TEHRAN – The acclaimed Iranian drama “The Wasteland” has been selected as best film at the Bogota International Film Festival in Colombia.

The film directed by Ahmad Bahrami won the Radionics Youth Award, which is given to best movie.

Written by Bahrami, the story of the film is set in a remote brick manufacturing factory producing bricks using an ancient method. 

Many families with different ethnicities work in the factory and the boss seems to hold the key to solving their problems. Forty-year-old Lotfollah, who was born on-site, is the factory supervisor and acts as go-between for the workers and the boss. The boss has Lotfollah gather all the workers in front of his office. He wants to talk to them about the shutdown of the factory. All that matters now to Lotfollah is to keep Sarvar unharmed, the woman he has been in love with for a long time.

The film has been screened at numerous international festivals and won several awards. 

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 film has also been selected to be screened at Tunisia’s Carthage Film Festival, where Bahrami is a jury member.

The winners of the Bogota International Film Festival were announced last week.

The documentary “On the Other Side” by Ivan Guarnizo won the Radionics award for best Colombian movie and the audience award.

Guarnizo’s mom spent two years kidnapped by the FARC in 2004. Now that she is gone and that war is over, Guarnizo and his brother read the diaries she wrote during her captivity. They remember that she forgave and decided to search for the guerrillas who guarded her.

Photo: Ali Baqeri and Mahdieh Nassaj act in a scene from “The Wasteland”.

MMS/YAW