TEHRAN – Seyyed Morteza Fatemi won the best director award for his latest acclaimed drama “Motherless” at the 24th Rainbow International Film Festival London.

Also written by Fatemi, the film is about an educated, middle-aged couple, Amir-Ali and Marjan, who lead a quiet life. When Marjan insists on renting a womb and a surrogate mother enters their life, unintentionally they go through different tests and face moral dilemmas.

IRIMAGE handles the international sales of the film starring Amir Aqai, Mitra Hajjar and Pejman Jamshidi.

“Motherless” was named best film at the 21st Dhaka International Film Festival in Bangladesh. It also was selected as the best film Asian film at the Bengaluru International Film Festival in India.

The winners of the Rainbow festival were announced on Sunday.

The Bangladeshi thriller “JK 1971” was picked as best film. Directed by Fakhrul Arefeen Khan, it is the first English-language Bangladeshi film about the Bangladesh liberation war that features Sabyasachi Chakrabarty and Subhra Sourav Das in lead roles.

The Indian drama “Gargi” won the award for best screenplay. Director Gautham Ramachandran co-wrote the screenplay with Hariharan Raju.

The film follows a young schoolteacher on a journey to prove her father’s innocence with the help of a juvenile advocate who has never even seen the interior of a courthouse.

The Best Film for Humanity award went to the Kazakh drama “Mom, I’m Alive!”

Written and directed by Muhammed Mamyrbekov and Aziz Zairov, the film tells the story of Saule Iskakova, a young daughter of a juvenile police officer who falls in love with a troublemaker from the orphanage. This brings Saule into conflict with her husband. But one day, they find out that their daughter is diagnosed with cancer.

In this category, “The Coffin Painter” by Chinese director Da Fei won the special jury mention, while “Satao” by Khandaker Sumon from Bangladesh received the Rainbow Film Society Special Mention.

The best film award in the short and documentary category was given to “Tulika” from Bangladesh.

Finnish filmmaker Kati Kallio won the award for best director for “Walks with Me”, while “Ebong Chad” from India received the best screenplay award.

“Arsu” by Abod Kazemi from Iran was awarded the special jury mention.

Photo: Seyyed Morteza Fatemi (L) directs Pejman Jamshidi (C) and Amir Aqai in a scene from his film “Motherless”.

MMS/YAW