The 5th edition of the Khorshid Film Festival will dedicate a section to French empirical cinema.
“The festival aims to support not only the selected filmmakers but all candidates,” Mehr News Agency quoted festival secretary Mehdi Yarmohammadi, as saying.
It was decided to have a separate section, ‘An Overview of France’s Empirical Independent Cinema’ after discussions with top literary scholars from France, Belgium, Germany and Austria, who will also be in the jury.
The upcoming festival will provide an opportunity to screen over 30 independent empirical movies from French cinema, “creating constructive interaction between the audience, festival participants and the international cinema industry,” he added.
Professional workshops will also be held on the occasion, directed by experienced international cineastes.
The festival will screen short films in various genres including fiction, documentary, experimental, animation and video art. Creativity, experience, dynamism and artistic talent are the criteria evaluated for the submitted works, said a press release by the festival secretariat.
The event emphasizes production and screening of aesthetic films and provides “a platform for talented domestic filmmakers to present the rich and influential Iranian cinematic art on the international stage.”
Short films today provide space for new ideas and objective views of intellectuals who want to make the world a better place, through their personal understanding and creativity. “This genre is important in the path towards civil societies,” Yarmohammadi said.
He hoped for the successful presence of innovative Iranian filmmakers at the event, slated in December, which is “the only film festival specializing in experimental shorts.”
The festival was established in 2011 by Yarmohammadi and is sponsored by the Independent Short Film Support Center. The center helps identify creative and talented filmmakers, and the best and leading independent Iranian cinema productions, and provides them support at domestic and international festivals.
It has supported more than 200 short films and documentaries submitted at prestigious international events, and more than 350 short films and documentaries in domestic festivals.
