pandemic and COVID-19 was also discussed in a DEFC meeting.

The organizers plan to design platforms to guarantee the festival entries against piracy.

Earlier DEFC director Mohammad Hamidi-Moqaddam had announced the festival’s plan to pay tribute to celebrated filmmaker Khosro Sinai who died of coronavirus on August 1.

Cinema Organization of Iran director Hossein Entezami has previously announced that the organization is searching for a safe platform to organize the 39th edition of the Fajr Film Festival online if the pandemic continues until February 2021.

He also said that there is no platform in Iran that can guarantee protection of the festival entries from piracy.

“If we cannot have a platform that ensures the safety of films during the festival, it will be impossible for us to organize the event online,” he noted.

source: Tehran Times