Fiff36 jurors for First Films announced
The 36th Fajr International Film Festival (Fiff36) has announced the panel of jury for the First Films Award category.
According to the festival’s organizing committee, the three jury members are Viera Langerova (Slovakia), Barmak Akram (Afghanistan) and Mohammadali Bashe Ahangar (Iran).
The First Film Award category has been added to the Fiff Awards, and has only one win in all competition and non-competition sections, fajriff.com reported.
Viera Langerová is a film critic, lecturer, festival consultant, curator and programmer. She studied film and theater theory at the Academy of Arts University (Bratislava, Slovakia), and Cultural Studies at the Charles University (Prague, the Czech Republic).
She worked as editor in Slovak and Czech film periodicals. She did her dissertation on Asian film in Kazakhstan and Pakistan. She is author of the books ‘Film Geography: Continental China, Hong Kong, Taiwan’ and the travelogue Urdu, Parda, Burka.
She gave film lectures in Baltic Film and Media School, Tallinn University in Estonia. As curator, she was involved in ‘Focus on Kazakh Cinema’ (1999) and ‘Focus on Kurdish Film’ (2013) for the IFF Karlovy Vary.
She works as programmer for ART Film Fest Košice, Slovak Republic. She is also FIPRESCI member, jury on IFF Istanbul, IFF Hong Kong, IFF Golden Horse, Taiwan, IFF Dhaka, Bangladesh, IFF Schlingel, and Chemnitz,
In 2013, he received the Best Screenplay Award at the Sundance Film Festival for ‘Wajma’ (An Afghan love story). He also made experimental and documentary films, including ‘Toutes Les Teles Du Monde’ (2009).
Mohammad-ali Bashe Ahangar, who was born in 1962, graduated in Movie Directing from Tehran University of Art.
He started his career with writing, directing and acting, and made a number of short 16mm movies and documentaries.
He worked as assistant director in 1997 on Rage Flames (Hamidreza Ashtianipour) and also co-wrote the script for ‘Fly Over the Rooftops’ with Mohammadreza Gohari.
He directed his first feature, ‘The Lost Half’, in 1998, winners of Iran’s House of Cinema Annual Award.
‘Dreams Awakened’ 2010 and ‘Queen’ 2012 won a number of awards in national festivals. ‘Cypress Under Water’, his latest movie, premiered in Fajr Film Festival and won a few awards including Best Set Design, Best Cinematography, and Best Movie from a National View.
Presided over by Iranian film writer and director Reza Mirkarimi, the Fiff36 will be held in Tehran on April 19-27. The festival is set to welcome over 300 special guests to this year’s edition, ranging from filmmakers to screenwriters, actors to activists.
A host of A-listers will attend, including legendary Italian actor Franco Nero and influential American film director Oliver Stone.