Davood Tohidparast, producer and director of the movie “Blue Shawl”, which has recently been licensed by the Cinema Organization, explained to Mehr about this project: The screenwriter of this movie is me and Ms. Ensieh Matiei, and the story is about It is the dream of a blind boy from Gilani who is a fan of Esteghlal football team. He wishes to come to Tehran and watch the game between Esteghlal and Persepolis up close at Azadi Stadium. Everyone is against this decision except the boy’s grandmother who wants to make him dream.
He added: “Strange things happen to them along the way that this group travels to Azadi Stadium to fulfill the dream of this blind boy.”
Pointing out that this project is a “sports melodrama”, Tawhidparast continued: “The fact is that we do not have the genre of children and adolescents in cinema, but the subject of a film can be related to children and adolescents.” From this perspective, the audience of “Blue Shawl” can have both children and teenagers and adults.
“We are currently in the pre-production stage and we are consulting to raise capital and select a location,” the director said of the timeline for the start of production. We are also thinking about the options for the actors, but we have not seriously entered the production yet. However, our effort is to bring the “Blue Shawl” to the Children and Adolescents Festival, and if we do not succeed for any reason, we will prepare it to be presented to the Fajr Festival.
“We are independent filmmakers who are not supported by government institutions,” Tawhidparast said of his previous production licenses, which have not been produced. We have to finance the film ourselves, and it is not like we are connected to an oil well. For this reason, sometimes the production budget of a project is not provided and the work is not completed. These conditions are not limited to me, and for this reason, 140 production licenses may be issued during the year, but 70 to 80 films will be produced from them.
He explained about the negotiations with the relevant government institutions for the production of this film for children and adolescents: “We have already submitted the script to Farabi.” We intend to present it to the field of art and the center for the intellectual development of children and adolescents. Financing for filmmaking has become really difficult. To date, I have worked in the private sector, making three films.
In the end, while referring to the process of selecting the actors for this project, Tohidparast named Gulab Adineh, Parvaneh Masoumi, Soraya Ghasemi and Afarin Ebeisi as some of his options for playing the role of grandmother in this film and said: Farhad Majidi, the coach of Esteghlal team in the film We will play a role that will play its part in the story. Negotiations have taken place through him and we are going to have more serious talks with the club officials. If for any reason no agreement is reached, we will have to change parts of the story.