TEHRAN – The second Iran Open-Air International Film Festival has announced a call for entries with the aim of fostering cultural interaction and exchange among filmmakers from Iran and around the world.

This international event, organized by the Mowj-e Fakhteh Cultural and Artistic Institute, has been established with a focus on screening films in open-air settings, IRNA reported.

By providing a platform for the growth and advancement of modern Iranian cinema, the festival places special emphasis on creative artistic approaches as well as the promotion of travel, tourism, and nature-oriented culture in its selection of works. 

The festival objectives include identifying and introducing young talents and emerging filmmakers, helping enhance the standing of Iranian cinema, creating a platform to showcase cultural and social capacities related to travel and ecotourism, and strengthening hope, dynamism, and cultural and social vitality.

The main themes of the second edition of the festival are road movies, travel and tourism, adventure and nature tourism, the environment, and ecosystem-based subjects. The festival will be held in two main sections: Iranian Cinema and International Cinema. It will also feature side sections including student films, a boot camp, and specialized cinema workshops.

The festival welcomes short fiction, documentary, animation, experimental films, and immersive works such as AI-based and virtual reality productions.

Founded and presided over by Saeed Nejati, with Siavash Cheraghipour serving as secretary, the second Iran Open-Air International Film Festival will be held in September in northern Iran.

Although the Open-Air Film Festival is a long-standing event in the field of cinema, it is a new event in Iran. Instead of traveling to multi-star hotels with suitcases in hand and planning to attend cinema halls, filmmakers in this event camp in the heart of nature with backpacks on their shoulders and sit in the open air watching each other's short and feature films. They eat their meals there and hold filmmaking workshops together in tents. 

The creation of an open-air film festival can be an inspiration for many filmmakers. Creating a sense of empathy and cooperation will be just one of the effects of this event, which will have an impact on the path of filmmaking, especially for the younger generation. In addition, one cannot ignore the pleasure of meeting artists, getting to know each other, establishing interaction, and transferring experiences, which are among the obvious events of this event; events that ultimately help filmmakers take an open and interactive approach to filmmaking and bring about a profound change in the country's cinema.

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