TEHRAN -- Russian director Alexander Sokurov who is currently in Tehran to attend the 34th Fajr International Film Festival has forecasted that the future of cinema rests with authors. 

“The future of the cinema is in the hands of authors,” he said in an interview that the organizers published on Saturday.

“The only hope is that one day a new talented author appears because the topics of movies are exhausted,” added Sokurov who made the acclaimed movie “Faust” based on works by German writers Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Thomas Mann.

“Cinema has talked about every critical subject so now it is just the same subjects from different vantage points,” he noted. 

Sixty-five-year-old Sokurov called cinema “an unfaithful friend” and said, “Films become old but authors are still alive and make different movies.

“A movie that I made five years ago is really old now. You cannot name a movie that stays bright over time. Cinema is very temporary and I believe that only five percent of all movies from the past have survived and the rest no longer exist.”

The organizers of the Fajr festival honored Sokurov by arranging an event entitled “A Night with Alexander Sokurov”, which was held at the National Museum of Iran on Saturday.

The gathering began with a screening of Sokurov’s drama “Francofonia”, which Variety viewed as “a dense, enriching meditation on the Louvre, Paris and the role of art as an intrinsic part of the spirit of civilization.”

Some French diplomats, including Jamel Oubechou, the counselor for cooperation and cultural action at the Embassy of France, attended the meeting.

Fajr secretary Reza Mirkarimi and a number of Iranian cineastes were also in attendance at the session.

Photo: Russian director Alexander Sokurov poses during the 34th Fajr International Film Festival at Tehran’s Charsu Cineplex on April 21, 2016. (Tasnim/Foad Ashtari) 

MMS/YAW
END