The Ciné Rencontres de Prades festival in France, announced its list of short films in the Iranian Women Filmmakers section. About 30 short films were accepted for this section, of which 8 will compete. The first prize film will be awarded 700 euros and the second 500 euros.
The selected films are: 1. Don’t Tell Anyone (Sahar Sotoudeh) -2. Shyleh (Marjan Safabakhsh) – 3. Bahar (Faezeh Karimpour) – 4. Spotted Yellow (Baran Sarmad) – 5. Flasher (Pantea Mehdinia) – 6. Purgatoire (Qasideh Golmakani) – 7. American Bull (Aseman Toosi) – 8. Performance (Behnaz Eskandarnejad). All films will be shown in the original language with French subtitles.
The list of Iranian women’s feature films included in this program will be announced soon. One of the definitive films, The Son, is the first successful film made by Noushin Mearaji, who recently won two awards for Best Actor at the Moscow International Film Festival, as well as the best film by the Russian Critics Association.
Last year, the Prades Festival, like many others, was canceled due to the coronavirus. Of course, a limited number of festivals were held online. The directors of the Prades Cinema Meetings are very optimistic this year for their 62nd festival, which is scheduled to take place physically from July 17 to 23.
Founded in 1959 by the famous French filmmaker Ronne Claire with Pablo Callas, the Prades Festival was originally non-competitive and showed only the works of important filmmakers, or those from cinema schools, or to showcase an actor, and so on. From the very first year, François Truffaut took part with The Four Hundred Blows. This festival is the oldest in France after Cannes. In the following years, important figures such as: Joseph Lozi, Polanski, Bernardo Bertolucci, Tavernier and Atom Egoyan, Michel Piccoli participated in the festival.
Iranian cinema has also had programs in this festival, which has shown the works of Rafi Pitz, etc. Mammad Haghighat has been a member of its board of trustees for about ten years, and this year he was invited to manage the women’s section of Iranian cinema. Iran is one of the most prolific and creative countries for women filmmakers, who are numerous, diverse, active, and constantly flourishing.
For this period of the festival, the directors have prepared several programs, including one in praise of French actor Simone Signoret, on the 100th anniversary of her birth. She started her artistic activity on the radio and made more than forty feature films with famous directors – for which she won many awards, including the Cannes Film Festival and then the Oscars – BAFTA, etc.
Another program of the Prades Festival deals with French youth cinema by showing a collection of works by Damien Mannuel (forty years old). She has won awards for her four feature films at festivals in Venice, Cannes, Locarno, etc., and is considered one of the most important talents in French cinema.