Russian, Korean film festivals to host Iran’s “Makeup Artist”
TEHRAN – Iranian documentary “Makeup Artist” will be competing in international film festivals in South Korea and Russia.
Directed by Jafar Najafi, the film will first be screened at the EBS International Documentary Festival, which will take place in Seoul from August 22 to 28.
Also known as EIDF, the festival is an annual film festival hosted by the Educational Broadcasting System of South Korea since 2004.
It is a major documentary festival with a focus on highlighting documentary films on Asia or made in Asia.
The film is about a young woman who is in conflict with her husband as she wants to continue her education and go to university to become a makeup artist in cinema. Mina must divorce or, according to their local customs, allow her husband to marry again, and the child belongs to the father. Mina decides to choose a wife for her husband by herself, to ensure that the stepmother treats and looks after Mina’s son properly.
It has been screened at numerous international festivals and won several prizes, including the FIPRESCI Award at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in the Netherlands.
The film also won the award for best feature-length documentary at the 15th Cinéma Vérité festival, Iran’s major international festival of documentary films.
In addition, Japan’s Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival honored it with its Award of Excellence.
“Makeup Artist” has also been chosen to compete in the 22nd Flahertiana International Documentary Film Festival, which will be organized from September 16 to 22 in the Russian city of Perm.
The festival named after this American filmmaker rests upon principles first used by Robert Flaherty in his film “Nanook of the North”.
The main principle of such films is portraying the protagonist’s real life on film and structuring it on the screen according to the laws of dramaturgy. The main methods are long-term observation and habitual cameras.
All decisions of the festival selection commission, which consists of film critics Viktoria Belopolskaya and Marina Drozdova and filmmakers Boris Karadzhev and Pavel Petchenkin, are made based on these principles.
Photo: A scene from “Makeup Artist” directed by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Najafi.
MMS/YAW
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