TEHRAN – The Academy Awards has agreed to register the Tehran International Short Film Festival as an event whose awards can qualify a film for the Oscars, the Iranian Youth Cinema Society (IYCS) that is the main organizer of the festival announced on Saturday.

“We were informed that the festival will be a gate to the Oscars late last week. Meanwhile, there are few festivals in Asia having this honor, for example, Egypt in North Africa and Japan, South Korea, Singapore and India are the sole countries having Oscar qualifying festivals,” said IYCS director Sadeq Musavi who is also the director of the festival.

“At present, there are over 10,000 festivals being organized across the world, most of them are unreliable. Meanwhile, the Tehran short festival has a good status in the world, although the festival is not decidedly familiar, it can be considered as the most important short film festival in West Asia,” he added.

He said that the Tehran short festival is the only event offering free admission and added, “Free registration will be set aside after the restrictions on international payments are lifted, and, like other festivals, we will collect a registration fee from participants and the festival will be able to cover all its expenses.”  

He said that there are only 127 short film festivals in the world whose awards can qualify a film for the Oscars.

The Farabi Cinema Foundation, which selects Iran’s submission to the Oscars every year, has congratulated the organizers of the Tehran International Short Film Festival on earning this credit.

In addition, Mohammad-Mehdi Asgarpur, the director of the Fajr International Film Festival, has also sent a letter of congratulations to the organizers of the Tehran short film festival.

Iranian international festivals have been recognized by international film organizations over the past few months.

The Fajr International Film Festival was accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF) as a new film event in its competitive feature film festivals. 

Photo: A poster for the 37th Tehran International Short Film Festival. 

MMS/YAW