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‘Castle of Dreams’ from Iran Receives Nominated in Spanish Festival

reporter 1222 — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 04:07:47 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Internationally acclaimed feature ‘Castle of Dreams’ received three nominations at the 2020 Imagineindia International Film Festival in Spain.

The Spanish capital of Madrid will host the event from September 24 to October 8.

The film is nominated for Best Actor (Hamed Behdad), Best Screenplay (Mohsen Qaraei and Mohammad Davoudi) and Best Soundtrack (Amin Honarmand).

A short synopsis for the film reads: “Jalal Moradi, a 42-year-old father of two, kills a family in an accident. In the court of law, the murder is recognized as accidental killing without intent. After getting out of prison, he leaves his wife and kids and moves to another city. Two years later, he must go back to his hometown as his wife is brain-dead.”

Hamed Behdad, Mohammad Asgari, Zhila Shahi, Akbar Ayeen, Azadeh Nobahar, Mohammad Ashkanfar, Youna Tadayyon, and Niyousha Alipour make the cast of the flick.

The film received the Best Director award, while its lead actor, Hamed Behdad, shared the Best Actor award of the International Feature Film Competition section of the 56th Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival in Turkey.

‘Castle of Dreams’ has already won the Best Actor Award, Best Director Award, and the Golden Goblet at the Shanghai International Film Festival.

The film has also won two awards at the Batumi International Art-House Film Festival in Georgia, Best Film in the West and East Eurasian Film Festival (Orenburg, Russia) and Best Director award at the fourth Slemani International Film Festival in Iraq.

Iranian actress Mahtab Keramati is selected to serve as the jury president of the 2020 Spanish festival along with Iranian filmmaker Mehdi Rahmani, who is named as juror of the event.

The panel of jury of the Spanish festival also includes Indian film expert Modhura Palit, Polish filmmaker Hanna Polak and Afghan actress Leena Alam, Australian producer Bridget Ikin, Indian professor Anjali Monteiro, Kazakh filmmaker Olga Korotko, British-Indian writer and director Sandhya Suri, Kazakh producer Olga Khlasheva, and German producer Daniela Creutz.

As put by the event’s official website, the Imagineindia festival is an attempt to “promote friendship between Indian Subcontinent, rest of Asia and Spain and along with it the European Union.”

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Vancouver festival picks Iranian films

reporter 1222 — Mon, 16 Sep 2019 10:40:51 +0000

Reza Mirkarimi’s acclaimed drama “Castle of Dreams” and Ali Jaberansari’s film “Tehran: City of Love” will be screened in the official competition of the festival, which will be held from September 26 to October 11.

“Castle of Dreams” is about two young children whose mother has just died, and their father, Jalal, after long years of absence, returns to sort things out, but he does not want to take the children with him.

“Tehran: City of Love” follows the stories of Mina, who is unhappy about her weight, Hessam, a retired bodybuilder who trains older men, and Vahid, who sings at funerals and weddings.

Short movies and animations “Freedom of Breath” by Yasin Farrokhi about a young woman’s life in Iran and “Tangle” by Maliheh Gholamzadeh about a woman who flees her bombed-out home in a war-torn city will also go on screen.

“Song Sparrow”, a co-production between Iran and Denmark by Iranian director Farzaneh Omidvarnia about a group of refugees who by themselves try to reach a safe country in search of a better life, will also compete in the short film section.

The festival will also screen “Coup 53”, a decade-long investigation into the U.S.-designed 1953 coup against the government of Mohammad Mosaddeq in Iran.

Directed by Taqi Amirani, the documentary is a co-production between Iran and the UK.

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Iran’s ‘Castle of Dreams’ sweeps Shanghai Golden Goblet award ceremony

reporter 1222 — Mon, 24 Jun 2019 09:03:03 +0000

China’s top film festival showered its highest three honors on the Iranian film ‘Castle of Dreams,’ during an award ceremony on Sunday night.

The feature is about a 42-year-old man, Jalal, who murders a family in a car crash. The murder, however, is considered as involuntary manslaughter in court. The drama collected a trio of prizes, including the Golden Goblet prize for best film, best director prize for Reza Mirkarimi, and the best actor award for Hamed Behdad, which he shared with Chang Feng for ‘The Return’ (China).

While receiving the award, Mirkarimi highlighted the need for increasing cooperation among Asian countries. Actor Hamed Behdad, in a video streaming during the award ceremony, dedicated his prize to one of the most visionary figures in international cinema, late Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, whose birthday was on June 22.

‘Castle of Dreams’ won the Golden Goblet prize in competition with 15 other titles from Germany, Italy, India, China, Japan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Brazil, Russia and Mexico.

This was the movie’s first international screening. The drama will go on screen in Iran by next month.

According to Variety, the Shanghai prizes were decided by a jury headed by Turkey’s Nuri Bilge Ceylan, which also gave a double dose of awards to “Inhale-Exhale,” a drama about trust and rehabilitation directed by Dito Tsintsadze. The film, a Georgia-Russia-Sweden co-production, earned the festival’s grand jury prize and the best actress award for Salome Demuria.

The 22nd edition of Shanghai International Film Festival took place from June 15th to 24th, 2019.

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