Winners of Avini Awards announced

The award was established by the Experimental and Documentary Film Center to commemorate the martyr Morteza Avini, the writer and documentarian who chronicled the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

The top prize was awarded to Javad Mozdabadi for “Black Hand, White Bread”, a documentary about an old man who catches bugs and insects for a living.

“Zero Degree Line” by Mahmud Rahmani and “Tehran Has No More Pomegranates!” by Masud Bakhshi received prizes in the second grade film category.

In addition, Parivash Nazarieh’s “Closer than Breath”, Abbas Amini’s "Taste of the Sun", and Vahid Chavosh’s “The Roof of the Sky”, were the winners of the third grade film category. 

The Best Research Awards category had two prize winners, Hassan Naqqashi for the writing of the screenplay “Mashi and Mashianeh” and Vahid Musaian for directing “The Lost Land”.

The Special Jury Award was presented to Manuchehr Tayyab for making “The Persian Sea”, which is about the Persian Gulf.    

The jury also honored Avini’s wife Maryam Amini with a Golden Simorgh, which is usually given annually to cineastes as a lifetime achievement award in the Fajr International Festival, Iran’s most prestigious cinematic event.

Majid Majidi, Kiumars Purahmad, Azizollah Hamidnejad, Morteza Sarhangi, Akbar Nabavi, Morteza Razzaq-Karimi, and Mehdi Homayunfar were the jury members.

The organizers also paid homage to Avini’s colleagues Seyyed Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, Qasem Buzari, Qasem Dehqan, Ayat Seifi, Hassan Shariati, Ali Talebi, Behruz Falahat, Reza Moradinasab, Hassan Hadi, Saeid Yazdanparast, and Amir-Eskandar Yekketaz, who were all martyred while filming in war zones.

The ceremony, which was attended by the Culture Minister Mohammad-Hossein Saffar Harandi, Deputy Culture Minister for Cinematic Affairs Mohammadreza Jafari-Jelveh, the families of the martyrs, and a number of Iranian cultural figures, was broadcast live on IRIB’s channel 5.

MMS/MA

END

MNA