Iran’s ‘Queen’ wins at Italian Filmfest

Iranian director Mohammad Ali Basheh Ahangar’s war flick Queen has been honored at the 2013 Religion Today Film Festival in Italy.

The movie was awarded with the Jury Special Mention of the Feature-length section of the festival.

“Iraq War is in itself an important and courageous decision. The ability to create surreal images, sometimes funny, often sad and mostly full of moral uncertainty – is one of the major achievements of the film. For those reasons we chose to award a special mention to the film Queen,” the jury commented on the film.

Khosro Masoumi’s Bear and Ali Vazirian’s One Line of Reality were other Iranian representatives in the section.

Salman Abbasi’s A letter From Him, Arash Rafeie’s First Night of The Winter, Mehdi Heydari’s The White Lake also contended for awards at the Short Films section of the event.

28th Safar directed by Siavash Samadi was Iran’s only representative at the Documentary section of the festival.

Iranian cinema shined in last year’s edition of the festival as well. Iranian filmmaker Mehdi Zamanpour Kiasari’s documentary Mashti Esmail received the Special Jury Prize at the 2012 edition of the film event.

Founded in 1997, Religion Today Film Festival is held to contribute to the diffusion and distribution of religious films to encourage cultural and spiritual development.

The Italian cinematic event seeks to create opportunities for filmmakers and people working in the communications media of different cultures and religions to meet and share ideas.

The event is conceived and organized by the cultural nonprofit association ‘Bianconero,’ located in Trento, Italy, as an international and itinerant festival dedicated to religious cinema for a culture of dialogue and peace.

This year’s festival took place in Trento and other Italian cities from October11 to 22, 2013.