TEHRAN – The Iranian documentary “Forgotten” directed by Saied Nabi and Maryam Khadivi is competing in the 10th International Festival of Socio-Environmental Cinema Planeta.Doc, which is underway in Santa Catarina, Brazil.

The festival features prominent environmental works from around the world. International professional television networks such as National Geographic, Love Nature, Canal Off, and Travel Box Brazil, which are professional and prominent producers and broadcasters of environmental documentaries in the world, are also present at the event, Mehr reported.

“Forgotten” is a narrative documentary that intimately portrays the real life of Abdolkazem Saki, a world and Paralympic champion who lives beside the Hoor al-Azim wetland. Every morning, he strives to maintain his physical fitness. Saki's professional fate is very similar to the fate of the wetland.

Hoor al-Azim is the largest border wetland in Iran, covering ​​more than 120,000 hectares in the Dasht-e Azadegan region of Khuzestan province, southwest of the country. 

The wetland has an irreplaceable role in the economic functions and livelihood of the residents of the region. It is also significant in terms of dust control; thus, it is considered the beating heart of people's lives, environmental protection, and tourism development.

IRIB Media Trade holds the international distribution rights for “Forgotten,” which has attended the 29th International Ecological TV Festival “To Save and Preserve” in Russia and the 4th World Film Festival Kolkata (WFFK) in India, earlier this year.

With their previous short documentary, “Standing with the Wolf,” Nabi and Khadivi received several awards, including the award from the Irkutsk Regional Museum of Local Lore at the 23rd Baikal International Film Festival of Documentary and Popular-Science Films “People and Environment” in Russia last September.

The Planeta.Doc is one of Latin America’s most prominent platforms dedicated to environmental cinema. This year’s program is structured around three core themes: climate change, Indigenous peoples, and environmental justice, with the aim of raising public awareness, supporting creative works on ecological matters, and drawing the attention of both the public and policymakers to urgent environmental challenges worldwide.

The tenth edition of the festival kicked off on September 25 and will run until December 25, in a hybrid format, with an extensive online program accessible throughout Brazil. The event presents a curated selection of international, Brazilian, and regional (Catarinense) documentaries, animations, and virtual reality films focused on socio-environmental and scientific themes.

SS/SAB