According to the festival’s public relations office, this is the first time in Asia that a festival with a focus on Nonverbal films is being held.
The Tehran International Silent Film Festival will be held in two sections of National Cinema and International Cinema. The films will be presented in Competition and Out of Competition (for the national section only) categories, each in four formats of Fiction, Documentary, Animation, and Experimental.
The festival has not set much limitation for its participants. Student or non-student participants have submitted their films regardless of the duration or the year of the film’s production. According to Alireza Ghasemi, founder and director of the festival, over 800 submissions have been made, of which 70 titles will be screened in the international section and 45 titles in the national category.
Ghasemi – previously the director of the 11th Nahal Student Film Festival – also mentioned the wide reception of the festival by non-Iranian participants.
The juries for the international section comprise Kamran Shirdel, Mahmoud Kalari, Haydeh Safi Yari, Fatemeh Motamed Arya and Dana Polan.
To find out about the screening programs for the international section, please visit here. The festival is accessible to the public free of charge.
MS