Iran’s ‘The Dark Room’ to take part in Serbian festival
Iranian feature ‘The Dark Room’, by Rouhollah Hejazi, was picked to compete in the 2019 edition of Belgrade International Film Festival (FEST) in Serbia.
The 101-minute feature will be screened in the main competition section of the Serbian event, i¿lmtv.com reported.
The ¿lm, that enjoys a social drama genre, narrates the story of a young couple, Haleh and Farhad, and their ¿veyear-old son, Amir. The small family recently moved into a new apartment to begin a new life but they cannot imagine signi¿cance and the dif¿culty of the people in the city to access water. Iran is one of the countries with several qanats and Yazd is world-known for its large number of qanats. The city of Ardakan alone has 230 qanats of which only six remain and the rest have dried up.
Behjati-ardakani pointed to tourism attractions of qanats and said those which are dried up due to low underground water resources have the potential to be used for tourism. Speaking about generating revenue from the qanats, he said over what awaits them.
Amir is lost in the barren area just in front of the complex, however, his parents soon ¿nd him. But then, Amir tells his father that someone has abused him and that makes Farhad very upset.
The troubled father is now looking for a suspect who has harassed his little boy.
Hejazi’s ¿lm has won awards at some international ¿lm events such as the 2018 International Film Festival of Kerala in India.
The 47th edition of the Serbian ¿lm event is slated for February 22 to March 3. 7,000 tourists walked along these qanats during 15 days of Norouz (Persian New Year) vacations and generated more than $4,750.
Qanat is the symbol of water saving and congruency of people in cities at risk of water shortage with weather, he said, adding water consumption patterns specially in desert areas with an arid climate does not conform with water crisis there and they have the same consumption pattern as cities with suf¿cient water reservoirs.
In the past, people used water from local qanats with sweet water for potable water and qanats with salty water for washing and agriculture, he said, elaborating on the differences between water used for washing and for drinking.
The objectives of the conference are to ¿nd solutions to water shortage, particularly in cities in which water is running out and promote the culture of qanat.
Studying qanats and their attractions, sustainable tourism, water consumption management, maintenance of qanats are among other objectives of the conference.