TEHRAN – The 73rd Venice Film Festival plans to honor the U.S.-based Iranian filmmaker Amir Naderi with Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker, an award given to original and innovative contributors to contemporary cinema.

The prize is scheduled to be handed out to him during a ceremony at the Sala Grande (Palazzo del Cinema) on September 5, before his 2016 movie “Monte” premieres in the non-competitive section of the festival, the organizers have announced.

The 105-minute drama was shot in the Italian mountainous regions of Alto Adige and Friuli. It tells the story of a man who makes every attempt to bring the sunlight into his village, where his family is barely able to survive because of the prevailing darkness.
 
“Amir Naderi gave fundamental impetus to the birth of the New Iranian Cinema during the 1970s and 1980s with a number of masterpieces destined to leave their mark on the history of cinema, such as ‘The Runner’,” Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera has said in a statement.

“But even after moving to New York in 1988, Naderi remained stubbornly true to himself and to a type of cinema dedicated to research and experimentation, which refuses to bow to trends and easy shortcuts.”

The 73rd Venice Film Festival is also slated to pay posthumous tribute to Iranian auteur Abbas Kiarostami and American director and screenwriter Michael Cimino, both of whom passed away earlier this year.
 
In addition, “Malaria”, a social drama by Iranian director Parviz Shahbazi, will go on screen in the Horizon section of the festival, which will be held from August 31 to September 10. 

AFM/MMS