TEHRAN – Iranian filmmaker Amir Nadeli is chairman of the regional convention judges at the 22nd Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival held in Armenia on Sunday.
The festival will also feature three Naderi films, including “The Runner” (1984), “Harmonica” (1974), and “Waiting” (1974), Isna reported.
Nadeli, 78-year-old pioneering Iranian cinema after the revolution, is a leading figure in the so-called “second wave” along with Abbas Kiarostami and Majid Majidi.
He is also a close collaborator of legendary Burlam Baisai, an artist whose work was on display at MOMA and influenced both Iranian and American filmmakers such as Sean Baker and Kelly Raikard. Nadeli was one of the first to pave the way for global recognition of Iranian cinema.
As a filmmaker, he inspired him from Henri Cartier Bresson’s photography of urban experiences and everyday life, as well as the aesthetics of Italian neorealist films.
Nadeli aims to give fundamental driving forces to the birth of Iranian cinema in the 1970s and 1980s, with several masterpieces aiming to mark the history of cinema.
Born in the southern city of Abadan, Nadeli made her directorial debut in 1971 with “Goodbye Friend” and soon became one of the most famous figures in the film industry.
He took part in the international spotlight with “Tangsir” (1974). “The Runner” (1985) and “Water, Wind, Soil” (1989) both won the Golden Montgolfiere at the Three Continents Festival in Nantes. “The Runner” is considered by many critics to be one of the most influential films of the past quarter century.
The prominent director moved to the United States in the mid-80s, won the Roberto Rossellini Critics Award at the 2005 Rome Film Festival, and won “Vegas: Based on a True Story,” which premiered in a competition in Venice in 2008.
He was named Rockefeller Film and Video Fellow in 1997 and served as an instructor at Columbia University, the University of Las Vegas and the Visual Arts School in New York. His American films premiered in the Film Institute of Lincoln Center/New Director/New Film Series, Venice, Cannes, Tribeca and Sundance FF.
His Japanese set, “The Cut,” is a homage to the Yakuza (crime syndicate) films, opening the Venice Horizons section in 2011.
Due to the small distribution and advertising budget, Naderi’s films are less well-known than most Hollywood movies. Despite that and the lack of recognizable actors in most of his films, his work tends to find distribution (mainly in Europe and Japan), and he has received very important acclaim.
Naderi’s films and photography are often also the subject of retrospectives at major festivals and museums around the world.
The 22nd edition of the “Golden Apricot” Yerevan International Film Festival will be held until July 20th. Again, the festival will unveil competitive films from around the world, showing a selection of the most famous film festivals, including Cannes, Berlin and Venice.
One of the films taking part in the regional panoramic competition section is Sepideh Parsi’s “Walking with Your Soul in Your Hands.”
The 112-minute French/Palestinian film is the filmmaker’s response to the ongoing massacre of Palestinians. Falsi believes that a miracle happened when he met Fatima Hassona. She became eyes in Gaza and resisted while recording the war, and Falsi became a connection between her and the world from her “Gaza Prison” as she named it.
They kept this life for almost a year. The sound and pixel bits they exchanged became a movie. Fatima’s murder on April 16th changes its meaning forever with an Israeli attack on her home.
Founded in 2004, Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival is an annual film festival where film directors and producers from Armenia and around the world seek to present new films to promote creativity and originality in the field of film and video art.
SS/SAB