Lebanese filmfest awards Iranian films

Two short and feature-length productions by Iranian directors have been awarded at the 2011 edition of Beirut International Film Festival (BIFF) in Lebanon.

Ebrahim Saeedi’s Mandoo and Babak Amini’s received the jury special prize of the Main Section of the 11th edition of the Lebanese festival, Mehr News Agency reported.

Young director Babak Amini’s Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere also won the event’s Bronze ”Aleph”‌ Award for the Best Short Film.

Mandoo, which means tired in Kurdish, opens in the 2004 Iraq when the news of Saddam Hussein’s death sends shock waves through the Middle East and the story circles around a Kurdish refugee man who wants to go back home, but some of his family members think otherwise.

Saeedi’s 90-minute film has participated in several national and international festivals and has also been awarded at the 2011 Golden Apricot International Film Festival in Yerevan, Armenia.

Silence Screams (1997), Requiem Mass (1999), Eclipse (2001), Reunion (2002), Fire Beneath the Ashes (2003) are among Saeedi’s short films.

Amini’s Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere recounts the story of Maryam, a pregnant woman, who is asked by her husband to abort the baby but she decides to keep it.

Born in 1978, Babak Amini worked for 10 years as an assistant to director Bahman Qobadi for films such as A Time for Drunken Horses, Turtles Can Fly and Half Moon.

This year’s Beirut International Film Festival was held from October 5 to 13, screening about 67 films from 29 countries.

Source: presstv.ir