Curtains down on 41st Tehran International Short Film Festival
The closing ceremony of the 41st Tehran International Short Film Festival (TISFF) was held on October 23 at the Milad Tower in Tehran and the winners were announced.
This year, the festival received 13,651 submissions from more than 30 countries. The number of submitted films was a new record in the history of the event, about twice the number of submissions last year.
The line-up includes 59 short fiction films, 21 animated movies, 18 documentaries, and nine experimental films. The submitted works are from India, China, Poland, the US, Egypt, Greece, France, Palestine, Turkey, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Russia, Australia, Japan, Germany, Italy, and Cuba among others.
The ceremony then paid tribute to the martyrs of resistance, including Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar, and Qassem Soleimani, with a slideshow of images from the Israeli regime’s brutal attacks on Palestine and Lebanon, ILNA wrote.
A memorial ceremony was also held for Mehdi Ashiri, a member of the Iranian Youth Cinema Society who was martyred in the imposed war. The ceremony was attended by Raed Faridzadeh, head of the Cinema Organization of Iran (COI), the festival’s secretary Mehdi Azarpendar, and Mohammad Ali Bashe Ahangar, a film director.
Faridzadeh then took the stage and said, “When someone returns to his home, the Iranian Youth Cinema Society (IYCS), after 23 years, they cannot remain silent. The enthusiasm and excitement we witnessed during the festival has increased our responsibility.”
He added, “The Tehran International Short Film Festival has reached its 41st year and has matured. With over 12,000 submissions from around the world, this year’s festival has become a major international event. We have also held various workshops and showcased new and innovative topics, demonstrating that the short film festival is a pioneering event that has incorporated modern technologies.”
At the end of the ceremony, Shahab Hosseini, a jury member in the national competition, said, “Outside of the judging process, I witnessed some films being appreciated in this ceremony, but they were not good films. If they were good, we would have noticed them in the judging process. My advice to filmmakers is to work with new and talented actors instead of relying on professional actors, which can harm your work.”
The Golden Leaf and a $2,000 cash prize for the best international film, which will be introduced to the Academy Awards, went to Ibrahim Handel for the narrative film ‘A Short Film about Children’ from Palestine.
The members of the jury panel of the International Section include the Indian musical composer and record producer A. R. Rahman, Ghanian-Belgian director Anthony Nti, Bangladeshi screenwriter and film critic Sadia Khalid Reeti, Italian filmmaker Maja Costa, and Russian festival producer Ekaterina Yakovleva, as well as Iranian filmmakers Ahmad Reza Mo’tamedi and Masoud Madadi.
The Golden Leaf for Best Film from the Audience’s Perspective went to Mohajer Tohidparast and Fuad Javdan for the film ‘Art Festival’.