He announced the plan on Saturday in a meeting with Islamic Culture and Relations Organization (ICRO) director Mohammad-Mehdi Imanipur and the director of COI Office for Festival adn International Cooperation, Sadeq Musavi.

''We need to make changes in our current pattern of international marketing for films and our presence in the international arena, and to raise our knowledge about destination countries' capabilities and tastesin films, ''Khazaei said.

“Iranian cinema is the Islamic Republic’s major cultural achievement beyond the borders and Iran is famous for its films in many countries,” he added.

“Despite Iranian cinema’s achievements in the international arena, we have failed to do effective marketing for its products in the world,” he lamented.

Khazaei said that Iran’s target audience for film marketing is 35 countries, which have a lot in common with Iran.

He added that Iran’s new film marketing will be focused on the countries which border the Caspian Sea and Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states.

“Our main concern in the international cooperation is to secure markets for Iranian films in countries favorable to Iran,” he noted.

“Iran’s private sector active in film distribution is not able by itself to work in the global markets,” Khazaei commented and added, “We need the Foreign Ministry and the ICRO to prepare the ground for the private sector in the markets.”

He urged the ICRO to sustain its regular programs for screening Iranian films in other countries and asked the organization to encourage its offices across the world to establish a framework for communications with the organizers of international film festivals to promote Iranian films.

On his part, Musavi referred to the agreements recently signed with South Africa, Belarus, Portugal, Oman, Syria, Serbia, Pakistan and several others to cooperate on marketing Iranian films, and hoped that Iran would soon enjoy the fruits of these agreements.   

Imanipur also said, “Although Iranian cinema has not developed financially across the world, it has been successful in giving a positive image of the country on the globe.”

“We believe that the financial growth of our local cinema in the world may help to develop Iranian culture in the international arena,” he added.

The meeting ended with the signing of a memorandum of understanding between COI and ICRO.

 

Source:Tehran Times