Iranian duo storm IDFA with twin top wins in Amsterdam
Two Iranian titles lit up the 38th International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam on Thursday night, with Mehrdad Oskouei’s ‘A Fox Under a Pink Moon’ taking Best Film in the International Competition and Morteza Ahmadvand and Firouzeh Khosrovani’s ‘Past Future Continuous’ winning Best Film in the Envision Competition.
Oskouei’s win capped a commanding presence for Iranian non-fiction cinema at this year’s IDFA. His 76-minute film, co-directed with Afghan artist Soraya Khalaqi, follows her self-shot chronicle of displacement, recorded over years on her mobile phone as she moves from Afghanistan to Iran and onwards in search of a foothold in Europe.
The jury praised its “skillful” camerawork in dangerous situations and called Khalaqi’s on-screen presence “luminous,” noting the close creative partnership that allowed her, in their words, to “reclaim” herself amid exile and domestic violence.
Khalaqi wrote earlier in the week that bringing the seven-year project to the screen felt like “standing bare” before hundreds of viewers, describing the long haul of finishing the film as a cycle of “fear, injury, escape, fighting, building… and building again.”
The film, a joint production spanning Iran, France, Britain, the United States and Denmark, drew an extended ovation in the Dutch capital.
In the Envision section, Past Future Continuous impressed jurors with its hybrid structure, described as an “unusual, ironic cinematic experience” that fuses suspended time and layered memory. The panel highlighted what it called an “extraordinary text,” saying the form “lifts the subject to a higher plane” as the directors play with a reality that is both invented and emotionally exact.
Each film secured a €15,000 prize. IDFA, founded in 1988 and held annually in Amsterdam, remains the world’s largest documentary festival and a key launchpad for filmmakers heading into the winter awards season.