TEHRAN (IP) - Iranian directors were among the winners of the 2nd international Moscow Kurdish Film Festival.
This year, the 2nd international “Moscow Kurdish Film Festival” for the first time established nominations, formed a jury and awarded the “Golden Sun” prizes.
The competition program consisted of 30 full-length and short films, which were premieres for Russia. The world premieres of most of these films took place at major international film festivals in Europe and Asia, and some of these films received prestigious awards.
The organizers nominated four nominations: Best Feature Film, Best Documentary Film, Best Short Fiction Film and Best Short Documentary Film.
The “Golden Sun” prize is a crystal stele engraved with the logo of the film festival - a solar disk with 21 rays of equal size and shape, in the center of which is bobine.
The sun is an ancient religious and cultural symbol of the Kurds. The emblem of the sun is in the center of the flag of Kurdistan. Prizes “Golden Sun” are awarded to the films of the competition in all four nominations.
The prize was also awarded in monetary terms.
For Best Feature Film and Best Documentary Film, the winners received US$1,000 each, and for Best Short Fiction Film and Best Short Documentary Film, US$500 each. The Special Prize Of The Jury was a crystal stela with the name of the film and its director, as well as US$200.
Each nomination has its own jury, which consists of a chairman and two members. The well-known Iraqi-Kurdish American director, the winner of numerous international awards, Jano Rosebiani, became the chairman of the jury of the main competition. And the members of the jury are the well-known producer Donat Keusch and the Belgian-Kurdish director Sahim Omar Kalifa, whose work has been highly praised at international film festivals.
Iranian-Kurdish editor and filmmaker Ibrahim Saeedi has been selected as chairman of the documentary’s jury. Together with him, the jury included Ekrem Heydo, a German-Kurdish director, and Yilmaz Ozdil, a Turkish-Kurdish director.
The jury for the Best Short Fiction Film nomination consisted of two members - Tofiq Amani - an Iranian-Kurdish director and Harman Muhammad Taher - an Iraqi-Kurdish TV presenter and actor. Rezan Yesilbas, a Turkish-Kurdish director, headed this line-up, whose short film “Silence” received the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012.
The short documentary film competition was evaluated by Russian experts: CinePromo producer Elena Korzhaeva as head of the jury, Nazim Nadirov - writer and journalist, and Andrey Ulyanin - SHOT TV content director as members of the jury.
Out of 30 films of different genres, four films received prizes:
- “Neighbors” (2021 Switzerland) directed by Mano Khalil
- “Holy Bread” (2020 Iran) directed by Rahim Zabihi
- “The Other” (2021 Iran) directed by Saman Hosseinpour and Ako Zandkarimi
- “Seven Symphonies of Zagros” (2021 Iran) directed by Parwez Rostemi
The short fiction film “Ido” (2021 Iraq) directed by Saman Mustefa should also be noted, which won the Special Prize of The Jury.