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In anticipation for the upcoming 95th Academy Awards, I chatted with director Houman Seyyedi and screenwriter Azad Jafarian, whose film World War III is Iran’s official submission in consideration for the Best International Feature Category. After premiering at the 2022 Venice Film Festival, where it won Best Film in the Horizons sidebar, the film has garnered a number of awards at various film festivals. Seyyedi and Jafarian discuss how they came together to collaborate on the feature. Seyyedi discusses the filming of key sequences and crafting the lead role for actor Mohsen Tanabandeh.

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The much-decorated Japanese drama “Drive My Car” was named the best film Sunday at the Asian Film Awards, defeating hot favorite “Decision to Leave.”

Other notable awards went to Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda whose “Broker” debuted at Cannes, but which was largely shunned in his home country.

“Decision to Leave,” which started the evening with ten nominations, was nevertheless rewarded with three awards, best screenplay, best production design and best actress for China’s Tang Wei.

While nominations were geographically diverse, the awards on Sunday skewed heavily towards North East Asia –Japan, Korea and Greater China – to the total exclusion of films from India, Indonesia and The Philippines. Snubs included the exclusion of Indonesia’s “Autobiography” and Happy Salma, both of which have been widely lauded on the festival circuit.

The awards ceremony returned to Hong Kong after detours to Macau and Busan and a Covid hiatus in previous years.

There’s the gig economy, and then there’s a homeless day laborer being asked to play Adolf Hitler in a Holocaust drama. Such is the plight of Shakib (Mohsen Tanabandeh) in Houman Seyedi’s “World War III,” Iran’s submission for the international feature Oscar. It wasn’t shortlisted, but probably would have been were the award given to the film with the greatest ability to keep you guessing as to what form its narrative will eventually take. For that premise, as odd and even zany as it may sound, gives approximately zero indication of how genuinely strange, unexpected and upsetting so much of what happens in “World War III” ultimately is.

Shakib has never acted before and doesn’t resemble Hitler in the slightest, but everyone’s journey to stardom is different. Initially hired to help build and guard the film’s sets — including one of a gas chamber,...

Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s ‘Drive My Car’ secures eight nods.

Park Chan-wook’s Decision To Leave leads the nominations for this year’s Asian Film Awards (Afa) with 10 nods including best film and best director.

Korean films have secured nominations in every category for the 16th edition of the awards, which will return to Hong Kong for the first time in three years, having been hosted in Busan for two years and not held in 2022.

Scroll down for full list of nominations

Korean romantic noir Decision To Leave premiered in Competition at Cannes last May, where Park won best director. As...

Park Chan-wook’s stylish crime drama Decision to Leave leads the nominations for this year’s Asian Film Awards with a sweeping 10 nods, including Best Director and Best Film.

The film’s impressive nominations haul also includes a Best Screenplay nod and acting nominations for leads Park Hae-il and Tang Wei, as well as below-the-line recognition for Cinematography, Editing, Music, and Production Design.

Decision to Leave follows a detective (Park Hae-il) investigating a man’s death in the mountains when he meets the dead man’s mysterious wife, a suspect in the case, and begins a tangled affair. The film debuted at Cannes where Park won the Best Director prize. Korea has also submitted the film as its entry for the international feature Oscar race.

Japanese filmmaker Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s Drive My Car trails with eight nominations. The epic road movie also debuted at Cannes, but in 2021. Elsewhere, Hirokazu Koreeda...

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Anyone whose experience of Iranian cinema is limited to the social realism and lyrical fables of Abbas Kiarostami and Asghar Farhadi might be shocked by Houman Seyyedi’s World War III, Iran’s official entry for this year’s best international feature Oscar. The movie, which premiered in Venice, where it won the prize for best film in the Horizons sidebar, is a mashup of genres: part social drama, part thriller, part absurdist film industry satire. Mohsen Tanabandeh was named best actor in Venice Horizons for his portrayal of Shakib, a man who’s still traumatized by the loss, years ago, of his wife and son in a terrible earthquake, and who finds some pickup work as an extra in a World War II movie. When the film’s star has a heart attack, the director asks Shakib to step in and play Adolf Hitler.

Los Angeles, Nov. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — The eighth annual Asian World Film Festival (Awff) announced its competition winners at a star-studded event November 18 at Beverly Hill’s Saban Theater. The Last Film Show (India), directed by Pan Nalin, won the Snow Leopard Award for Best Film; Mohsen Tanabandeh garnered the Snow Leopard for Best Actor for World War III (Iran), and Hui Fang Hong was honored with the Snow Leopard for Best Actress for Ajoomma (Singapore).

Asian World Film Festival (Awff)

The Snow Leopard Special Jury Award went to World War III, directed by Houman Seyedi, and the Snow Leopard Audience Award to Aurora’s Sunrise (Armenia), directed by Inna Sahakyan. Kerr (Turkey) director of photography, Andreas Sinanos, received the Panavision Best Cinematography Award along with a 60,000 Panavision Camera Grant of cutting-edge filmmaking equipment.

Short films and the talent behind them were also recognized at the standing-room-only event. The Hollywood Foreign Press...

“Last Film Show” (aka “Chhello Show”), India’s Oscar contender, was this weekend named winner of the Asian World Film Festival in Los Angeles.

Writer-director Pan Nalin and producer Dheer Momaya were presented with the Snow Leopard trophy at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills.

“The best movie encompasses everything we want to see in a great film: good storytelling, moving performances, technically appealing, visually intoxicating and heartfelt connectivity to audiences. We received a line of very good movies this year and it was a tough decision. But this film reminded us of why we loved cinema. It reminded us of cinema’s ability to both enchant and inspire. It is a love letter to cinema to light and to life itself,” said festival jurors Janet Nepales and Pitof Jean-Christophe.

The film has been on the festival circuit for over a year, since debuting in in June 2021 at the Tribeca Film Festival.

“The Beasts,” Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s psychological thriller about a French couple who come to live a peaceful life in Spain’s Galician countryside, but get a less than warm welcome from the locals, won the Tokyo Grand Prix at the 35th Tokyo International Film Festival at Tuesday night’s closing ceremony.

The festival, which unspooled Oct. 24 to Nov. 2 at venues in central Tokyo, also awarded Sorogoyen Best Director honors and named “The Beasts” star Denis Menochet best actor.

The film, which premiered out of competition at Cannes this year, opened in French theaters in July. The Japan release has yet to be announced, however.

Winning the second-place Special Jury Prize was Iranian director Houman Seyedi’s satirical drama “World War III.” At its premiere in this year’s Venice Film Festival Horizon’s section it won Best Film, while lead Mohsen Tanabandeh took the Best Actor prize. The film’s...

Further winners included ‘World War III’ and ‘by the window’.

Spanish-French rural thriller The Beasts has won a hat-trick of awards at Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), including the Tokyo Grand Prix, best director for Rodrigo Sorogoyen and best actor for Denis Menochet.

The winners were announced at the closing ceremony of TIFF’s 35th edition in the Ginza district of Tokyo this evening (November 2).

The Beasts is a psychological thriller starring Ménochet and Marina Foïs as a French couple who settle in a remote Galician village to run an organic farm but whose arrival is seen as a threat...

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Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s multi-layered thriller The Beasts nearly achieved a clean sweep of the Tokyo International Film Festival’s major awards categories Wednesday night in the Japanese capital. During a ceremony held in the city’s glitzy Ginza district, The Beasts came away with the Tokyo Grand Prix, the festival’s top honor, as well as best director honors for Sorogoyen and best actor for his star Denis Menochet.

A brooding, psychological thriller set in rural Spain, The Beasts tells the story of a cosmopolitan French couple, Antoine and Olga (Menochet and actress Marina Foïs), who settle in a small village hoping to connect with nature. Instead, their presence soon arouses hostility — and eventually, downright violence — from some of the locals. The film has been praised for its feral, even savage, portrayal of the hardscrabble realities of the majestic Galician countryside.

Tokyo’s...

Houman Seyyedi’s darkly comic drama World War III has been named as Iran’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards, set for March 12 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. See the full list of entries by country below.

The film chosen “unanimously” by Iran’s Oscars committee follows the day laborer Shakib (Mohsen Tanabandeh), who after being cast in a movie, must secretly shelter his lover on the set or risk losing her and all that movie stardom has promised him.

Seyyedi, Arian Vazirdaftari and Azad Jafarian scripted the pic, which world premiered in the Horizons section of this year’s Venice Film Festival and went on to win the section’s prizes for Best Film and Best Actor (Tanabandeh). Its cast also includes Neda Jebreili, Mahsa Hejazi and Navid Nosrati.

Parviz Sheikh Tadi, the speaker and a member of the committee in...

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Iran has selected Houman Seyyedi’s Venice Festival award winner World War III to represent the country in the 2023 Oscar race in the best international feature category.

The absurdist drama stars Mohsen Tanabandeh as a day laborer who, after losing his wife in a horrible catastrophe, finds himself surprisingly cast to play Adolf Hitler in an Iranian-shot, German-set World War II film. World War III premiered in the Venice Horizons sidebar, where it won best film and best actor honors for Seyyedi and Tanabandeh.

Iran’s selection committee said the decision to pick Seyyedi’s film was “unanimous.” In a statement, the committee said they “salute the Persian cinema family” and wished “ever-increasing success for all artists in our beloved country.”

Iran has had considerable Oscar success, with five Oscar nominations and two wins: for Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation (2011) and The Salesman...

There is barely anyone who isn’t rich or in position of power who doesn’t often exclaim “I would never do that if I were in their shoes”, truly convinced to hold a higher moral ground than “them folks”. You can thank this self-foolery for all the irritating quotes and misquotes by big thinkers, shanti-shanti spiritual leaders, and celebrities on social media, the same you can also find on the wall calendars and help-yourself books. Hell is other people, right?

Make no mistake, Houman Seyedi’s 6th feature “World War III” also leans on a quote attributed to Mark Twain which kicks it off, but this one sits hand in hand with the script which fabulously rhymes the events. “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes”, goes the sad quote, gaining more on its meaning with every passing minute of the film. Hell is,...

Update: The Venice Film Festival has now handed out its awards, and for the second time ever crowned a documentary as the Golden Lion, while also spreading the love around.

Oscar winner Laura Poitras’ All the Beauty and the Bloodshed walked away with the top honor tonight. It follows Gianfranco Rosi’s Sacro Gra (2013) as a non-fiction Lion winner. The film is a portrait of Nan Goldin, the 68-year-old photographer who was prescribed Oxycontin, quickly became addicted to it, found recovery through a replacement drug and then threw her energies into calling the Sackler family to account. In Deadline’s review Stephanie Bunbury wrote that the film “makes clear is that this is all of a piece with the photographs of drag queens, prostitutes and parties, the angry records of AIDS sufferers, the portraits that show glamour and tenderness where others might see the grotesque.”

Meanwhile, Luca Guadagnino scored Best...

As our 2022 Venice Film Festival coverage wraps up, the juries have now unveiled their picks, most notably featuring Julianne Moore’s competition jury. Leading the pack is Laura Poitras’ new documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, which picked up the top prize of Golden Lion, while Alice Diop, Luca Guadagnino, Cate Blanchett, Jafar Panahi, Colin Farrell, and more also received awards.

See the list of winners, with a hat tip to Variety, along with links to our reviews––and check back soon for coverage of Saint Omer, No Bears, and more.

Competition

Golden Lion for Best Film: “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” Laura Poitras

Grand Jury Prize: “Saint Omer,” Alice Diop

Silver Lion for Best Director: “Bones and All,” Luca Guadagnino

Special Jury Prize: “No Bears,” Jafar Panahi

Best Screenplay: “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Martin McDonagh

Volpi Cup for Best Actress: “TÁR,” Cate Blanchett

Volpi Cup for Best Actor: “The Banshees of Inisherin,...

All The Beauty And The Bloodshed In Competition(Jury: Julianne Moore, Mariano Cohn, Leonardo di Costanzo, Audrey Diwan, Leila Hatami, Kazuo Ishiguro, Rodrigo Sorogoyen)Golden Lion – All The Beauty And The Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)Silver Lion (Grand Jury Prize) – Saint Omer (Alice Diop)Silver Lion (Best Director) – Luca Guadagnino (Bones & All)Coppa Volpi for Best Actress – Cate Blanchett (Tár)Coppa Volpi for Best Actor – Colin Farrell (The Banshees Of Inisherin)Best Screenplay – Martin McDonagh (The Banshees Of Inisherin)Special Jury Prize – No Bears (Jafar Panahi)Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress – Taylor Russell (Bones & All)Orizzonti(Jury: Isabel Coixet, Laura Bispuri, Antonio Campos, Sofia Djama, Edourad Waintrop)Orizzonti Award for Best Film – World War III (Houman Seyedi)Orizzonti Award for Best Director – Vera (Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel)Special Orizzonti Jury Prize – Bread And Salt (Damian Kocur)Orizzonti Award for Best Actress – Vera Gemma (Vera)Orizzonti Award for...

‘Saint Omer’ takes Grand Jury prize; best director to Luca Guadagnino for ‘Bones And All’.

Laura Poitras’ All The Beauty And The Bloodshed won the Golden Lion at the 2022 Venice Film Festival, becoming only the second documentary to take the top prize in the event’s 90-year history.

”I need to thank the festival first and foremost, for understanding that documentary is cinema,” said US director Poitras, accepting the award. She proceeded to voice support for Iranian filmmaker and fellow Competition director Jafar Panahi, who is currently under arrest in his home country.

Scroll down for the full list of...

The 2022 Venice Film Festival has awarded Laura Poitras’ “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” the Golden Lion for Best Film, with Colin Farrell and Cate Blanchett landing the Coppa Volpi for Best Actor and Best Actress.

The Silver Lion for Best Director went to Luca Guadagnino for “Bones and All.” The cannibal love story also saw co-star Taylor Russell win the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Young Actor or Actress.

In addition to Farrell, “The Banshees of Inisherin” won the award for Best Screenplay for writer-director Martin McDonagh. The film, which follows an abrupt fallout between two best friends (“In Bruges” co-stars Farrell and Brendan Gleeson), received a 13-minute standing ovation at its Tuesday premiere. Meanwhile, Blanchett won her second Volpi Cup (following her performance as Bob Dylan in 2007’s “I’m Not There”) for playing the world-renowned composer at the center of Todd Field’s “Tár.”

Also Read:

Brendan Fraser...

The winners of the 2022 Venice Film Festival are being announced this evening.

The 79th Venice Film Festival comes to a close today with the awards ceremony, held at the Sala Grande in the Palazzo del Cinema from 6pm BST (7pm Cet).

Watch the ceremony live in the video above; Screen will be updating this page with the winners as they are announced.

The ceremony will be hosted by Spanish actress Rocio Munoz Morales, who also hosted the opening ceremony. A Competition jury led by Julianne Moore will award nine prizes, including the Golden Lion for best film.

Winners in the...

Click here to read the full article.

Laura Poitras’s documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed has won the 2022 Golden Lion for best film at the 79th Venice International Film Festival.

The documentary follows the life of artist Nan Goldin and her campaign against the Sackler family, the pharmaceutical dynasty that was greatly responsible for the opioid epidemic.

Poitras, an Oscar-winner for her Edward Snowden documentary Citizenfour, dedicated the prize to Goldin.

“This is for Nan. I love you Nan. Monday is her birthday, so we’ll bring this to Nan,” she said.

Produced by Participant and Poitras’ Praxis Films, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed will go out domestically via Neon and HBO.

Cate Blanchett won Venice’s best actress honors for her bracing turn as a classical conductor in Todd Field’s Tár. The award kicks off the Oscar campaign for the film, and for Blanchett, who...

After nearly two weeks of lush red carpets, timed standing ovations, and viral “Don’t Worry Darling” drama, the 79th Venice Film Festival comes to a close on Saturday in the Sala Grande at the Palazzo del Cinema (Lido di Venezia). Julianne Moore chairs the festival’s jury alongside her fellow judges and elite film peers Mariano Cohn, Leonardo di Costanzo, Audrey Diwan, Leila Hatami, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Rodrigo Sorogoyen.

“I feel like so often the discussion around the future of cinema ends up being a discussion that’s more commercial, more business oriented,” Moore said in her opening remarks on August 31. “When we talk about the future of cinema it often degrades into what the future of the business is. That’s not the future of art.”

Established in 1932, Venice is the oldest ongoing cinematic awards celebration and is regarded among the world’s most esteemed international film festivals. 22 titles...

The film follows an aspiring actor cast in a war film with tyrant filmmakers and a secret lover.

Screen can exclusively reveal the first trailer for Houman Seyedi’s World War III which is premiering in the Horizons strand of the 79th Venice Film Festival (August 31 - September 10).

The film stars Mohsen Tanabandeh, from Cannes 2021 Grand Prix winner A Hero, as an aspiring actor cast in a war film with tyrant filmmakers and a secret lover, played by Neda Jebraeili, that risks jeopardising his new career.

It is one of four Iranian films screening at the festival this year. Seyedi wrote,...

The film follows an aspiring actor cast in a war film with tyrant filmmakers and a secret lover.

Screen can exclusively reveal the first trailer for Houman Seyedi’s World War III which is premiering in the Horizons strand of the 79th Venice Film Festival (August 31 - September 10).

The film stars Mohsen Tanabandeh, from Cannes 2021 Grand Prix winner A Hero, as an aspiring actor cast in a war film with tyrant filmmakers and a secret lover, played by Neda Jebraeili, that risks jeopardising his new career.

It is one of four Iranian films screening at the festival this year. Seyedi wrote,...

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on Wbgr-fm on January 6th, 2022, reviewing a new film from Iranian director Asghar Farhadi “A Hero,” in theaters on January 7th and Amazon Prime Video on January 21st.

Rating: 3.0/5.0

Iranian writer/director Asghar Farhadi (“A Separation” and “The Salesman”) creates empathetic insight into life in Iran. “A Hero” furthers this empathy as a man named Rahim (Amir Jadidi), who is on a sabbatical from debtors prison, gets involved in a found purse with gold coins in it. At first he wants cash for the bounty, but becomes guilty and posts signs around the neighborhood, and a grateful woman claims it. Word gets out, and Rahim is touted as a hero, but the circumstances of the find and the disappearance of the purse’s claimant cause problems with his heroism.

“A Hero” is currently in theaters beginning January 7th,...

Amir Jadidi as Rahmin and Saleh Karimai as his son Siavash, in Asghar Farhadi’s Iranian drama/thriller A Hero. Photo credit: Amirhossein Shojaei. Courtesy of Amazon Studios.

Debtor’s prison brings Charles Dickens to mind for most of us but this Dickensian nightmare appears to be alive in Iran – or at least prison for debt. In A Hero, two-time Oscar winning writer/director Asghar Farhadi’s latest drama/thriller, a man imprisoned for debt gets a two-day pass during which he hopes to work out a deal with his creditor. Things do not go as planned but Farhadi takes us on a twisty path and, at one point, it does look like the imprisoned debtor might become a hero.

A Hero is Iran’s official submission for the Oscars and won the Grand Prix award at Cannes last year, as well as being on several critics’ Top Ten lists.

Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi revealed that a long gestation period in his head and a subsequent copious amount of real-world rehearsal time allowed him to shape A Hero into the critically hailed film that it’s become.

Speaking through a translator at Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles awards-season event Sunday, Farhadi explained that the germ of the notion for the film – which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in July – first took root in his mind when he was a college student. He saw a British play put on by students, which sparked his interest in local stories about altruistic strangers who become celebrated for kindnesses like returning lost items by tracking down their owners. “They very soon become like a regional hero,” he said.

Farhadi said the notion that “societies makes heroes was in my head all the time.” Still, “at that time I never thought,...

While his post-a Separation career has received quite a wide range of responses, Iranian director Asghar Farhadi triumphantly returned to Cannes Film Festival this summer with A Hero, which went on to win the Grand Pix. The film follows Rahim (Amir Jadidi), who is in prison because of a debt he was unable to repay, as he tries to convince his creditor (Mohsen Tanabandeh) during a two-day leave to withdraw his complaint against the payment of part of the sum. Set to arrive in theaters on January 7 followed by an Amazon Prime bow two weeks later, the first trailer for Iran’s Oscar entry has now arrived.

Rory O’Connor said in his Cannes review, “In A Hero, the discovery of a bag of gold coins sets the scene for a knotted Bressonian morality tale. The director is Asghar Farhadi, a filmmaker who has spent his career examining those blurred lines...

Anglo-American titles took up much of the buzz at Telluride this year, with the exception of one title: Asghar Farhadi’s “A Hero” (2021). Farhadi — known mostly for his Oscar-winning film “A Separation” (2011) — came back to the circuit to reap more awards. This Iranian Palme d’Or nominee triumphantly won the Grand Prix and the Francois Chalais Award at Cannes. Loaded with a beautifully subtle storyline and an irresistible cast of characters, this film is sure to see more accolades throughout the rest of the fest season.

In “A Hero,” one good deed blows up into a fiasco. Rahim (Amir Jadidi) is in prison because of debt. During his two-day leave, he and his secret lover Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldust) conspire to pay it off with a serendipitous bag of seventeen gold coins. Halfway through the transaction, however, Rahim decides to backtrack — and instead give the bag back to its owner. When the local papers find out,...

Penal system is a common topic in Iranian cinema, and for good reasons so. Firstly, the problems with it are real, from the death penalty that is administered way too much to the overcrowded prisons and the toxic mix between the all-powerful bureaucracy and the vision of justice more based in some elusive code of honour than in written laws. Secondly, prisons are the perfect metaphor for the isolated, deeply unhappy society. Thirdly, the whole idea of punishment instead of rehabilitation that is in place in Iran (among other countries) is not only prone to backfiring, but is absurd in its core, since the person with a prison record has less chances in life generally. The sense of absurdity is highlighted when it comes to imprisoning people for debt: theoretically they have to stay in prison until they pay it off, but practically it is impossible as long as they are incarcerated.

The Zurich Film Festival has unveiled its lineup of Gala Premieres, including the world premieres of Florian Gallenberger’s relationship comedy “It’s Just a Phase, Honey,” and Andreas Schmied’s skiing champion biopic “Chasing the Line,” as well as a German-language territories premiere for Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch,” which will close the festival.

The Gala section focuses on auteur films with broad audience appeal, with the filmmakers presenting their films in person. “We’re celebrating the comeback of great auteur cinema this year,” said artistic director Christian Jungen. “Thanks to the Zff’s reputation on the international film scene, it has now become easier for us to get important movies that go on to play a crucial role later in the award season.”

“It’s Just a Phase, Honey,” which stars Christoph Maria Herbst and Christiane Paul, focuses on Emilia and Paul, whose marriage has broken down.

In A Hero, the discovery of a bag of gold coins sets the scene for a knotted Bressonian morality tale. The director is Asghar Farhadi, a filmmaker who has spent his career examining those blurred lines between right and wrong; decency and hubris; righteousness and folly. Taking place in the city of Shiraz, it proves a return to familiar ground for him: both the first he has made in his native Iran after the awful misstep that was Everybody Knows, as well as a return to the moral complexities of A Separation, still his finest film to date.

Farhadi stakes a claim for his latest’s fable credentials with an opening flourish: a weightless craning shot across the marvelous facade of Persepolis, the ancient capital of Persia where visiting nobles would come to present their offerings. Rahim (Amir Jadidi) is not a noble man, per se, but certainly one with...

In “A Hero” (“Ghahreman”), Asghar Farhadi blurs the line of innocence and guilt in a fraught drama about the true weight of a good deed. During a two-day reprieve from prison, Rahim Soltani (Amir Jadidi) and his girlfriend Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldust) discover a handbag full of golden coins. Though Rahim briefly debates selling them to help offset the cost of his debts to Braham (Mohsen Tanabandeh), the gold exchange rate is unsatisfactorily low, and he resolves to track down the original owner and return them.

Continue reading ‘A Hero’: Asghar Farhadi’s Moral Quandary Film Questions The Weight of a Good Deed [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

In movies like “A Separation,” “The Past,” and “The Salesman,” the Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi has demonstrated a unique ability to take “ordinary” human situations, usually on the domestic front, and play them out in a way that is so minutely authentic yet suspenseful that they give you the sensation that life itself, if observed closely enough, is a kind of thriller. “A Hero,” Farhadi’s latest film (it’s his fourth to premiere at Cannes), very much wants to be a drama of that ilk. Its story of an achingly modest and desperate man who becomes, all too fleetingly, a much discussed figure on television and social media is a story that one could easily imagine being set within the bubbling maelstrom of our own frenetic image culture.

Rahim, the central character, is serving time for an unpaid debt and has been given a two-day leave from prison, during...

The Malaysia International Film Festival (MIFFest) will be an online-only event for its fourth edition, which will take place later this month.

The Festival originally intended to be an in-person event and even announced its selection for the event, which was initially scheduled to take place in December, 2020. However, Covid regulations in Malaysia were made stricter in November, which caused cinemas countrywide to close down and made the event impossible. With the regulations showing no signs of easing yet, organisers have been forced to move the event into the digital space and make it an online-only event.

The festival is now scheduled to be held from January 15th-21st on the streaming platform Mubi. The audiences in Malaysia can stream the selection free of cost by taking advantage of Mubi’s extended 30-days free trial subscription. Joanne Goh, the festival chairperson, together with actor Bront Palarae made the announcement at the 4th MIFFest Gala Night.

The fourth edition of the Malaysia International Film Festival (MIFFest) is now set to be held later this month as an online-only event.

The festival was originally scheduled to take place as an in-person event in December and got as far as announcing its selection. However, Malaysia’s coronavirus control measures were increased at the beginning of November, causing cinemas across much of the country to close.

Miffest organizers said in November that they hoped to be still able to put on a real-world festival in January when cinemas reopened. But with the virus still hitting cinema operations that is no longer a viable option.

Instead, the festival will now be held Jan. 15-21, playing out on streaming platform Mubi. Audiences in Malaysia can stream the selection free of charge through an extended 30-day trial subscription to Mubi.

The announcement was made by Joanne Goh, the festival chairperson, together with...

One of those curious tales that suddenly sheds light on the darker corners of Iranian society, Mohsen Tanabandeh’s The Oath (screening at the Fajr Film Festival) plunges the viewer into the drama of a feudal judicial system. It starts with the premise of an eye for an eye (the hanging of a murderer) and then introduces the age-old custom of the victim’s family accepting a pay-off in blood money that would let the killer get off scot-free. Alternatively, if the family lets up pressure on the judge, the murderer may never stand trial at all. Though the story ...

One of those curious tales that suddenly sheds light on the darker corners of Iranian society, Mohsen Tanabandeh’s The Oath (screening at the Fajr Film Festival) plunges the viewer into the drama of a feudal judicial system. It starts with the premise of an eye for an eye (the hanging of a murderer) and then introduces the age-old custom of the victim’s family accepting a pay-off in blood money that would let the killer get off scot-free. Alternatively, if the family lets up pressure on the judge, the murderer may never stand trial at all. Though the story ...

“My mother is all my life.”

In the constant stream of images of refugees making their way to Europe and the USA, we often tend to forget the stories behind the faces of the people we see on camera and newspaper articles. Since many young families, or the young fathers alone, start the sheer never-ending journey from Africa or Arab countries, their stories speak not only of the possibility of a future they want to create, but also the family they have left behind. Films such as Ai Weiwei’s documentary “Human Flow” or Philippe van Leeuw’s “Insyriated” are only two examples of artists who have decided to focus on these stories, these families and their conflicts, one which is after all ours as well.

In his second feature “Rona, Azim’s Mother” Afghan director Jamshid Mahmoudi tells one of these stories. Similar to his former feature “A Few...

Among the 87 entries this year, down five from 2017’s whopping 92, there are more documentaries than ever, plus two African countries submitting for the first time: Malawi and Niger. Here’s a guide to the films, including logline, sales, and production contact.

Afghanistan

“Rona, Azim’s Mother”

Director: Jamshid Mahmoudi

Logline: A touching drama set in the milieu of Afghan immigrants in Iran who lack full citizens’ rights, with laborer Azim struggling to care for his mother.

Key Cast: Mohsen Tanabandeh, Fatemeh Hosseini

Intl. Sales: Noori Pictures

Algeria

“Until the End of Time”

Director: Yasmine Chouikh

Logline: An elderly grave digger and a 60-something widow meet in the cemetery of Sidi Boulekbour and develop feelings for one another.

Key Cast: Djillali Boudjemaa, Djamila Arres

Intl. Sales: MakingOf Film

Argentina

“El Ángel”

Director: Luis Ortega

Logline: A portrait of the infamous teenage serial killer “The Angel of Death,” who took Argentina by...

Afghanistan-born, Tehran-based brothers Jamshid and Navid Mahmoudi continue their examination of life among Afghan refugees in Iran with the touching drama “Rona, Azim’s Mother.” Written and directed by Jamshid and produced by Navid, this tale of a middle-aged son facing a life-and-death decision regarding his gravely ill mother provides an illuminating picture of family tensions and bureaucratic frustrations that arise in a community trapped in a seemingly never-ending state of limbo. Selected as Afghanistan’s submission for the foreign-language Oscar category, “Rona” made its international premiere in Busan — the stop on what promises to be a healthy festival run.

Following their Jamshid-directed, Navid-produced debut “A Few Cubic Meters of Love” (2014) and the Navid-helmed, Jamshid-produced “Parting” (2016), the Mahmoudis (who also write and usually edit their work) have completed a remarkable hat trick of foreign-language Oscar submissions with “Rona.” In keeping with the previous films, the siblings’ mission here is to...