The 66th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) has added nine more titles to its competition lineup, including Iranian director Mani Haqiqi’s ‘A Dragon Arrives’.
It will be the international premiere for Haqiqi’s 6th feature film as a director whose film will be first premiered at the 34th Fajr Film Festival, February 1-11, in Tehran, Cinetmag.com reported.
Besides the six titles already announced, another nine films have made it to the Competition Section of this year’s Berlinale. Other competitors include films from Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and the US.
Therefore, ‘A Dragon Arrives’ will compete for the Golden Bear and the Silver Bears with 14 other films in the Competition Section where American actress and three-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep serves as the international jury president.
The film, shot in Tehran and Qeshm Island in the Persian Gulf, has actors Amir Jadidi, Homayoun Ghanizadeh, Ehsan Goudarzi and Kiana Tajammol in the cast. The story of the film has not yet been disclosed which makes it one of the most curious films.
Haqiqi, 46, is known for the 2006 absurdist comedy ‘Men at Work’, which was based on an idea by the renowned auteur Abbas Kiarostami, and more recently tragicomedy ‘Modest Reception’, which was screened in the Berlin fest’s Forum Section in 2012 and won the NETPAC Prize for Best Asian Film there. The latter was also shown in the US and Switzerland.
All Artist Family
Hailing from an all artist family, Haqiqi is the grandson of the late writer and filmmaker Ebrahim Golestan. His father Nemat Haqiqi was a prominent cinematographer and his mother is Lili Golestan, famous translator and director of Golestan Art Gallery in Tehran.
Haqiqi received a B.A. in philosophy from McGill University in 1991, an M.A. in philosophy from the University of Guelph in 1997 and another master’s degree in cultural studies from Trent University in 2000, all in Canada.
Besides filmmaking, he is a screen writer and an actor as well.
He has written the script for Asghar Farhadi’d ‘Fireworks Wednesday’ and acted in the comedy hit ‘No Men Allowed’ (2011) by Rambod Javan and Nima Javidi’s acclaimed movie ‘Melbourne’ (2014).
He played a pivotal role in Farhadi’s ‘About Elly’ (2009).
The 2016 Berlinale is slated for February 11-21. Can Haqiqi bring the Golden Bear of the festival to Iran once more after Asghar Farhadi and Jafar Panahi claimed it with their movies ‘A Separation’ in 2011 and ‘Taxi’ in 2015, respectively? One has to wait and see.
