TEHRAN – Iran won six awards at the 31st Minsk International Film Festival “Listapad,” which was held from October 31 to November 7, in Belarus.

“The Catcher in the Rye,” (also known as “Guardian of the Field”) directed by Mohamadreza Kheradmandan, “Gamar-Taj” by Hadi and Mehdi Zarei, “Under the Shady Oak” by Hossein Allahyari, “Banana Garden” by Reza Keshavarz Hadad, and “Dreamland” by Mohsen Enayati were the award winners at the event, IRNA reported.

In the Main Feature Films Competition section, the Yuri Marukhin Prize for Best Cinematography in a Feature Film was given to Morteza Ghafouri, for “The Catcher in the Rye”. The film also received the Diploma “For deep immersion in the world of disasters and discoveries of modern social society” in the same section.

In the Main Non-Fiction Films Competition section, the Diploma “For the historical and philosophical understanding of the fate of the country and people in the aesthetics of documentary film” was presented to Gamar-Taj.

In the Short Film Competition section, the Diploma “For the embodiment of the theme Traditional family values” was given to “Under the Shady Oak”.

In the Film Competition “Cinema of the Young” section, the Prize for the Best Film of the Viktor Turov Youth Cinema Competition was awarded to “Banana Garden”.

The Special Jury Award went to the Iranian animated film “Dreamland”. It also received the Artistic Embodiment of Universal Human Values award.

One of the members of the jury panel in the Main Non-Fiction Films Competition section was Tahereh Solgi from Iran.

Born in Tehran, she is a culturologist, art critic, film scholar, cinema historian, director, educator, and translator.

A postgraduate student at the Faculty of Culturology, State University of Management in Moscow, she is the author of more than 10 articles on Russian cinema in the Russian and Persian languages.

For 31 years now, every November in Minsk has been measured by cinema meters. From the latest arthouse releases to classics of intellectual cinema, from the cream of the global box office to retrospectives of Belarusian auteurs. 

The 30th anniversary of the Minsk International Film Festival “Listapad” lived up to its slogan: “Cinema with a Quality Seal.” This celebration of cinema once again fulfilled its primary mission: to unite cultures, peoples, and hearts through the art of the big screen. 

Last year, the festival broke all records, proving that Listapad knows no bounds. While in 2023, 2,087 applications were received from 107 countries, in 2024, the festival reached an incredible figure: 3,405 applications from 124 countries. 

From this diverse field, 133 films were selected for the program, and the geography of events expanded to include Days of Cultures from countries such as India, Iran, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, and Russia. 

Alongside the competition screenings, attended by over 30,000 spectators, numerous master classes and creative meetings were held, attracting over 1,500 guests.

This year’s slogan is “History Shifting Perspectives”. The line-up for the upcoming edition features 157 films from 41 countries.

SS/SAB