The movies are from 14 countries including Italy, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Bulgaria, Denmark, Greece, and Austria.

The lineup includes “The Conductor” by Maria Peters (Netherlands), “Sister” by Ursula Meier (Switzerland), “Transit” by Christian Petzold (Germany), “Truman” by Cesc Gay (Spain), and “Little Joe” by Jessica Hausner (Austria).

“The Conductor” is about a 24-year-old Dutch Willy Wolters who has immigrated to the American continent with her parents as a child. She dreams of becoming a conductor, but this is an ambition that no one takes seriously. 

“Sister” centers on Simon, the 12-year-old boy. The film follows him around a busy Swiss ski resort, apparently unnoticed by everyone but Meier’s camera, as he goes about his business, which involves furtively stealing ski equipment from vacationers, hauling it down the mountain in the lift, and re-selling it for bargain prices below.

In “Truman”, Julian, living in Madrid, receives an unexpected visit from his friend, Tomas, a professor living in Canada. Julian is an actor and has had cancer for a year, and his only companion now is Truman, his loyal dog. The friends and Truman share four days together.

Christian Petzold’s “Transit” is a portrait of German refugees in Marseille during World War Two and based on Anna Seghers’s 1942 novel by the same name. “Transit” is attuned to the experience of flight and exile in both the past and the present.

“Little Joe” focuses on a genetically engineered plant that scatters its seeds and seems to cause uncanny changes to living creatures.

Also included are “The Clowns”, a 1970 mockumentary film by Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini about the human fascination with clowns and circuses; “When Tomatoes Met Wagner”, and a Greek documentary film by Marianna Economou.

The festival, which was held in various cities of Iran for the past three years, will go online this year in Tehran, and the movies will be available on Hashure, an Iranian platform providing video on demand (VOD) service for documentary films.

The program has been organized as a collaborative effort between Iran’s Art and Experience Cinema and the European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC).

The two institutions have previously organized the festival in Iran in 2017, 2018, and 2019.

Source: Tehran Times