“I praise Tavakkoli’s honesty. He was not in the war, but has depicted the sincerity and purity of our soldiers in the best way through his movie,” Majidi said after watching the film at the 36th Fajr Film Festival in Tehran on Monday.

The story of the film is set in the last days of the war just before Iran accepted UN Resolution 598, which ended the war on July 20, 1988.

The film shows how Iran’s Ammar battalion fought against the Iraqi soldiers in an unequal battle in the Abu Ghuraib Strait near Dehloran, Ilam Province.

Iranian forces were engaged in the war in different regions and front lines. The soldiers of Ammar had been granted furloughs to return home to Tehran but were dispatched to the strait after they were informed that the Iraqi forces were making progress in the Fakkeh and Sharhani regions of Khuzestan and Ilam.

Starring Javad Ezzati, Amir Jadidi and Hamidreza Azarang, the film is a contender in the official competition of the 36th Fajr Film Festival.

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A committee of nine cineastes picked the film from a shortlist of 10 films, including “The Midday Event” by Mohammad-Hossein Mahdavian, “Malaria” by Parviz Shahbazi and “Subdued” by Hamid Nematollah on Tuesday.

“Breath” is about four children whose mother had died a few years earlier and their father decides to join the Iranian volunteers on the warfront following Iraq’s attack in September 1980.

The film has been acclaimed in several Iranian and international events.

The 20th Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia awarded Abyar the Golden Wolf for best director. She also won the award for best director for the film at the Vancouver International Women in Film Festival.

Iranian cinema has so far won the Oscar for best foreign-language film two times. “The Salesman” and “A Separation”, both by Asghar Farhadi, who won the prestigious award in 2017 and 2012. Majid Majidi’s “Children of Heaven” also received a nomination at the Oscars in 1998.

The 90th Academy Awards ceremony will take place in Los Angeles, California on March 4, 2018.

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