TEHRAN – Iranian film editor Hayedeh Safiyari has been selected as a member of a jury that will judge debut features at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia.

She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and is best known for her long-time collaborations with Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, whose “A Separation” and “The Salesman” have received the Oscar for the best foreign-language film.

She has edited over 90 feature fiction films and several documentaries in her career spanning thirty years.

Most of the editing she has done has been for world-renowned filmmakers such as Bahram Beizai, Reza Dormishian and Mani Haqiqi.

Guatemalan director and producer Jayro Bustamante is the president of the First Feature Competition jury at the Tallinn Black Nights, which will be running from November 12 to 28.

Icelander filmmaker Elfar Adalsteins, Bangladeshi director Mostofa Sarwar Farooki and producer and distributor Paul Thiltges from Luxembourg are other members of the jury.

“Hit the Road” by Panah Panahi is the sole Iranian movie competing in the category.

It is about a chaotic, tender family, which is on a road trip across a rugged landscape, but to where? In the back seat, Dad has a broken leg, but is it really broken? Mom tries to laugh when she’s not holding back tears. The kid keeps exploding into choreographed car karaoke. All of them are fussing over the sick dog and getting on each other’s nerves. Only the mysterious older brother is quiet.

In addition, the Iranian drama “Killing the Eunuch Khan”, written and directed by Abed Abest, will be screened in the official competition.

In this film, set during the war between Iran and Iraq, a father lives with his two daughters in a big, strangely haunted house in an almost deserted city near the border. 

One day, he leaves the girls at home alone in order to participate in a funeral ceremony. That same day, the city is struck by a bombing raid, and a bomb falls in his garden. From that point on, some sort of ghostly vibration unhinges his own reality, and the world of the dead seems to mingle with the world of living.

The Iranian drama “Orthodontics” directed by Mohammadreza Mayqani has been selected to be screened in the Rebels With Their Shorts 2, and “The Fourth Wall” by Iranian director Mahbubeh Kalai will be screened in the Short Animation Competition 4.

Photo: Film editor Hayedeh Safiyari in an undated photo.

MMS/YAW