TEHRAN – Iran’s International Resistance Film Festival has said it will organize its 2022 edition on a warship in the Persian Gulf with the motto of “Mustadafeen’s Global Movement, Annihilation of Israel”.

Speaking at a meeting on Friday, the director of the festival, Jalal Ghaffari, said, “We proposed that the festival be organized on the Shahid Qassem Soleimani Warship to convey this important message to the world.” 

The Association of the Revolution and Sacred Defense Cinema and the Revayat Foundation organize the festival annually to celebrate the anniversary of the Basij Organization.

The meeting was also attended by Basij Organization chief Brigadier General Gholamreza Soleimani, who said, “An important event during the second phase of the Islamic Revolution will be the annihilation of Israel, which has wisely been selected as the slogan of the festival, because if this event does not occur we will never arrive at the Islamic civilization.”

The director of the Association of the Revolution and Sacred Defense Cinema, Mohammad Hosseini, said, “Instead of organizing the festival in Tehran, we decided to relocate the festival to the resistance frontline in the Persian Gulf; everything has gone well and we will hold it on a warship.” 

He also added that the association is producing five films that will premiere during the Fajr International Film Festival in February 2023.

One of the films is “Aras”, which focuses on two Azerbaijani soldiers at a frontier post who stand fast against the Soviet invaders.

Hosseini also called director Narges Abyar’s adaptation of Simin Danesvar’s novel “Savushun” an “anti-England project” that is produced at the association.

Abyar is making a TV series and a feature film based on the novel, which follows a Persian family during the Allied occupation of Iran in World War II.

It is set in Shiraz, a town which evokes images of Persepolis and pre-Islamic monuments, the great poets, the shrines, Sufis and nomadic tribes within a historical web of the interests, privilege and influence of foreign powers; corruption, incompetence and arrogance of persons in authority; the paternalistic landowner-peasant relationship; tribalism; and the fear of famine. 

The story is seen through the eyes of Zari, a young wife and mother, who copes with her idealistic and uncompromising husband while struggling with her desire for traditional family life and her need for individual identity.

The heroic stand taken by the southern family against British colonial intrigues ends in the murder of the husband, with the wife determined to carry on the struggle.

Photo: Organizers of the 17th International Resistance Film Festival pose after holding a meeting in Tehran on November 4, 2022 to discuss issues on the event. 

MMS/YAW