TEHRAN – Two Iranian films have won awards at the 2nd edition of the International Imago Film Festival, which came to an end in the Italian town of Civitella del Tronto on Friday.

“The Sun of That Moon” by Setareh Eskandari received the ‘Casablanca Award’ for the best foreign movie. Eskandari also won the ‘Stanley Kubrick Award’ for best foreign film director. 

“Bone Marrow” by Hamidreza Qorbani brought the ‘Lauren Bacall Award’ for best foreign film lead actress to its star Parinaz Izadyar. 

Ali Zarnegar, the writer of the movie’s screenplay, also received the ‘Billy Wilder Award’ for best foreign film screenplay. 

“The Sun of That Moon” follows Biban, who takes a vow of silence to never speak again after her husband’s death. She stays at her father-in-law’s house to raise her son together. Her days are dark and silent as the night. Her life is desolate, until one day Hamraz, a lost love of her youth, returns to the city, and the sun in her heart again dawns. 

In “Bone Marrow”, while doctors believe that her son’s leukemia is terminal, Bahar holds out hope for a rare procedure that would require a fresh umbilical cord from the child’s birth parents. A tense atmosphere descends upon Bahar and her husband Hossein as they wrestle with the unspoken truth: he is not the boy’s father. As she sets out to find her first husband, missing from the mental hospital she committed him to years ago, she unwittingly uncovers buried secrets that send both families into disarray.

Led by powerful, urgent performances, “Bone Marrow” is a captivating portrait of humanism and sacrifice for the sake of family.

The International Imago Film Festival aims to promote independent cinema by encouraging research and experimentation of cinematographic language. 

It also plans to present the Italian town to the world of filmmakers with the conviction that Civitella del Tronto is not only a historic and fascinating village, but a real stage under the stars.

Photo: A scene from “The Sun of That Moon” by Setareh Eskandari

ABU/