TEHRAN – The first edition of the Iranian Cinema Festival of Chantilly, dedicated to screening movies by Iranian filmmakers from around the world, will be organized in the northern French town of the same name from March 11 to 14, 2021.

The Franco-Iranian Center will organize the festival in collaboration with several Iranian art and cinema centers.

The festival, which is also dedicated to modern figures of Iranian cinema, will be held in two competitive and non-competitive categories.

A lineup of seven features will go on screen in the competitive section with their directors in attendance, and six short films will go on screen in the non-competitive section. 

A panel of jury members, including Iranian filmmaker Abolfazl Jalili and four French cineastes, will judge the entries.

The Franco-Iranian Center organized the first edition of the New Images of Iran (Nouvelles Images d’Iran) in the northwestern French town of Vitré in December last year.

The festival was organized in collaboration with Aurore Cinema, House of World Cultures, Ouest France, World Trade Center Rennes Bretagne and several other French centers, and Iran’s Farabi Cinema Foundation.

The festival helped highlight promising young Iranian filmmakers by inviting them to present their first achievements.

Six films by Abolfazl Jalili were reviewed during the festival.

Iranian-Armenian filmmaker Anahid Abad’s acclaimed drama “Yeva” won the first prize at the 1st edition of the New Images of Iran. 

Produced by Farabi and the National Cinema Center of Armenia, the film tells the story of Yeva, a young woman who escapes her influential in-laws with her daughter Nareh after her husband’s tragic death, and takes refuge in one of the villages in the Karabakh region. She is a complete stranger in this ballgame and is obliged to live her daily life in disguise.

“Yeva” was Armenia’s submission to the 90th Academy Awards, but it did not make the shortlist.

“A House on 41st Street” by Hamidreza Qorbani and “Villa Dwellers” by Monir Qeidi took second and third prizes respectively. 

“Villa Dwellers” is about the wives of the Iranian army commanders, who live in residential villas for army forces in southern Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. 

“A House on 41st Street” is about a middle-class family in Tehran that falls apart when one brother kills another brother over a bounced check.

A lineup of 12 Iranian short and feature films was screened at the festival.

The movies were selected by a committee composed of Iranian filmmaker Abolfazl Jalili, Vitré Mayor Pierre Méhaignerie, Franco-Iranian Center director Alireza Khalili, member of the editorial board of Paris-Tehran Magazine Fatemeh Shadman, founder of the Garromedia Cultural Association Laurent Garreau, French literature expert Vahid Yaghubi and French art historian Jean-Claude Voisin.

Photo: A poster for the Iranian Cinema Festival of Chantilly.

RM/MMS/YAW