TEHRAN -- Iranian filmmaker Abolfazl Jalili’s “Hafez” has taken the Special Jury Prize at the Cinema Rome Film Fest.

Jalili is currently in Japan to participate in the 20th Tokyo International Film Festival which ends today.
He apologized for being unable to attend the Rome festival’s presentation ceremony which was held on Saturday evening. Co-producer Yuji Sadai received the prize.
The film is about a talented 17-year-old young man called Hafez, who is assigned by the Grand Mufti to teach his daughter Nabat. He accepts, but he is not allowed to actually see the girl as they are involved in a case of forbidden love.
To all extents and purposes Jalili has been banned from filmmaking because his films have always failed to obtain screening licenses from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.
His productions, some of which have only been broadcast on TV or screened at Iranian and international events, enjoy an unconscious simplicity and a clever storytelling style. They mainly center on characters struggling to survive under difficult conditions.
Caption: Japanese actress Kumiko Aso in a scene of “Hafez”, an Iran and Japan joint production, which won the Special Jury Prize at the Cinema Rome Film Fes