The film shows an old woman who brings some goat’s milk cheese to Ahmad, a ten-year-old boy, so that he can give it to his father, who is a teacher, as a gift to urge him to intervene and stop the hanging of the woman’s son.

“Da Yie”, a co-production between Ghana and Belgium by Anthony Nti, received the award for best short fiction in the international competition.

The story of “Da Yie” is set on a sunny day in Ghana, where a foreigner approaches two children and takes them on an unexpected trip. The three of them get along so well that “Bogah”, the foreigner, starts to question his initial intentions.

Winners of the 37th edition of the festival were honored during a closing ceremony held at the Iran Mall, a new major trade center in Tehran. 

Filmmaker Behnam Behzadi from Iran, documentarian Lia Beltrami from Italy and Busan International Program Manager Kyeong-yeon Kim were the members of the jury in the international competition section.

“Kak Iraj” by Jamshid Farajvand also won the award for best documentary in the international section. The documentary shows a year in the life of a gardener who is also an environmentalist. 

“Candela” by Marc Riba and Anna Solanas from Spain was named the best animation. It is about Mrs. Candela who spends the last days of her life in a dying suburb of a big city.

In the national section, “Unseens” by Shahab Abroshan won the best film award in the COVID-19 section.

“Unseens” is a short fiction about a young man, who has just finished visiting his family in his hometown, and gets back to his place. He is made aware of his family situation during the COVID-19 pandemic by his father’s messages but he doesn’t bother to answer any of them.

“White Winged Horse” by producer Hamidreza Zobeir was named the best film in the national section, while Mahyar Mandegar received the best director award for “White Winged Horse”.

Mona Abdollah Shahi, received the best director award for the animation “Red Fire”.

The ceremony continued with honoring veteran filmmaker and photographer Amir Latifian with a lifetime achievement award.

A lineup of 63 short films from 19 countries competed in the international section of the festival.

The films came from France, India, the U.S., Spain, Germany, Ghana, China, Czech, Poland, Italy, Turkey, Australia, Bulgaria, Denmark, Russia, South Africa, Belgium, Kazakhstan and Iran.

All nine movie theaters at the Iran Mall were dedicated to the festival, which ran for five days with a limited number of visitors.The short films also streamed online for filmgoers during the event.

Source:Tehran Times