Iran’s ‘Golnesa’ grabs three nominations at Tanzanian festival

Iranian feature film ‘Golnesa’, by Sattar Chamani-gol, received three nods at the Second Sinema Zetu International Film Festival (SZIFF) in Tanzania.

The feature took part in the festival’s ‘World Cinema’ section and was nominated for Best Screenplay (Vida Salehi), Best Director (Chamani-gol) and Best Cinematography (Mohammad Fakouri).

According to ifilmtv.com, ‘Golnesa’ tells the story of a young Afghan couple, Golmammad and Golnesa, who are illegal immigrants in Iran.

Working in a traditional brick-making kiln in the suburbs of Tehran, they have to deal with challenges of illegal immigration as well as routine hardships.

The film has taken part in a number of global film events, including 51st Worldfest-houston Int’l Film Festival, 21st Brooklyn Film Festival in the US, Third R.E.D Int’l Film Festival in Norway, 14th Kazan Int’l Festival of Muslim Cinema in the Russian Republic of Tatarstan, Third Slemani Int’l Film Festival as well as 17th Dhaka Int’l Film Festival (DIFF) in Bangladesh.

Among the accolades reaped by ‘Golnesa’ are award for best director and best director of photography at the 14th Kazan Int’l Festival of Muslim Cinema and best feature film award from the 2018 Global Nonviolent Film Festival in the US.

Tanzanian festival will name the winners on February 23.

The 53-day festival focuses on ‘Swahili Panorama’ and ‘World Cinema’. ‘Swahili Panorama’ brings to light feature films, series, dramas, short films and documentaries produced in Swahili while ‘World Cinema’ presents movies from any country/language, produced or subtitled in English.

‘World Cinema’ screens movies from 19 countries including Afghanistan, China, Estonia, India, Iran, Italy, Indonesia, Germany, Kenya, Nigeria, the Philippines, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda and Zambia in addition to the host Tanzania.