Parviz Shahbazi’s ‘Malaria’ and Mehrdad Oskuei’s ‘Starless Dreams’ are other Iranian movies to represent Iran in the event.
Farhadi had won for the third time the prestigious title of Iranian representative in the Oscar’s Academy Awards 2017 after his award-winning ‘A Seperation’ and Paris-set ‘The Past.’
Oskuei’s ‘Starless Dreams’ seeks another of its brilliant international footholds; “One of the year’s most acclaimed documentaries, Starless Dreams plunges us into the lives of teenage girls at a juvenile detention center on the outskirts of Tehran. As the New Year approaches, the innocent-seeming youngsters reveal, with surprising candor, the circumstances behind their incarceration, from patricide to bank robbery. With incredible empathy, startling access, and visual assuredness, this heartbreaking film delivers an unforgettable cinematic portrayal of innocence lost and found,” wrote the official website of the festival in a description of the film.
Shahbazi’s ‘Malaria’ is a third Iranian major film of the event. A young woman elopes with her boyfriend to Tehran. To cover her tracks, she tells her father she’s been kidnapped. With her family in hot pursuit, the couple takes up with a band of bohemian street musicians and forms an elaborate plan for a more permanent escape. Mixing real-life on-the-streets footage with a tense lovers-on-the-run drama, Festival alum Parviz Shahbazi crafts a lively look at the cultural clashes that exist deep within Iranian society.
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