TEHRAN – Ahmad Bahrami, the director of the acclaimed Iranian drama “The Wasteland”, has been selected as a member of the jury of the Carthage Film Festival in Tunisia.

Winners of the narrative feature and short films will be selected by the jury, which will be headed by Enzo Porcelli, an Italian member of the European Film Academy.

The jury also includes Hoji Fortuna from Angola, Tareq Al Shennawy from Egypt, Daoud Aoulad-Syad from Morocco, Gessica Fabiola Geneus from Haiti and Soufiane Ben Farhat from Tunisia.

Bahrami’s award-winning drama “The Wasteland” is scheduled to be screened in the World Cinema section of the festival, which will take place in Carthage from October 30 to November 6.

The movie depicts the mounting tensions among the ethnically diverse workers of a crumbling, archaic brick manufacturing plant seemingly removed from civilization. The story focuses on 40-year-old Lotfollah, who has lived his entire life within the building and acts as a mediator between the workers and their boss.

Upon its world premiere at the Venice festival, “The Wasteland” won three awards, including best film in the Horizons section and the critics’ FIPRESCI Prize.

It also won the award for best cinematographer for Masud Amini Tirani at the 15th Asian Film Awards in Busan, South Korea.

The Carthage Film Festival also screened “The Dogs Didn’t Sleep Last Night”, a co-production between Afghanistan and Iran directed by Ramin Rasuli, in the World Cinema category.

The story of the film is set in a remote area in Afghanistan, where stories of the lives of a young shepherdess, a birdcatcher boy and a mourning teacher are intertwined after their school is burned down. The young shepherdess takes the risk of saving a female U.S. soldier after a helicopter crash. The birdcatcher boy takes shelter in a tank with the birds, the pin-ups and the illegal music that he loves. And the mourning teacher seeks vengeance on the one who has widowed her.

Photo: Director Ahmad Bahrami attends the 77th Venice International Film Festival to promote his drama “The Wasteland”.

MMS/YAW