TEHRAN – Iranian director Narges Abyar has been selected for the jury of the 25th Religion Today Film Festival, which opens in five Italian cities on Wednesday.

Director of acclaimed dramas “Track 143”, “Breath” and “When the Moon Was Full”, Abyar is currently in Tatarstan, a semi-autonomous region in southwest Russia, to accompany the jury of the 18th edition of the Kazan International Muslim Film Festival.

She has been honored by several international festivals and cultural centers.

Earlier in March, she was honored with the Director Achievement Award at the International Women Filmmakers Festival 2022 in Izmir, Turkey.

In 2020, she received the HUM Women Leaders Award at the Governor’s House in the Pakistani city of Karachi.

Her 2019 drama “When the Moon Was Full” received the audience award at the 23rd Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia.

The Religion Today jury also has Mamta Shaha, a board-certified pediatrician and an assistant professor of pediatrics at New York University. She is also a board-certified ophthalmologist from Bombay University.

Christian Kazadi Lupemba, the chairperson of Religions for Peace’s Interfaith Youth Network of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a professor of mathematics, will join the jury.

Eda Molla Chousein, the Youth Program Coordinator of the National Interfaith Youth Network and Religions for Peace UK, is also a member of the panel.

The Iranian movies “The Dream of a Horse”, “Surviving Fortress”, “19”, “The Peach”, “Cylinder” and “Graveyard” will compete in different sections of the festival, which will take place in Trento, Bolzano, Rome, Venice and Marina di Camerota.

“Religion Today has been the foremost international and itinerant film festival dedicated to cinema and religions for a culture of peace and dialogue between faiths, cultures, peoples and individuals,” the organizers have said.

Elaheh Nobakht, the producer of the acclaimed Iranian documentary “Beloved”, was a member of the jury of the 2021 Religion Today Film Festival.

Photo: Iranian director Narges Abyar in an undated photo.

MMS/YAW