TEHRAN – On Friday, at the special award ceremony at the Annessy International Animation Film Festival in France, the two distinctions were presented with 10 awards and animated films from Iran that were awarded animated films among the winners.
According to Isna, the Iranian animation “At Night,” written, directed and produced by Pooya Afzali, won a French TV award for its short film at the event.
In the 2025 production, the five-minute flick, the man sees his beloved, lighting up the three matches he left in the war. Then, in the darkness of darkness, the forest grows and protects them from war.
A few years ago, Afzari read Jack Priveltz’s poem, Paris at Night. He interpreted it as follows: “My lover looks at him as if he was in a state of war, watching his beloved in the light of three matches. I asked myself, what would happen next? The idea gave rise to his animated short ‘night’.
The Afzali generation in Iran turned their eyes to the world in the midst of the Iran-Iraq war. In his opinion, Iranian society does not have any deep pain that has not in any way been traced back to war. “From childhood until now, there has never been a moment when the shadow of war passed without pushing us over us. In my films, I wanted to place the ugliness of war in contrast to the beauty of peace. Fantasy greatly helped this story in a way that resonated emotionally and visually expressive, as a powerful tool within the animation medium.”
In the evening creation, the other challenge for Afzari was animation. “I also wanted it to be realistic and dreamy,” he said. “It wasn’t easy to achieve that balance, but thanks to Hojjat Azampour’s artistry, it was possible.”
Azampour worked as an animator and character developer on “At night.” He animated the scenes, shaping the character’s personality, and designed the layout and visual flow within each shot.
He detailed the animation techniques, saying, “We used traditional 2D animations that were fully executed with digital tools. The process was hand-drawn and allowed us to use flexibility digitally while retaining the hand-crafted feel.”
For him, the project was rewarding and memorable. He said, “One of the biggest challenges I encountered was animating human hands and facial expressions. This has always been one of the most complicated aspects of 2D character animation.
Apart from making animated films, he also writes poetry. “At one point, I was trying to write poems that would create animated images in the minds of readers when I read them. Later, I rewrite some of those poems as scripts for animated content. In my next project, I’m going to turn one of them into animated films.”
SS/SAB