TEHRAN – Iranian movies “The Locust”, “Killing the Eunuch Khan” and “Identibye” will be competing in the Split Film Festival in Croatia.

Directed by Faezeh Azizkhani, “The Locust” will be screened in the official competition of the festival, which will take place in Split, the second-largest city of Croatia, from September 1 to 9. 

The film is about Hanieh, who abandons the hope of directing her semi-autobiographical screenplay and sells it to her well-connected best friend to direct instead. The latter keeps Hanieh around to advise in script meetings and cast rehearsals, but as the production wears on, it becomes painfully clear that neither the new director nor her highly critical crew have any respect for our protagonist’s original vision.  

“Killing the Eunuch Khan” by Abed Abest has been selected to be screened in the Frame Extended section.

In this film, a serial killer intends to slaughter so much that blood spills over the ditches of the city. To reach this goal, he designs a plan in which victims kill victims. The plan is carried out and the stream of blood gradually fills the ditches of the city by the people who kill each other.

The film won the Breakouts Feature Grand Jury Prize at the Slamdance Film Festival in the United States in February.

“Identibye” will compete in the short films category.

In “Identibye”, directed and written by Sajjad Shahhatami, the protagonist of the story faces a dilemma of choosing between sense and sensibility regarding one’s innermost feelings. He has been judged from the very beginning by those closest to him. The fear of these never-ending judgments fills him with doubt and he has to work against the clock to achieve his goal as he knows that one’s true identity is what matters most to them.

The international competition of feature and short films is the backbone of the program of the festival, which is open to all new, creative, personal, experimental, radical, and subversive works of all lengths and genres.

Photo: Hanieh Tavassoli acts in a scene from “The Locust” directed by Faezeh Azizkhani.

MMS/YAW