TEHRAN – The 40th edition of the Fajr Film Festival, Iran’s most important film event, announced its lineup for the official competition on Sunday night.

Twenty-two films, most made by the new generation of Iranian filmmakers, will compete in the festival, which will be organized by a new team under its new president, Masud Naqqashzadeh.

Masud Kimiai and Reza Mirkarimi are the sole big names on the lineup.

Kimiai, one of the few active filmmakers of Iran’s new wave cinema in the 1960s and 1970s, is participating in the event with his noir “Killing the Traitor”.

Directed based on a true story, the film depicts part of the life story of Mehdi Baligh, a cheat and thief who is known as Iran’s Arsène Lupin.

Amir Aqai stars as Baligh in the film starring Mehran Modiri, Hamidreza Azarang and Reza Yazdani.

Mirkarimi will be competing with his “Night Watchman” starring Mohsen Kiai and Vishka Asayesh. No information about the plot has been published as yet.

Celebrated director Kiumars Purahmad has made a cameo appearance in the movie.  

Another big name is Ebrahim Hatamikia who will participate in the festival as a producer for his son Yusef’s debut feature, “Golden Night”. No details have been revealed about the film. 

Yusef worked with his father as an assistant director in “Che” about the guerrilla war commander Mostafa Chamran.   

“The Loser Man” is another highlight of the lineup from Mohammad-Hossein Mahdavian, director of the acclaimed dramas “Walnut Tree”, “Blood Trap” and “Midday Event”.

The movie stars Rana Azadivar and Javad Ezzati, the stars of Mahdavian’s popular series, “Mortal Wound”.

Due to its subject, Hadi Hejazifar’s debut feature “Mehdi’s Location” is expected to attract the organizers’ attention.

The docudrama is about the life story of Mehdi Bakeri, the chief of IRGC 31st Shura Division that carried out several major operations during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

The movie is a shortened version of the TV series “The Bakeri Martyrs”, which also gives details about Bakeri’s brothers, Ali and Hamid, who were martyred during the unrest of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the war respectively.

Hejazifar also stars as Mehdi Bakeri in the movie.

The Fajr Film Festival is organized every year from February 1 to 11 to commemorate the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

Fajr’s international section categories split from the festival in 2014, when the Cinema Organization of Iran, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, the main organizer of the event, announced that the international competition would be held separately from the national section for the first time in 2015.

Following the management changes in the Cinema Organization of Iran, the new director of the organization, Mohammad Khazaei, ordered that the Fajr national and international film festivals be combined again for 2022.

However, to avoid any confusion, the festival will not have an international competition section this year.

Photo: A poster for the 40th Fajr Film Festival.

MMS/YAW