Iranian Film Fest Gets Oscar Boost
18-FEB-99 TEHRAN, Iran (Variety/Reuters) - There was good news and
some bad vibes at the 17th Fajr International Film Festival, Iran's window
on the world that ran Feb. 1-10. Coinciding with the 20th anniversary
of the country's Islamic revolution, it marked a time to look back at the
unexpected flowering of post-revolutionary cinema and take stock of future
prospects.
As the festival was drawing to a close, word that Majid Majidi's "The
Children of Heaven," distributed in the United States by Miramax,
had been nominated for an Academy Award in the best foreign-language film
category caused jubilation. This is the first time an Iranian film ever
has made the Oscar short list.
"Apart from the quality of our recent Iranian movies, it's the
way this film tells a story that caught the academy's attention,"
Majidi told Daily Variety. The nomination was announced triumphantly at
fest's closing ceremony.
Majidi was still riding the Oscar wave when the international competition
jury handed its best film prize to his new picture about a blind boy rejected
by his father, "The Color of God." The emotionally touching
film also won the audience prize, earning top ratings from 77 percent of
festgoers.
As usual, Tehran audiences eager for a glimpse beyond their borders
stood in long lines to buy tickets. Every festival screening was sold out
in advance, causing organizers to rescreen films for spillover viewers
late into the night, sometimes until 3 a.m.
The commercial and cultural foothold that Iranian movies have made in
the West, in Asia and the Mideast was clear from a guest list that included
representatives of Miramax, New Yorker Films, the Sundance and New York
film festivals, and 16 other major world fests. Most reported satisfaction
with what they had seen.
"For me, this has been an exceptionally fruitful year," remarked
Montreal festival chief Serge Losique, who went home counting five or six
possible titles to invite to Canada.
Lead by "The Color of God," strong new Iranian films demonstrated
the continuing power of this small country to produce moving and innovative
works able to hold their own on the international scene.
Highlights included female director Tahmine Milani's openly feminist
"Two Women"; Parviz Kimiavi's rebellious paean to the Persian
poets of yore, "Iran Is My Homeland"; and Dariush Mehrjui's study
of a lonely woman, "Banoo," a 1992 production just off the censors'
blacklist.
Many of the top Iranian directors, however, kept their distance from
the festival. Their disappointing absence was a clear sign of the tension
between filmmakers and the ministry's film department, which organized
the Fajr festival and a small but lively film market through the state
company Farabi Cinema Foundation.
The most eagerly awaited picture, Abbas Kiarostami's "Strawberry
Fields," still was being edited during the fest after the director
had a stay in the hospital that delayed its completion. Produced locally
in association with MK2, it is most likely to premiere later this year
at Venice.
The other important new title, "Kish Island," got embroiled
in a censorship dispute that turned into a festival cliffhanger about whether
it would be screened. Iit quietly was slipped in on the last day after
nearly all the 50 foreign guests had departed.
A six-episode omnibus by such top directors as Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Bahram
Bayzai, Abolfazl Jalili and Nasser Taghvai, it finally screened sans two
tales: one by Dariush Mehrjui, who was still shooting during the fest,
and one by Rakshan Bani-Etemad. Her episode was blocked by the state censors,
whose ostensible objection is that she shows too much hair peeping from
under the scarf of her 13-year-old heroine.
A local jury judging the Iranian competition gave its two main prizes
for best film and direction to a conventionally pious war picture called
"Hiva."
Besides "The Color of God," the other winners in the international
competition were Ademir Kenovic (special jury award) for "The Perfect
Circle," an emotionally charged first-hand account of the Sarajevo
tragedy, and Ebrahim Hatamikia (best direction) for his gripping three-character
Iranian desert drama, "The Red Ribbon." Reuters/Variety
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