Announcing the bans of the Tehran Short Film Festival

Charso Press: Mehdi Azarpandar stated at the press conference of the 39th Tehran International Short Film Festival, which is scheduled to be held on October 27th: The forbidden themes in this year’s festival are about queer people and sexual minorities, and we cannot accept films with this topic, nor do we want to do such a thing. to give Also, the category of infanticide and violence against children is one of the issues on which we are strict and sensitive, especially when we see that a film school commissioned this category at all, while everywhere in the world this issue is treated with sensitivity. Respect human rights in this matter. This topic has become a trend in the short film and we suggested to the selection board that if such a narrative was shocking in a film, check whether it is due to the severity of the subject or the director’s filmmaking power.

In response to Isna’s question, how much space has he opened for political films, according to his previous statements? He stated: There is a long distance from the announcement to the implementation and we are not faced with a large number of films in the political sector, but it is strange that we have as many films as the fingers of two hands on the subject of queer people. In the moral field, I am bound by red lines that I do not hesitate to say that I am against this current because I am not supposed to be a part of this wave. These festivals are over and I am going to be responsible somewhere else. However, the review of political productions should be judged in the festival because its announcement will harm its actions. We don’t have any movies in the field of educational and labor justice, but on the other hand, there are a lot of movies in the moral, marital and happy topics.

He continued about how much audit and censorship will be applied in the festival this year? He said: We reached a mechanism in the selection department and I hope that different tastes will be present in the festival, but we will definitely have objections from filmmakers, because they hardly accept that their film is weak. I can’t announce some cases, but for example, due to the accumulation of films on the subject of hunting, some of them will definitely be removed.

The secretary of the Tehran Short Film Festival reminded: In the previous period, it was said that many important short films were removed from the festival, and of course we accept that some bad things happened in the monitoring and evaluation department, but how many of them were paid attention to in the ISFA festival? Therefore, I do not deny that it is not an audit, but not all deletions come back to this issue

In response to why short film makers are interested in participating in foreign festivals, Azarpandar said: This issue is related to the weakness of screening facilities in different cities of Iran, which when (the filmmaker)’s work is accepted in a foreign festival, brings this impression to him. It is not noticed in its own country, but if we provide the possibility of offering and showing films in the country, this approach among filmmakers will become less.

In this meeting, which was held on Sunday morning, August 30th, at Bagh Ziba, he said: Tehran Short Film Festival is the most international event in this country today, and we tried to start it earlier by setting the fixed date of the festival from 27 Mehr to We followed on the second of November. In this year’s call, genre diversity has been given special attention, and in the domestic field, we encountered an increase of 1996 works.

According to him, in the fiction section, 1364 works, 261 documentaries, 264 experimental works, and 107 animation works were registered, and Tehran, Isfahan, Razavi Khorasan, Fars and Khuzestan are the first five internal provinces that had more applicants, respectively. In the international section, 5012 documentaries from 131 countries were registered, of which France, Spain, India, China and America are the first five countries participating in the festival.

The secretary of this period of the festival stated that copy works similar to works of previous years or feature films are dealt with strictly because the emphasis was on diversity, and said: We will have a selection board again in this period, and this is related to the margins of the previous year when an advisory group was responsible. It is not related, because since we are in the producer’s association, we cannot give authority to the secretary, who can be a beneficiary of the group’s production works anyway. The selection board will have independence and some points will be coordinated with them and the work will start with their acceptance and agreement.

Azarpandar, pointing out that this year’s festival will be in person as usual and will probably sell tickets, he said that he is trying to invite prominent cinema figures from countries around the world, including neighboring and Muslim countries, to judge. We are also planning to hold a workshop, and in this section we will have a look at the countries of the region, because the Tehran International Short Film Festival can work widely in terms of education.

Regarding last year’s concerns of the head of the film organization about the sponsor of the festival and how to introduce it and where it will be held, he said: This year the festival will definitely not be held in Iran Mall because the economic issues of the filmmakers must also be taken into account and the issue of commuting They should be noticed. We have to make arrangements for the venue because the cinema organization probably wants to hold the festivals in a fixed place and this issue needs intra-system coordination for now.

According to him, a part similar to the manifestation of the national will will be held separately, probably one night before the closing ceremony, so that organizations and bodies can appreciate their desired films, and then it will be broadcast in the form of a clip on the final night.
He also said that they are trying to revive the old festivals of the community such as prayer and prayer.

At the end, Azarpandar mentioned that the Youth Cinema Association can introduce five films to compete for the Short Film Oscar, but in the end, the selected film of the festival will be presented.