OpenAsia | 40Braids

Shahla Rostami

The New East Talents at the 53rd Karlovy Vary Film Festival (29 June-7 July 2018) included Works in Progress, the traditional presentation of projects in post-production (with an awarded post-production package in total worth of 100,000 EURO) , Works in Development – Feature Launch, a new presentation of regional projects in development stage and Docs in Progress.

The most promising project from this Docs in Progress Selection was also awarded with 5,000 EUR.

In addition to the selection of premieres of competing films, these representatives had the opportunity to select from among unfinished projects that are in various stages of production from the Central and Eastern European Region and now also the Middle East within the new KVIFF Eastern Promises platform. The festival has chosen a total of 38 films from among three hundred submissions.

This year’s selected industry activities for films professionals were grouped under a new “EASTERN PROMISES” brand.

A total of three juries of the KVIFF Eastern Promises platform had to hand out awards to the most hopeful projects at an overall value of 155,000 Euro (4 million CZK).

“Leakage” by Suzan Iravanian and the “Forbidden Strings” by Hassan Noori, an Afghan, born and raised in Iran, participated in two sections, “Work in progress” and “Docs in progress” this year. 

 

“Leakage”, which will be shortly ready, is an amazing movie with a very high symbolic story of the exploration of ambiguity that is caused by the reality of day to day life in Iran.

 

In this film, we follow a fifty-year-old woman who is facing a lot of family afflictions. The main character believes that she must immigrate to Germany in order to find her missing husband.  She has a terrible secret: her body secretes oil… One day her daughter and sister discover this. Consequently this vital substance becomes the main issue of everyone’s attention until the day the woman’s body stops functioning altogether and creates chaos…

Interview with Kaveh Farnam, the Iranian Producer

I asked Kaveh Farnam, who has produced a number of Iranian films, including the latest movie by Mohammad Rassoulof, “Lerd” (award winner of Un Certain Regard section of last year’s Cannes Film Festival), and questions about the interest of a film like “Leakage” for a producer.   Notably regarding the metaphor of the film, which is understandable for Iranians, but may not be clear for an international public. He told me: “you have to explain to the public that “Iran” is also a girl’s name, and then they will understand”. I ended my talk with him around the issues of how this kind of film may respond to sales and distribution requirements and why he was seduced by this film.

Another project, “The Forbidden strings”, presented by  Hassan Noori, follows the story of four young Afghans from  refugee families in Iran, who, like the director himself, have been born and have been living in Iran all their lives. We witness their hard labour in order to support their families during the day time. But as the night falls, they get together in a remote place outside of Tehran, away from the eyes of their families and the police, in order to practice what they dream to be: rock stars.  They aspire to perform their first concert in their motherland, Afghanistan, which they have never seen before.  Can this dream come true with the presence of the Taliban forces everywhere?

The producer of the film, Afsaneh Salari, is a young award-winning filmmaker. She has recently received a grant by Sundance production Institute for her feature documentary, “The Silhouettes”.