TEHRAN – Three movies by Iranian filmmakers will be competing in various sections of the Dok Fest – Munich International Documentary Film Festival that will take place in the German city from May 6 to 17.

“Sunless Shadows” by Mehrdad Oskui and “The Unseen” by Behzad Nalbandi have been selected to be screened in the official competition.

“Sunless Shadows” builds a remarkable relationship with a group of adolescent girls who are serving their sentences for the grave crime of murdering their father, their husband or another male family member in an Iranian juvenile detention center.

“The Unseen” is about homeless women in Iran who are locked away, banished to the outskirts of the city, and made invisible. Nalbandi secretly conducted interviews in the camps and creates a world of his own: cardboard animations make those affected visible again.

“Copper Notes of a Dream” by Reza Farahmand will be screened in DOK.horizonte, which is dedicated to films about countries undergoing transition.

The film is about a ten-year-old Palestinian refugee, Malook, who lives in Jarmuk, a suburb of Damascus in Syria, which is ruined during the war with ISIS. 

Malook dreams of becoming a singer. Together with his older sister Ghofran, he is planning to organize a concert with professional musicians. 

To earn money for the concert, Malook and some friends pull the copper wires out of the walls of vacant buildings that are riddled with bullets and rockets and write apologies for their theft on the walls, in hope the people who have fled will understand, if they ever return.

Photo: “Copper Notes of a Dream” by Reza Farahmand.

MMS/YAW