TEHRAN – The official lineup of the 39th edition of the Fajr Film Festival includes “Mansur” and “The Sniper”, which trace two national heroes of contemporary Iran.

Directed by Siavash Sarmadi, “Mansur” is a biopic about the late commander-in-chief of the Iran Air Force, Mansur Sattari, who is portrayed by Mohsen Qassabian.    

The film was earlier entitled “Owj 110” and has been produced at the Owj Arts and Media Organization, a major institution that produces revolutionary works in art and cinema.

Sattari was one of the main Iranian commanders during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. He was killed in a plane crash near Isfahan in 1995. 

At the time, Sattari and his colleagues were working on the project “Owj 110”, which Iran initiated to make its first jet strike fighter, Azarakhsh.

Ali Ghaffari is the director of the real-life drama “The Sniper”, which portrays Abdorrasul Zarrin who was one of the most lethal snipers in the Iranian forces during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

Kambiz Dirbaz stars as Zarrin in the film, which was first titled “Hunting of the Hunter”.

Born in 1941 in a village near the town of Qalegol, Kohkiluyeh-Boyerahmad Province, Abdorrasul Zarrin lost his parents in childhood and his uncle retained custody of him.

He left his uncle’s home to find a job in the central Iranian city of Isfahan when he was a young adult. His paternal relatives helped him find a job, and with all his savings, he opened a clothing store. 

Abdorrasul soon married and had seven children by the beginning of the war, when he joined the IRGC on the warfront.

With his pinpoint accuracy, Abdorrasul saved countless lives of Iranian forces on the battlefield, and was turned into a legend among his fellow Iranian comrades.

He was martyred during Operation Kheibar in 1984 and the Iraqi radio announced their forces had killed “Khomeini’s Hunter”.

The lineup also carries the dramas “Yadu” by Mehdi Jafari and “Once Upon a Time in Abadan” by Hamidreza Azarang, which both revolve around the Iran-Iraq war.

“Yadu” tells the story of a teenage boy named Yadu living with his family and people under siege in the southwestern Iranian city of Abadan in the early days of the war.

Jafari’s real-life story “23 Individuals”, an epic movie about 23 young Iranian volunteers who were captives during the war, was highly acclaimed at the Fajr festival in 2019. 

The story of “Once Upon a Time in Abadan” is set in 2002 in Abadan where a family was enmeshed in a situation after they found a huge unexploded Iran-Iraq war bomb.

In its inner layers, the movie delves into the social problems facing people in the former war-torn Iranian cities in the aftermath of the war.      

Photo: A poster for “Mansur” directed by Siavash Sarmadi.

MMS/YAW