TEHRAN -- Tehran will be playing host to its first festival of silent films, which is scheduled to be held from April 30 to May 7.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, the secretary of the festival, Alireza Qasemi, who is also the founder of the event, said that Italy, the U.S. and Australia are the only countries enjoying festivals of silent films.

The Tehran International Silent Film Festival was established “to fill the vacuum for such an event in Iran,” he added.

Forty-five fiction, animated and documentary films will be screened at the festival, which will be held at the Tehran University of Art.

“Hunter” by Scott Barley from Wales, “Trilogy of Silence” by Diego Fiori from Austria, “Displacement” by Manuel Álvarez-Diestro from England and “Chamber Music” by Katharina Blanken from Germany are among the films.

The films have been selected from among over 800 submissions from around the world.

The Experimental and Documentary Film Center and the Tehran University of Art festival are the main sponsors of the event.

The organizers began on Sunday screening a number of silent films during a five-day program at the university to inform the audience about world silent cinema before the beginning of the festival.

The program focuses on works by Swedish cineaste Victor David Sjostrom, Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, Austrian-German filmmaker Fritz Lang, Finnish-Swedish Mauritz Stiller, Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer, and German filmmakers Karlheinz Martin and Robert Wiene.  

Film editor Hayedeh Safiyari, cinematographer Mahmud Kalari, director Kamran Shirdel and actress Fatemeh Motamed-Arya are the Iranian members of the jury, which also includes Dana Polan, the associate chairperson of the Department of Cinema Studies at New York University.

Photo: A poster for the Tehran International Silent Film Festival

MMS/YAW

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