Iranian film ‘Sun Girl’ shines at US, Italy festivals
Iranian filmmaker Bahar Ghasemi has won two international awards for her short film ‘Sun Girl’, earning honors for best international narrative short in New York and best director in Genoa, Italy.
The film received the top prize for Best International Narrative Short at the 11th Imagine This Women’s International Film Festival, held in New York from September 25 to 27, 2026. The festival shows independent films by women and supports women filmmakers.
Ghasemi also claimed the Best Director Award at the eighth Dubbing Glamour Film Festival in September in Genoa, in Italy.
Ghasemi wrote, directed and produced ‘Sun Girl’, her second short film as a director, known in Persian as ‘Dokhshid’.
The film tells the story of a teenage girl who dreams of becoming a singer and prepares to attend an international music academy. Just as she nears her goal, her mother learns that the girl’s brain tumor has returned and that she needs urgent surgery. The diagnosis threatens to derail the teenager’s plans and reshape her future.
The cast includes Parnian Noori Ghasemi, Mehrnoush Dara, Arsalan Hemmati and Zeus Halakou.
‘Sun Girl’ has previously competed at the Beirut International Women Film Festival and Turkey’s AFSAD International Short Film Festival.
It has also been selected for Brazil’s ECOCINE Film Festival and the women filmmakers’ competition at the Dhaka International Film Festival.
The awards strengthen the film’s international profile, recognizing both its storytelling and Ghasemi’s direction.