Austrian filmmaker: Tehran festival sends strong signal of freedom of art
interact with one another”.
Over 45 artworks in various media, including photography, painting, and video art by 11 Iranian and 10 Turkish artists have been selected for the showcase, Abbasi Farahani said, noting that the works will be then displayed in Istanbul, Turkey next year.
Mustafa Albayrak, Demet Taspinar, Tansel Türkdogan, Gül Yidiz and Vicdan Nalbur are among the participating Turkish artists.
The exhibit will also put on display works by Hamed Jaberha, Vahid Danaifar, Navid Azimi, Leila Emadi, Katayun Karami and several other Iranian artists. Iran’s hosting of the 35th Tehran International Short Film Festival (Tisff)signals the freedom of art in this country, said an Austrian filmmaker.
Virgil Widrich told IRNA on the sidelines of the event, “TISFF is a strong signal for the support and freedom of an art form away from commercialization through streamlined multinational media corporations.”
Referring to the status of Iranian cinema, he added, “Iranian artists and Iranian cinema enjoy high reputation in the world. We hope to see more works from Iran, but Iranian films have the same problems as European films, competing against mainstream taste for the audience’s time.
“Of course, everybody knows the late director Abbas Kiarostami who worked with my co-writer Jean-claude Carrière in Paris. I also remember fondly ‘When the Kid Was a Kid’ by Anahita Qazvinizadeh.”
Commenting on the works on display, Mehrnoosh Baradaran, the manager of the Gallery of Mellat Park Cineplex, said, “The works presented at the Gallery have been mostly created by young and wellknown artists from the two countries.”
She added, “The concepts seen in the works are very important and get the feeling that they have ‘a shared sense’ in them.”
Future stops
Explaining on the future editions of ‘Common Borders’, Abbasi Farahani said Pakistan will be the next
Expounding on the status of short films in Austria, he said, “Thanks to a funding program for short and avant-garde films in Austria, many short films are being country to host the exhibition in February, 2019 in Karachi.
The focus of the Pakistani exhibition will be mostly on the Shahnameh as the epic work is very popular among Pakistanis, he said, noting that many miniature works in Pakistan have been inspired by the Shahnameh.
The Shahnameh, or ‘The Book of Kings’, is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE.
More than 20 artists from Iran and Pakistan will showcase their works in Karachi, Abbasi Farahani said, adding that the same exhibition will be held in Tehran in June. produced. 1990 filmmakers also founded Sixpack Film which is a very successful promotion and sales organization for Austrian short films helping to gain international recognition.”
He pointed out, “As in most European countries, in Austria we do have public funding by national TV (ORF), plus federal and city-financed film funds. There are always more ideas than Euros, but we are happy this system exists.”
Turning to the role of short films in helping understand each other, he said, “Short film is never main stream. Short films compared to feature films are like songs compared to an opera: A song is not a small opera and an opera is not a list of songs.
“Short and feature films are very different distinctive art forms, each of its own unique value. Film festivals have become an important roof for all kinds of art films to find their audience.”