TEHRAN – The acclaimed Iranian movie “This Side, Other Side” has been picked as one of the three best animations at the Bridge of Peace Film Festival, an online event organized in Paris, France.

In this short animated movie, director Lida Fazli shows we are always so afraid of the other side, even though we are all the same. When a war rips their world apart, a little girl and little boy from two sides come together to heal it with their magical crayon. But we all know that’s just fantasy. Real wars are not so easy to stop; the damage is not so easy to fix.

The film has previously been showcased in dozens of international festivals and won several prizes, including the UNICEF Award at the 2020 Biennial of Animation Bratislava in Slovakia.

“Shooom’s Odyssey” by the French director Julien Bisaro about a little owl who leaves on an adventure to find an adoptive mum, and “Life on the Move” by Osbert Parker from the UK about the complex reasons behind migration from the Horn of Africa were the other animations awarded at the Bridge of Peace Film Festival, which ended last week.

The war drama “The Blizzard of Souls” by Latvian director Dzintars Dreibergs won the special jury prize.

The film follows Arturs who finds some consolation in joining the army after losing his mother and his home. However, war is nothing like he imagined.

“The Blizzard of Souls” was also awarded as one of the two best feature films at the festival. The other one was “Reveille” by American director Michael Akkerman.

This film shows a group of American soldiers and their wounded German prisoners in November 1943 who are forced to confront their mutual humanity after taking cover together following a skirmish in central Italy.

“A Soldier”, a short war film by Nikesh Limbu from the UK, won the audience award.

The award for best documentary was given to “The Third and Fourth Generation” by Lukas Zund from Switzerland.

In this film, deaconess sister Silvia lately has been driving to the place where her grandfather was chief of a Nazi concentration camp. Her looking into her family history and her childhood trauma lead her to a turning point in the celibate woman’s life.

Dozens of films were also awarded in different categories at the Bridge of Peace Film Festival.

The organizers say the festival was established “to focus the audience’s attention on the pressing problems of humanity, in order to seek and find an answer to the question of how to live in a world without wars, without oppression, how to learn to respect the traditions and culture of other peoples, how to preserve nature and its diversity for new generations.”

Photo: “This Side, Other Side” by Iranian director Lida Fazli.

MMS/YAW