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Bahman Ghobadi's 'Half Moon' movie heads to South African
festival |
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Bahman Ghobadi's 'Half Moon' movie heads
to South African festival 6.6.2007 |
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June 6, 2007
The Kurdish-Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi's
latest feature-length movie, "Niwemang" (Half Moon)
is to go on screen at the Durban International Film
Festival from June 20 to July 1 in South Africa.
Over 200 films from 77 countries are participating
in this year’s event.
The festival is covering an extensive and diverse
range of themes including a South African and
African perspective featuring new productions from
that continent, a series of films named “New Crowned
Hope” which was commissioned to commemorate the
250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, the Poverty and
Inequality Challenge Film Festival, Italian Cinema,
Cinema of the Middle East, New Danish Cinema and
Indian Ocean Islands Panorama.
The festival is also offering free workshops, cinema
industry seminars and public discussions with
filmmakers.
Starring Iranian superstar Hedyeh Tehrani,
Golshifteh Farahani, and a number of local
non-actors, “Half Moon” is a bittersweet comedy
about Mamo, a renowned and admired Kurdish musician
who travels to Iraqi Kurdistan along with ten of his
sons in order to perform a concert. |
The famous Kurdish director Bahman Ghobadi
Half Moon, Winner of the 2006 Inspiration Award at
Mountain film in Telluride, and the Award at the
2004 Maui Film Festival. |
Their trip is only possible now that Saddam
Hussein’s dictatorship has ended -- such a concert
was forbidden under his rule.
Kurdish director Bahman Ghobadi, whose film "Half
Moon" has been highly praised at the San Sebastian
International Film Festival in 2006, said it is
increasingly
difficult to work in Iran,
where his latest movie has been banned because a
woman sings in it.
"Imagine my frame of mind when, having placed all my
hopes in this film, after having done everything so
that Iranians could see it, the government then
decides it cannot be screened. What energy have I
got left to continue making films?" he asked.
The film, produced by the MijFilm company with the
collaboration of Iran, Iraq, Austria, and France,
won the Golden Shell award for the best film at the
54th San Sebastian International Film Festival in
Spain last September.
“Half Moon” shared the Amnesty International Award
with South Korea’s “No Day Off” at the 4th
Indielisboa Independent Film Festival in Portugal in
April. It also received an honorable mention at the
6th Tribeca Film Festival in May.
mehrnews ir | AFP
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