Indian Filmmaker Wins Award at Cinema Verite Festival in Iran news
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Kourosh Ziabari reports from the Cinema Verite festival, Iran
The second edition of Iran's International Documentary Films Festival "Cinema Verite" came to a close on Thursday. The festival which has the distinction of being the most prominent film festival in the Persian Gulf region also announced the winners of the competition section during the closing night. Indian filmmaker Nishtha Jain's film "Lakshmi and Me" emerged as the only winner from Asia.
"Cinema Verite" of 2008 hosted bunches of producers, journalists, documentaries and cinema experts from 84 countries worldwide, while the most of participants belonged to India, UK, France, Poland, Finland, Netherlands, Denmark, the United States, Japan, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland and Brazil.
The auditoriums of International Vahdat Hall, Palestine Theater and Freedom Theater screened near to 200 documentaries from international filmmakers who gathered in Iran to expose their talent, capability and skills of displaying the "truth" and "reality" through the means of visual techniques and cinematic knowledge..
Nishtha Jain won the honorary diploma, Verity statue and a 2,000€ award for the best short documentary.
Prior to this, the Mumbai-based independent director Jain has won several international awards for her much acclaimed documentary "Lakshmi and me" at various festivals such as the 5th Golden Apricot Film Festival of Armenia, Bucharest 2008 International Film Festival, Planete Doc Film Festival of Warsaw and the 2008 International Women's Film Festival of Dortmund.
The impressive film, narrates the story of an almost poor and miserable woman who works as a servant for her employer who is also another woman. Both of them have a relative friendly communication with together. But what makes the film so effective and eye-catching is the chain of unrelated and challenging accidents that happen for the "Lakshmi".
The other winner of international section was the polish director Marcin Koszalka who has been awarded with the honorary diploma, verity statue and 5000€ for the best lengthy documentary.
His delicate film "Existence" drew an eye-catching and in-depth outline of Jerzy Nowak's real life. Nowak is a distinguished 84 year old Polish actor who decided that after death, his body should be used for the benefit of science. This precious documentary follows Mr. Nowak as he makes this most personal and final decision and reveals his own dilemmas and thoughts about death.
The other prize for the best lengthy documentary went to a veteran filmmaker from Switzerland named Fernand Melgar who was born in Morocco with a Spanish originality.
The last prize belonged to "Victor Asliuk" for the political documentary "Belarusian Waltz". The documentary criticizes the tyranny and dictatorship in the political system of Belarus.
However, the most attractive part of the festival was honoring the experienced, old hand filmmaker Richard Leacock of the USA.
Leacock who is one of the pioneers or direct cinema, has studied physics in the Harvard University and later developed an innovative style of filmmaking based on synchronous sound and the use of lightweight cameras.
In 1984, the German documentaries Klaus Wildenhahn produced a documentary film reviewing the life of Leacock and paying tribute to 45 years of his creative artistic efforts. That film was the first documentary produced about the featured verite director himself.
In the closing ceremony of Cinema Verite festival, the Iranian ministry of culture honored Master Leacock with the special trophy and an award for his sincere and intellectual struggles to improve the purity of cinema and refining the spiritual values of documentary filmmaking.
Leacock went on the stage, helping not to shed tears and said with an excited, shaking voice: "This is the first time which I come to Iran. I can not forget the affable compassion of its people; I will be proud of my every moment presence in Iran," and that was how the Cinema Veirte was closed officially by introducing the laureates and glorifying a master of documentary filmmaking.
The last event was a 4-hour visit of the Iran's Carpet Museum which had been slated for the participants and foreign guests to discover some new meanings of promising and historical art of carpet-waiving which is a national art belonging to Iranian people since 500 B.C.
