TEHRAN -- Iranian Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Mohammad-Hossein Saffar Harandi sent a message to the secretariat of the Experimental and Documentary Film Center (EDFC) on Tuesday on the occasion of the launching of the Avini Awards.

The EDFC has recently established the Avini Awards, which were presented to Iranian documentary film makers for the first time on April 9, which is the martyrdom anniversary of the writer and documentary filmmaker Avini who chronicled the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

A major policy of the ministry is to influence the future culture of the country by concentrating on several fields including documentary cinema, and existing potential such as the achievements of the Islamic Revolution.

The coincidence of the documentary cinema awards with the commemoration ceremony of Sacred Defense documentary filmmaker Morteza Avini will add significance to the occasion.

“I hereby express my gratitude to the organizers, and hope that this will lead to greater accomplishments on the part of cineastes nationwide, and that this will be a step towards achieving the cultural goals of the Islamic Revolution,” expressed Saffar Harandi.

The closing ceremony of the Avini Awards will be held on April 21 at the Vahdat Hall.

Avini was martyred in 1993 by a landmine while making a documentary about soldiers who were listed as missing in action.

He became famous for “The Narration of Triumph”, and was considered a ‘master of writers’ by his colleagues and war veterans due to the fervent narrations he wrote for his documentaries.