TEHRAN – The closing ceremony of the 22nd Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival took place on July 20, and the documentary “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk” about life in Gaza during the ongoing Israeli military actions won an award.

Competing in the Regional Panorama Competition section, where Iranian director Amir Naderi was the president of the jury, “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk” directed by Sepideh Farsi won the Golden Apricot, ISNA reported.

The 112-minute France/Palestine film is the filmmaker’s response to the ongoing massacre of Palestinians. Farsi thinks that a miracle happened when she met Fatima Hassouna. She became her eyes in Gaza, where she resisted while documenting the war, and Farsi became a link between her and the world, from her “Gaza prison,” as she named it.

They maintained this line of life for almost a year. The bits of sound and pixels that they exchanged became the film. The killing of Fatima on April 16, due to an Israeli raid on her house, changes its meaning forever.

In the opening ceremony of the festival, on July 13, Naderi had been presented with Parajanov’s Thaler Award, one of Golden Apricot’s highest honors, for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema

Parajanov’s Thaler is named after the artist Sergei Parajanov. In 1976, when Parajanov, Soviet film director and screenwriter, was imprisoned, he carved figures with his fingernails on the aluminum lids of milk bottles and called them “Thalers”.

Today they are in Yerevan, in the museum of S. Parajanov. The award is a silver replica of one of these unique coins, and it is presented annually at the Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival.

A pioneer of post-revolutionary Iranian cinema, Naderi, 78, is a leading figure of the so-called “Second Wave” alongside Abbas Kiarostami and Majid Majidi.

As a filmmaker, he drew inspiration from Henri Cartier-Bresson’s urban experience and photography of everyday life, as well as the aesthetics of Italian neorealist cinema — including location shooting, use of non-professional actors, freer narrative structures, and a focus on the hardships of the poor and working class.

Naderi gave fundamental impetus to the birth of Iranian cinema during the 1970s and 80s, with several masterpieces destined to leave their mark on the history of cinema.

Born in the southern city of Abadan, Naderi made his directorial debut with “Goodbye Friend” in 1971 and soon became one of the best-known figures in the film industry.

He entered the international spotlight with “Tangsir” (1974). “The Runner” (1985) and “Water, Wind, Soil” (1989) both won the Golden Montgolfiere at the Three Continents Festival in Nantes. “The Runner” is considered by many critics to be one of the most influential films of the past quarter century. 

The prominent director moved to the U.S. in the mid-80s and made “Sound Barrier,” which won the Roberto Rossellini Critics’ Prize at the Rome Film Festival in 2005, and “Vegas: Based on a True Story,” which premiered in competition at Venice in 2008.

He was named a Rockefeller Film and Video Fellow in 1997 and has served as an instructor at Columbia University, the University of Las Vegas, and New York's School of Visual Arts. His US films have premiered at the Film Society of Lincoln Center/ MoMA's New Directors/New Films series, the Venice, Cannes, Tribeca, and Sundance FF.

His Japan-set “The Cut,” a homage to yakuza (crime syndicates) movies, opened the Venice Horizons section in 2011. Naderi was also in Venice in 2014 with “Mise En Scene: A Conversation with Arthur Penn,” in the classics section.

SS/SAB