TEHRAN-The Iranian short film “CCTV” directed by Samira Karimi has been selected as the Best Film of the Dieciminuti Film Festival (DFF), held in Italy from July 1 to 6.

A 2023 production, the film shows two high school girls who decide to erase footage from the school's CCTV cameras but end up getting locked up at school, ILNA reported.

The 10-minute flick has Parnia Larni, Parisa Habibi, Negar Taheri, Mehri Sadat AlAgha, Avishan Sedghi, and Alireza Mahabadi in the cast among others.

A total of 773 short films from 64 countries across all five continents entered this year’s edition of the festival. For the Official Selection, 15 works were chosen. “CCTV” competed with films from Chile, France, the Netherlands, South Korea, Iceland, Georgia, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Ukraine, Taiwan, and Turkey.

Another 15 works were also selected for the Extralarge section, the most festival-like, which covers a segment between 10 and 15 minutes, which is the most used standard at an international level. “Witness” by Aida Tebianian was another Iranian short film that participated in this section along with movies from North Macedonia, Kyrgyzstan, South Korea, Spain, Italy, Denmark, China, the UK, Turkey, and Norway.

Produced in 2023, “Witness,” 15 minutes, is about a young girl named Shermin who wants to save her father’s life, but wandering in the dilemma of choosing between fear and conscience, she finally makes a difficult decision.

Dieciminuti Film Festival is an international competition for short films, animations, and documentaries of up to 10 minutes created in 2005. Over the years it has become one of the most important festivals dedicated to short films in Italy, with over 14,000 short films from 137 different countries.

SS/SAB