The ceremony was graced by the presence of Mohammad-Mehdi Esmaeili, the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, along with a number of stage artists and cultural officials.

The event served as a platform for unveiling the winners of the competitive categories in both stage and street performances.

The play titled “Futile” was crowned best play in the Iranian Theater Competition section of the festival, while Yasin Rezvani was awarded the best playwright award for his work on the play.

Kurosh Shahuneh received the best director award for his contribution to the play “Hidden,” while Reyhaneh Razi was honored with the best actress award for her performance in the same production.

Javad Yahyavi claimed the best actor award for his portrayal in the play “T” directed by Majid Rahmati.

Reflecting on the festival’s success, Minister Esmaeili expressed his contentment with the grandeur and splendor that marked the 42nd edition. He also acknowledged the significant role that regional festivals played in fostering a warm atmosphere and promoting the growth and excellence of theater.

“We extend our gratitude to all the organizations involved for their unwavering commitment to keeping the theatrical flame alive despite the numerous challenges. Cultural justice has perpetually been at the forefront of our focus, and we are profoundly pleased to see participants from different parts of the country attending the festival,” stated culture minister in his speech.

Highlighting the significance and influence of theater within the performing arts, he emphasized its crucial role in society.

Moreover, he extended special thanks to Iranian theater artists who showcased solidarity with the Gaza section of the Fajr Theater Festival. He shed light on the tragic events that took place in Gaza, where innocent women and children lost their lives before the eyes of the world. He emphasized the imperative need for global conscience to speak out against such heinous crimes.

The 42nd Fajr International Theater Festival commenced on January 21st in Tehran, featuring a captivating lineup of six Iranian plays in the stage section.

The festival’s stage shows were held at various venues, including Vahdat Hall, City Theater Complex, Sangelaj Hall, Molvi Theater, Hafez Hall, Art Hall, Mehrab Theater Complex, and Iranshahr Hall.

Last week, the secretary of the festival announced that this edition of the event has a special section dedicated to Gaza, where nine plays on this issue are being performed.

Gaza section is one of the five new sections added to the festival this year. “In total, the festival will have 12 sections,” Mehdi Hamedsaqayan said.

“Due to the crimes of the Zionist regime in Gaza, we issued a call for plays in support of the Palestinians. We received several street and stage performances on this subject, and finally, nine works were selected to be performed at the festival,” he added.

According to the secretary, “hope, cheerfulness, and empathy” is the motto he has chosen for this year’s festival.

“A total of eight plays from Armenia, Greece, Tajikistan, Iraq, and Italy will take part in the international section,” Hamedsaqayan noted.

“The festival secretariat received about 1,650 works this year. There will be 34 plays in the Iranian Theater Competition. Moreover, 33, 25, and 11 plays will compete in the student, street, and radio theater sections respectively.”

Speaking about other sections, he said that the national identity section deals with martyrs and national heroes such as Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani and poet Malik Al-Shu’ara Bahar. There will also be 21 plays competing in the inclusive section with the help of the Welfare Organization and dedicated to people with disabilities, he stated.

Last year’s festival featured an extraordinary lineup of ten international troupes taking the stage.

Iraqi director Mohammad Moayyed’s troupe performed “Mercy Shot”, while another Iraqi troupe with director Javad Asadi took “Amal” on stage.

“Amal” was the big winner of the 41st Fajr International Theater Festival by garnering awards in three categories, including best director and best play.

Written and directed by Jawad Al-Assadi, the play focuses on the hardship of wartime and the question arises whether it is right to invite someone else into this world under these conditions.

The play also brought Haider Juma the award for best actor, while set designer Ali Al-Sudani and actress Rizab Ahmad Hassan Al-Karkhi won honorable mentions for their collaboration in this production.

Spanish director Txema Munoz staged “Lumiere” (“Light”), and Hafiz Khalifa from Tunisia directed a stage adaptation of Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s “The Divine Comedy”.

Omani director Yousuf Al-Bulushi competed at the festival with “Henna Pestle”, and Jordanian director Ayad Al-Rimoni participated at the festival with “Naqoura Train”.

Armenian director Ara Yernjakyan, the founder and artistic director of the Yerevan State Chamber Theater, staged William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, while Russian writer Nikolay Mikhaylovich Karamzin’s 1792 story “Bednaya Liza” (“Poor Liza”), was directed by his renowned compatriot Mark Rozovsky.

“Apatridas” (“Stateless”), a multimedia play divided into two monologues written by Carina Casuscelli was staged by Brazilian director Lenerson Polonini.

An adaptation of Nikolay Gogol’s short story “The Overcoat” (“Shinel”) was also staged by a Russian troupe.

Photo: Iranian actor Javad Yahyavi holds his award at the closing ceremony of the 42nd Fajr International Theater Festival in Tehran’s Vahdat Hall on February 1, 2024. 

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The submissions are from 72 countries, including the USA, Germany, France, England, Denmark, Ukraine, Poland, Russia, China and Lebanon.

A selection of the submissions will compete in Salvation Cinema, the official section of the event, and Eastern Vista, a category dedicated to Asian films.

The festival is Iran’s major film event from the Fajr festival series, which is organized every year in February to celebrate the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

The festival is also organized in music, theater, visual arts and several other fields.

Mojtaba Amini, the producer of the controversial TV series “Gando”, was appointed as president of the Fajr Film Festival in April.

The series reveals the true story of the major espionage case of Jason Rezaian, an Iranian-American journalist who served as Tehran bureau chief for the Washington Post.

Fajr’s international section categories split from the festival in 2014, when the Cinema Organization of Iran, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, the main organizer of the event, announced that the international competition would be held separately from the national section for the first time in 2015.

Following the management changes in the Cinema Organization of Iran in 2021, the new director of the organization, Mohammad Khazaei, ordered that the Fajr national and international film festivals be combined again for 2022.

Photo: A poster for the 41st Fajr International Film Festival.

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Director of the communications and media center of the Fajr International Film Festival announced on Wednesday that the cinematic event has been postponed due to the outbreak of COVID-19.

The 38th edition of Fajr International Film Festival was scheduled to be held on April 16-24, but the organizers have decided to delay it to a period between June 5 and 20, Keivan Kasirian said.

The decision has been made considering a vague prospect of normalization of the situation in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak in the world, he added.

Kasirian said the organizers of the event have also consulted with the FIAPF (International Federation of Film Producers Associations) before deciding to delay the festival in order to hold it more decently at a later time.

Since 2015, the Fajr Film Festival has been held in two separate national and international categories.The novel coronavirus, known as COVID-19, has infected more than 80,000 people around the world. More than 3,000 people have died in China’s central Hubei province alone.

The outbreak has had a major impact on global sporting, cultural, religious and political events, with a host of events being canceled or postponed.

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Entezami, the veteran actor of stage and screen, who was referred to as the “master actor” and “the honor of Iranian cinema” died in August 2018 at the age of 94.

He was one of Iran’s golden generation of actors, which includes Mohammad-Ali Keshavarz, Ali Nasirian, Jamshid Mashyekhi and Davud Rashidi, who began his career with acting in traditional Iranian performances at theaters located on Tehran’s Lalezar Street, which was considered as Iran’s Broadway during 1950s and 1960s.

Appearance in over 50 movies and dozens of theatrical performance brought him numerous honors. He won four Crystal Simorgh awards at the Fajr International Film Festival for his roles in “Grand Cinema”, “The Day of the Angel”, “A House on Water” and “The Marsh”.

In addition, actress Fatemeh Motamed-Arya, filmmaker Azizollah Hamidnejad, graphic designer Ebrahim Haqiqi, voice actor Khosro Khosroshahi and film editor Abbas Ganjavi will be honored with lifetime achievement awards during the festival.

The 37th Fajr Film Festival will take place in Tehran and several other Iranian cities from January 30 to February 11.

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Nero, 77, has appeared in over 200 films during his career that spans 56 years.

He also played a cameo role in “Django Unchained”, a 2012 American revisionist Western film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino.

He has played a role in “The Broken Key”, director/writer Louis Nero’s upcoming independent film.

Numerous famous figures of the world cinema have been invited to attend the Fajr festival, which will take place in Tehran from April 19 to 27.

Among the figures are Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi, German cinematographer Thomas Mauch, Cambodian documentary film director Rithy Panh, French filmmaker Olivier Megaton, and Turkish director Semih Kaplanoglu, have also invited to the festival.

Photo: Actors Franco Nero (L) and Jamie Foxx and director Quentin Tarantino pose during a photocall for “Django Unchained” in Rome.

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A collection of six films will be screened in the program “Retrospective of Georgian Cinema”.

Among the films is well-known Georgian director George Ovashvili’s “Khibula” that depicts the final days of the first Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia.

Iranian actor Hossein Mahjub portrays Gamsakhurdia in the movie that is based on a true story.

The other movies of the program will be announced later on.

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The film’s director Bahram Tavakkoli and Ebrahim Hatamikia, whose Daesh drama “At Damascus Time” premiered at the festival, shared the Crystal Simorgh for best director during the closing ceremony of the event that was organized at Tehran’s Milad Tower.

Peyman Maadi received the special jury award for directing “Bomb, a Love Story”, a narrative about Tehran during the 1980s when the city was under Iraqi missile attacks.

The award for best actor was presented to Amir Jadidi for his roles in “The Lost Strait” and Soheil Beiraqi’s debut film “Cold Sweat”.

Sara Bahrami won the Crystal Simorgh for best actress for the portrayal of an addict in director Behruz Shoeibi’s child trafficking drama “Woodpecker”.

“The Underwater Cypress”, which also recounts a story about the Iran-Iraq war, won the Golden Simorgh for best film from the national point of view. Producer Seyyed Hamed Hosseini received the award from Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri.

The audience Crystal Simorgh went to director Hooman Seyyedi’s thriller “Sheeple”.

Photo: Producer Saeid Malekan speaks after accepting the award for best film for “The Lost Strait” during the 36th Fajr Film Festival at Tehran’s Milad Tower on February 11, 2018. (FFF)

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