22nd Fajr Int’l Festival and Iranian Movie Celebs

Of these films, one may name “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, “The Parole”, “Dancing in the Wind” and “Deep Breath”, all of which were made by not-so-popular directors. The Farabi Foundation even qualified “Deep Breath” by Parviz Shahbazi to be Iran’s representative at the Academy Awards. This movie was Shahbazi’s second feature movie after “Southern Traveler”. It is interesting that the Farabi Cinema Foundation introduced a movie to the Academy Awards that did not win any awards in the Fajr Film Festival.

Other movies such as “The Color of Heaven” by Majid Majidi and “I, Taraneh, am 15” by Rasul Sadr-Ameli have been proposed to the Academy in previous years.

With the presence of popular directors such as Dariush Mehrju’i (Mom’s Guest), Mas’ud Kimia’i (Friday Soldiers), Abbas Kiarostami (Five), Rakhshan Bani Etemad (Nanny Gilaneh), Mahdi Fakhimzadeh (Fellow Creature) Behruz Afkhami (The Marsh), Rasul Mollaqolipur (Paternal Farm) and Ahmadreza Darvish (Duel) and others, the 22nd Fajr Film Festival is expected to be quite special.

Dariush Mehrju’i, “Mom’s Guest”

One of the most popular directors attending the festival is pioneering Iranian director, Dariush Mehrju’i. This year, he is attending the festival with the movie “Mom’s Guest”. Mehrju’i is a UCLA graduate. Dariush Mehrju’i, Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Abbas Kiarostami are known outside of the country as Iran’s new wave of directors. Mehrju’i’s movie “Cow” (1969) was the first Iranian movie to win the International Critics Prize of Venice Film Festival in 1971.

Because of movies such as “Banu,” “Pari,” “Sara,” and “Leila,” and after the movie “Tenants”, some critics believe that Mehrju’i turned towards social and psychological genres. In his last work before “Mom’s Guest,” Mehrju’i made the movie “Bemani’, which dealt with the issue of women and girls setting themselves on fire in the western Iranian province of Ilam.

The movie “Mom’s Guest” is based upon a story by Hushang Moradi Kermani and has been written by Mehrju’i and Hamideh Mohammadifar. The movie takes place in an old house where a poor family lives with several other families in Tehran.

One day an unexpected guest comes to the house of the poor family. The mother, who has nothing to serve the guests, goes to the neighbors but they also have nothing to eat.

Like the movie “Leila,” Mohammadreza Sharifinia, who is a talented actor, was chosen by Mehrju’i to act as the casting director for “Mom’s Guest”. Sharifinia’s presence will definitely have a positive affect on the movie and its attractiveness. Movie fans still remember his skilled acting along with Hedyeh Tehrani in the movie “Donya” at the last Festival.

Golab Adineh, Parsa Piruzfar, Amin Haya’i, Nasrin Moghanlu, Melika Sharifinia, and Jaleh Olov star in this movie.

JS/DWN/IS
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