TEHRAN – Vishka Asayesh, the star of Iranian director Rambod Javan’s acclaimed comedy drama “No Men Allowed”, has been selected for the jury of the Pune International Film Festival, the organizers have announced.

She has joined seven other members of the jury at the Indian festival, which opened in Pune today.

Mazhar Kamran and Rajula Shah, both from India, Malini Fonseka from Sri Lanka, Dubravka Lakic from Serbia, Istvan Kovacs from Hungary, Lutz Konermann from Germany and Marie-Pierre Brêtas from France are members of the panel.

The organizers of the festival have frequently selected Iranian cineastes to the juries in previous editions of the festival.

Gelareh Abbasi, the star of acclaimed drama “Track 143”, and the film’s director Narges Abyar were members of the festival’s juries in 2018 and 2017.

The Global Cinema section of the festival will screen the Iranian movies “Kömür” (“Charcoal”) by Esmaeil Monsef, “Diapason” by Hamed Tehrani and “Just 6.5” by Saeid Rustai.

In addition, “Aysan” by Mehrshad Kheradmandi, “Better than Neil Armstrong” by Alireza Qasemi and “Slow Death” by Amen Sahrai are other Iranian films that will be competing in the Student Shorts categories of the festival that will run until January 16.

Photo: Actress Vishka Asayesh.

MMS/YAW