The award-winning “Sunless Shadows” directed by Mehrdad Oskui is about a group of adolescent girls in an Iranian juvenile detention center, who are serving time for having murdered their father, husband or another male family member. 

Oskui observes the inmates’ frank conversations and playful interactions, which gradually make apparent that apart from being a prison, this closed, all-female environment is also a shelter from a male-dominated society.

The film has been selected to be screened in the international competition.

“A Horse Has More Blood Than a Human” directed by Abolfazl Taluni has been picked for the short competition of the festival, which opened in Gyeonggi Province, Paju and Goyang on September 17.

The documentary revolves around an elderly Iranian couple, whose dreams of a quiet retirement are shattered by the realization that their hometown has become a smuggling gateway to Europe, and everyone they know is involved.

In a report published earlier in August, the organizers announced that “The Unseen” has been selected to be screened in the Asian completion of the event. 

It is about homeless women in Iran who are locked away, banished to the outskirts of the city, and made invisible. Director Behzad Nalbandi secretly conducted interviews in the camps and creates a world of his own: cardboard animations make those affected visible again. 

In addition, “Silent House” co-directed by Farnaz and Mohammadreza Jurabchian has been selected for the DMZ Docs Pitch.

The documentary tells the story of three generations of an Iranian family who live in a historic and exceptional hundred-year-old house.

DMZ Docs Pitch is a co-production and financing forum where Asian creative documentary projects with high potentials are discovered and presented to key industry players ranging from commissioning editors and funders to broadcasters.

The program mainly supports documentary projects in the production stage as well as in the rough-cut stage and provides them with diverse opportunities via its official pitching sessions.

The festival will come to an end on September 24.

Source: Tehran Times