TEHRAN – Iranian director Farnush Samadi is on a jury of the Beirut International Women’s Film Festival opened on Sunday in the Lebanese capital.

Art director Claudine Kamar and her Lebanese fellow filmmaker Cynthia Sawma are in company with Samadi in the short documentary and animation jury.

“Up to the Sea, She Weaves a Dream” produced at the Documentary and Experimental Film Center is the sole movie competing in the animation category.

Directed by Maryam Khalilzadeh, the film shows that in any war, there is always a soldier who is lost and there are the women who are waiting for him to return. The dreams these women weave carry them to the farthest seas. Knowing there is no return, they weave and weave to treat the wounds of war.

Samadi is most famous for her short “Gaze”, which was acclaimed at several international events. Her debut feature “180º Rule” won the awards for best feature film and best ensemble cast at the Beirut International Women’s Film Festival this year.

She was also a member of the Meeting Point jury at the SEMINCI – Valladolid International Film Festival 2021 in Spain and the jury of the Same Boat Short Film Competition at the International Migration Film Festival in Turkey in 2020.

Two Iranian films, including the acclaimed drama “Bandar Band”, are also competing in the Beirut International Women Film Festival running until March 11.

Directed by Manijeh Hekmat, the film is about some Iranian women singers who are going to enter an unofficial competition in a coffee shop in Tehran. 

Pregnant Mahla along with the other members of Bandar Band, her husband and one of their closest friends, start their journey to Tehran from a southern province just when they have lost all they had in a flood. 

They still keep their hopes alive, although every road they take leads to a dead-end in a flood-stricken land. They intend to go to Tehran, but they wonder if it is just another turn around a vicious circle.

The Beirut festival is also screening “Barter” by Iranian filmmakers Ziba Karamali and Emad Arad in the short fiction films competition.

The short drama is about Parsa, a 13-year-old boy who is trying to hide a secret from his father. The film depicts a dramatic situation in a family, and how people change when their interests are at stake.

Photo: Iranian filmmaker Farnush Samadi in an undated photo.

MMS/YAW