TEHRAN – Iranian-Afghan actress Fereshteh Hosseini has won an award at the 30th Rabat International Author Film Festival, which was held from November 8 to 15 in Morocco.

She received the Best Actress award for her role in “Dwelling Among the Gods” directed by Vuk Rsumovic, ISNA reported.

A production of Serbia, Italy, and Croatia, the 2024 movie depicts a young Afghan woman (Hosseini) who comes to Belgrade at the height of the migrant wave and learns that her younger brother drowned in the river three weeks earlier. Then her struggle begins to bury him under her full name.

Hosseini, partially fictionalizing her own migrant journey, offers a ferocious leading performance in the film. The wails and sobs and howls she’s called to invoke within her slight frame feel elemental. They tap into tragedies that transcend borders. 

Throughout “Dwelling Among the Gods,” the director shoots his actors - and Hosseini, in particular - with an eye toward a discomfiting, almost documentary-like reality. 

The film, which had its world premiere at the 30th Sarajevo Film Festival in Bosnia and Herzegovina in August, has so far won several awards.

Earlier this month, the film won three awards at the 8th Euro Balkan Film Festival, which was held in Rome from October 30 to November 6. It received the Cineuropa Prize and two awards for Hosseini, including the Best Actress award and a Special Mention for Best Actor/Actress by the Youth Jury.

At this year’s edition of the Rabat International Author Film Festival, Iranian film producer Elaheh Nobakht served as a jury member.

Nobakht, who has previously served on the jury of more than 10 international film festivals, evaluated the films in the festival’s main competition section alongside six other distinguished jurors, including Jean-Claude Barny (France), Marijke De Koning (Netherlands), Maimouna N’Diaye (France/Burkina Faso), and Karim Debbagh (Morocco).
Dedicated to celebrating auteur cinema - films that embody true artistic vision and intellectual depth - this year’s edition focused on bold, innovative, and unconventional works that challenge stereotypes and push the boundaries of cinematic expression. 

Renowned for fostering cultural dialogue and uniting filmmaking talent from around the world, the Rabat International Author Film Festival holds a strategic position on the global cinema map. 

The 8th edition featured more than 150 films by acclaimed filmmakers and visionary works from across the globe.

The Rabat International Author Film Festival is dedicated to the Author cinema, a true cinema of art and thought in all its forms, to brave films, demanding, intelligent, even radicals that destroy the clichés; films that have an urgency and a personal writing dedicated to humanity in all its forms.

The purpose of the festival is to meet and know the films, the authors, and the public. It is an alternative practice to counter the industrial machine that has globalized the taste and erased the right to be different. 

SS/SAB