TEHRAN – The 15th edition of the Cinéma Vérité festival will screen five movies by overseas filmmakers in the Documentary Portrait section.

The major Iranian international festival for documentary films is scheduled to be held online from December 9 to 16.

Moroccan filmmaker Ali Essafi’s “Before the Dying of the Light”, which is a tribute to a Moroccan artistic avant-garde of the 1970s, is among the films.

The film, which had its international premiere at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), is about a Moroccan independent film from 1974, “About Some Meaningless Events” by Mostafa Derkaoui, where a group of young filmmakers explored the role the new Moroccan cinema should play in society.

The American documentary “Becoming Cousteau”, which is a look at the life, passions, achievements and tragedies surrounding the famous explorer and environmentalist Jacques Cousteau, will also be screened.

Directed by Liz Garbus, the film won the Best Science/Nature Documentary Award at the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards 2021.

“Django & Django” by Italian filmmaker Luca Rea has also been selected to be screened.

The film pays homage to Italian director Sergio Corbucci of the 1960s and contemporary director Quentin Tarantino, recounting a memorable period in Italian cinema with the sensibility of today.

Documentary Portrait also features “Mau”, a co-production between Austria and the U.S.

Co-directed by Benjamin Bergmann and Jono Bergmann, the film is about the design visionary Bruce Mau. It explores the untold story of his unlikely rise in the creative world, and ever-optimistic push to expand the boundaries of design and tells the story of his incredible career - from Mecca to MOMA, from Guatemala to Coca Cola - and his most important project yet: his own life.

Irish director Tadhg O’Sullivan will also participate in the festival with his documentary “To the Moon”.

The film, which won the film critics award at the Dublin International Film Festival 2021, is a cinematic ode to the moon, made in large part from archival sources combined with literary fragments and bound together by a haunting original score. 

The film steps lightly through the ideas that people through the ages have drawn from the moon - dreams of escape, myths of heaven, songs of longing and loss, odes of yearning - taking the viewer on a constantly surprising night-walk through the night sky.

Photo: “Before the Dying of the Light” by Moroccan filmmaker Ali Essafi.

MMS/YAW