TEHRAN – Iranian film “Cellmate” has won an award for its screenplay written by Solmaz Etemad at the Japan Media Arts Festival in Tokyo.

The film directed by Behzad Khodaveisi won one of the four Excellence Awards in the Entertainment Division of the annual festival, which has organized since 1997 by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs.

Starring Saba Mohammadi and Qorban Najafi, the film is about Rana, a girl around the age of 10, who spends her day in a courtyard playing with a little bird in a cage, hanging out laundry, or reading books. 

She hears laughing voices of other children from the outside. A white-haired man comes home and orders Rana to bring him a towel and a drink, and she obeys. Toward the end of the story, the man speaks kindly to Rana, who is crouched in a corner of a room. He then takes her hand and, together, they go into the house. Through the window, the viewers see the photos of their wedding on the wall. 

The film, which is filled with bright colors, ends with a text stating, “Annually, in the world, 12 million girls marry before they reach the age of 18, which is a marriage almost every two minutes.”

The application and video work “Ogiri AI and Chihara-Engineer”, multimedia production “New Logos Order” and the game “Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice”, all from Japan, won the other three Excellence Awards in that category.

The Japanese video work “Shadows as Athletes” received the Grand Prize in the section.

The Japan Media Arts Festival is also organized in the categories of art, animation and manga.

Photo: A logo for the Japan Media Arts Festival.

MMS/YAW