Yari, meaning ‘help’ in Persian, is an annual film festival arranged by charity organization Yari to collect money through selling tickets in order to build schools and libraries for Iranian children who are in need of education.
Nineteen Iranian film productions comprising of feature-length, short films and documentaries are participating in this year’s edition of the festival. These movies include Iranian Ninja (Marjan Riahi), 13 (Houman Seyyedi), Tales (Rakhshan Banietemad), Before Sunrise (Tahmineh Bahram-Alian), and Mom’s Birthday (Morteza Shams) among others.
Sponsored by Yari charity organization, the annual festival invites several Iranian actors and actresses to its program during which some Iranian features and short films are also screened.
Iranian actresses Roya Teimourian and Rima Raminfar as well as actors Mohsen Tanabandeh, Hossein Shahabi, Amir Jafari and Masoud Rayegan have been selected to be this year’s guest of honor at the festival.
Founded by the Iranian residents of Uppsala in 1998, Yari is a non-profit, independent, and non-political association offering economic and social support to underprivileged children and teenagers living in Iran.
This year’s festival is programmed to take place in the Swedish cities of Stockholm and Uppsala on October 3 and 4.