TEHRAN – Five movies from Iranian filmmakers will be screened at the 7th Gbeck Future Film Festival as “This Side, Other Side” from Iran won the award for best short animation beforehand at the Canadian event.

Directed by Lida Fazli, the movie is a production from Iran’s Documentary and Experimental Film Center.

The film shows that we are always so afraid of the other side, even though we are all the same. When a war rips their world apart, a little girl and little boy from two sides come together to heal it with their magical crayon. But we all know that’s just fantasy. Real wars are not so easy to stop; the damage is not so easy to fix. 

“Warehouse” by Hossein Torkjush and “Elephantbird”, a co-production between Iran and Afghanistan by Amir-Masud Soheili, will be screened in the short film category.

“The Butterfly” by Masud Haqqi has been selected to be screened in a section that shows the complexity of human nature and diversity of life.

“Ava’s Silence” by Seyyed Gholamreza Nematpur will be screened in a section dedicated to films about love, family and dreams. 

It tells the story of a young girl called Ava who has to work in her father’s auto shop as a mechanic because of her father’s illness. Ava is looking forward to her brother returning from military service in a border area so she can get married to Abbas.

The Gbeck Future Film Festival, which will take place in Charlottetown from May 7 to 9, focuses on new media and young filmmakers. 

The films were submitted from more than fifty countries. The shortlist for the seventh GbeckFF was released in February 2021, with the winners announced in April. The quantity, quality and coverage of the submitted films have improved significantly.

The organizing committee has selected some excellent movies for screening. The films were submitted from China, Iran, India, Russia, Kazakhstan, France, Spain, Macedonia and other countries.  

Photo: A poster for “This Side, Other Side” by Lida Fazli.

MMS/YAW