TEHRAN -- Forty foreign artists participating in the fifth Imam Reza Art and Cultural Festival currently underway in Mashhad are to be awarded.

Thirty Iranian Provinces are celebrating the festival which began on November 12 and will continue until November 22.
Almost 1000 works by foreign artists, writers and poets were submitted to the secretariat of the festival, secretary of the event Hojjatoleslam Ali Hosseini said on Monday.
He noted that artists whose works have been selected as outstanding will be honored in a special ceremony which will take place during the course of the festival.
Sculptor Vaskar Saha from Bangladesh, writer Zainalabedin Iskandarov from the Republic of Azerbaijan, researcher and writer Ali Imam Zaidi from India, researcher Davud Haji Naseri from the Nakhchevan Autonomous Republic and writer Fatemeh Yaqub from Nigeria are among the artists whose works have been selected.
The festival includes sections displaying different types of artwork, film screenings, photo exhibits, theater performances and poetry sessions