All eyes are on Leila Hatami and other Iranian cinematographers in Venice
Meanwhile, hours before and after the opening of the “Venice” film festival, photos of the jury of the 79th edition of this event have been published, in which Leila Hatami, an actress of Iranian cinema, can be seen among them.
Charso Press: The 79th Venice Film Festival started with a press conference on August 31 (September 9) and will continue until September 10 (September 19).
Leila Hatami, who is part of the Venice jury, was previously one of the judges of the main competitive section of the Cannes Film Festival in 2014. He has also judged the main part of the Karlovy Vary Festival in 2006, the 11th Moroccan International Film Festival in 2011, and the 37th American Film Festival in Deauville, France in 2013. Of course, in some of these festivals, he had already been selected for an acting award.
Now, after the sidelines of the Cannes Film Festival, the eyes are monitoring the appearance of Hatami and other Iranian cinematographers at the Venice Film Festival.
The Venice Film Festival, which this year has an Iranian actress among its jury members, is the most important film event in the last few months after the Cannes Film Festival.
This event has started while Iranian cinema has a strong presence in it this year“Night, Interior, Divar” by Vahid Jalilund and “Without a Bear” by Jafar Panahi are two representatives of Iranian cinema in the main competition section of this year’s festival. Also, Iranian cinema will be present in the Horizons section with the movie “World War III” directed by Homan Sidi, and in the Extra Horizons section, the film “Dreamless” by Arin Vazir Daftari will be shown. The film “Alone” directed by Jafar Najafi will be shown in the out-of-competition section of the 19th edition of the “Venice Days” independent section.
In the Cinema College Biennale section, the film “Lady” directed by Tehmina Raffaela, produced by the Republic of Azerbaijan and produced by Ketayun Shahabi, was accepted, and Dariush Khanji worked as a director of photography in the film “Bardo” by Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu.
Considering the sidelines of the Cannes Film Festival in the past few months, it seems a bit difficult to predict which Iranian cinematographers will show their films at this event.
Navid Mohammadzadeh, whose appearance at the Cannes Film Festival caused his banned story to be in the headlines not officially but unofficially for several weeks, this year has the film “Shab, Interior, Wall” as an actor in this event. The recent events have made his presence in this event a little unpredictable, and we have to see if he will appear on the red carpet of the Venice festival in the next few days?! The festival where he won the best acting award once for the movie “No date, no signature”.
Amir Aghaei is another main actor of “Shab, Interior, Wall”; A film that follows the story of a blind man whose doorman stops his suicide attempt and informs him that a fugitive woman is hiding in the building. The blind man’s goal is to help this woman.
Among the Iranian actors whose names are on the list of films present in Venice, we can mention Mohsen Tanabandeh, Neda Jabraili, Mahsa Hijazi, Navid Nosrati, Lotfollah Seifi and Hatem Mohamofi for the World War III film directed by “Homan Sidi”, which is expected to be in this attend the event. Tanaz Tabatabai, Saber Abar and Shadi Karamroudi are also among the main actors of “Dreamless” directed by Arin Vazir Daftari. Will they appear on the red carpet of the Venice Film Festival in the next few days?
However, not much information has been published about the film “Bear” by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who is currently serving his sentence in prison, and the list of its actors is not available.
Leila Hatami was included in the jury of this period of the Venice Film Festival, “Mariano Kahn” (Argentine director, screenwriter and producer), “Leonardo DiCastanzo” (Italian director and screenwriter), “Audrey Divan” (French director) and “Rodrigo Sorogin”. (Spanish director, screenwriter and producer) and led by American actor Julian Moore.
This year, the 62-year-old Japanese author Kazeo Ishiguro, who has already made several films adapted from his works, is also present as a member of the jury of the competition. This author has written several movie scripts and serials.
“Ishiguro” recently wrote the screenplay for the movie “Life” produced in 2022, directed by “Oliver Hermanos”. This film is an adaptation of the 1952 Japanese film “Ikiro” directed by Akira Kurosawa, which in turn was inspired by the Russian novel “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” by Leo Tolstoy. The movie “Life” was first unveiled at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Today, “Julien Moore” appeared at the press conference before the opening of the festival and spoke about the future of cinema.
In a part of this news conference, he said: “It seems that most of the time, the discussion about the future of cinema leads to its advertising and commercial aspects. But to me, what matters is what’s being created…the world keeps changing, but art doesn’t…people are always finding new ways to tell their stories…watching new filmmakers, actors, and writers emerge. It’s very exciting… When we talk about the future of cinema, we move the discussion to the future of this business. But the future of art is not like that.”
“Julien Moore” is no stranger to participating in the Venice Film Festival, but he said about being the head of the jury: “The first time I participated in Venice was in 1986, and I was an actor in a typical American film. I never thought that one day I would be here as the head of the jury
In this news conference, in addition to “Moore”, “Isabelle Kusht”, the head of the jury of the Venice Horizons section, along with “Alberto Butterbera”, the director of the Venice Film Festival, also spoke. Other members of the jury were also present at the event.
The 79th Venice Film Festival started with the movie “Snow” directed by Noah Baumbach.