Directed by the Iranian filmmaker Ahmad Bahrami, "The Wastetown" won an award at the PÖFF.
Ahmad Bahrami’s previous feature "The Wasteland" premiered in Venice, picking up three prizes in 2020, including the Orizzonti Best Film Award, before featuring in PÖFF’s Current Waves program that year.
"The Wastetown" is a companion piece of sorts, close in name and theme, a portrait of the rougher edges of Iran, again shot in crisp black and white.
The synopsis of the film reads, "A remote brick manufacturing factory produces bricks in an ancient way. Many families with different ethnicities work in the factory and the boss seems to hold the key to solving their problems. Forty-year-old Lotfollah (Ali Bagheri), who has been born on-site, is the factory supervisor and acts as the go-between for the workers and the boss. Boss (Farrokh Nemati) has told Lotfollah to gather all the workers in front of his office. He wants to talk to them about the shutdown of the factory. All matters now to Lotfollah is to keep Sarvar (Mahdie Nassaj) unharmed, the woman he has been in love with for a long time."
Iranian film 'World War III' by Houman Seyyedi has been also chosen to be screened at the event's Best of Fest section.
'World War III' is a 2022 Iranian thriller drama film co-written, directed, produced, and edited by Houman Seyyedi.
The film stars Mohsen Tanabandeh, Mahsa Hejazi, Neda Jebraeili and Navid Nosrati.
Iranian film 'World War III' won two awards at the Orizzonti (Horizons) section of the 79th Venice International Film Festival in Italy.
The film is about Shakib, played by Mohsen Tanabandeh, a homeless day laborer who lost his wife and son in an earthquake and who now seeks comfort in the presence and service of Ladan (Mahsa Hejazi), a deaf girl. Shakib finds work as a builder on a construction site which is actually the set of a film about the atrocities committed by Hitler.
Started in 1997, the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival has grown into one of the biggest film festivals in Northern Europe and the busiest regional industry platforms, hosting more than 1000 guests and industry delegates, and over 160 journalists. The festival screens around 250 features and more than 300 shorts and animations and sees an attendance of 80,000 people annually.
The 26th edition of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival will take place from Nov 11-27, 2022.
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