The 60th BFI London Film Festival announced its 2016 program on Thursday, and is set to screen a total of 193 fictions and 52 documentary features. There will also be screenings of 144 short films, including documentary, live action and animated works.
The Festival opens on 5 October with the European Premiere of Amma Asante’s ‘A United Kingdom’ and closes with the European Premiere of Ben Wheatley’s ‘Free Fire’ on Sunday 16 October.
Among the competing titles, there is Mehrdad Oskouei’s ‘Starless Dreams’ in the Documentary Competition and Ali Asgari and Farnoosh Samadi’s ‘The Silence’ in the Short Film Award to represent the Iranian cinema at the British festival.
The Grierson Award in the Documentary Competition category recognizes cinematic documentaries with integrity, originality, and social or cultural significance, while the Short Film Award recognizes short form works with a unique cinematic voice and a confident handling of chosen theme and content.
Oskouei’s ‘Starless Dreams’ documentary narrates the lives of a group of under 18-year-old girls taken into care for a variety of reasons ranging from drug dealing and trafficking, to pick-pocketing and manslaughter. Though bored with their incarcerated life, they are, nevertheless, scared about what might happen to them once outside. As the New Year approaches they all hope to celebrate it with their families.
The film has so far won 11 awards in national and international film festivals, including the Amnesty International Film Prize at the 66th Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlinale-Generation 14plus, Germany, and the Full Frame Inspiration Award at the 19th Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, North Carolina, USA.
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