TEHRAN – Iranian director Amir Ruini’s “Loculus” won the best short at the 24th Zoom–Zblizenia International Film Festival in Poland, the organizers announced on Tuesday.

In this movie, the cemetery morgue engine breaks down, and everyone has to bury the bodies. Meanwhile, a ten-year-old boy does not want to bury his mother’s body.

“Casting” by Hungarian director Sandor Csoma won the special jury award.

The short is about 18-year-old Julia who lives in a poor mining town with her brother. One day she tries her luck at a model casting in the hope of starting a new life abroad. However, during the casting, it turns out that they are looking for porn actresses.

The award for first best short documentary went to “The Whale from Lorino” by Polish filmmaker Maciej Cuske. 

The film is about whale hunting, one of the last sources of life and tradition of the Chukchi people, who are also endangered with extinction. The Chukchi hope to survive the next winter. When Lorion land is warmed by the sun, the hunters set off. A clash of the two worlds comes to the verge of existence at every encounter.

“Magnum Opus” also won the award for second best short documentary.

Polish filmmaker Filip Bojarski said, “I found the autobiography of my great-uncle Waclaw in my parents’ attic. He wrote about a secret underground organization he started in Lodz during WWII. Nobody in the family knows much about his mysterious life, so I decided to stage a one-man show to present Waclaw’s incredible past to the family.”

Directed Daria Kopiec from Poland, “Your Own Bullshit” was selected as best short animation.

The movie tells that there is nothing better than a family dinner. Even though it resembles a looped screenplay, repeated infinitely. Even though apart from the food, one needs to swallow the words of one’s relatives: sometimes bitter, sometimes so repetitive that they make you feel sick, recited by heart for so many years.

Photo: A scene from Iranian director Amir Ruini’s short drama “Loculus”.

MMS/YAW