TEHRAN – The Riverside International Film Festival (RIFF) in the U.S. has selected the Iranian documentary ‘Beloved’ to participate in its 20th edition.
Directed by Yaser Talebi, the 63-minute documentary is about the difficult but favorable life of an 82-year-old mother named Firouzeh who runs a unique life in the Alborz Mountains, north of Iran.
Firouzeh hikes across the rugged landscape carrying bundles of wood. When she was a young girl, a marriage was arranged for her with an older man, with whom she had 11 children. Now, none of her children come to visit her and her attempts to get closer to them remain futile.
Talebi’s celebrated doc has won a number of international awards including the NETPAC Award at the 2019 Ulju Mountain Film Festival in South Korea, the Special Prize at Slovenia’s Kranjska Gora International Film Festival, the Best Feature Documentary Award, and a diploma at the 15th Kazan International Muslim Film Festival in the Russian Republic of Tatarstan, and the Jury Special Mention at the 67th Trento International Film Festival in Italy.
Since 2002, RIFF has showcased the best contemporary films. It aims to bring independent international films to the interested viewers.
The event will be held on April 20-25, 2022.
Iranian short ‘A Narration of a Funeral’ has also made its way to the Riverside International Film Festival.
‘A Narration of a Funeral’, written and directed by Amir Sedqi, will take part in the festival’s Student Film Spotlight category.
‘A Narration of a Funeral’ is about a woman named Tara who has received an unexpected phone call from the hospital after the funeral of her mother who has died from COVID-19.