French distributor Damned Films purchases Iranian film “Careless Crime”

TEHRAN –(Iranart)- French distributor Damned Films has signed a deal with Dreamlab Films for Iranian director Shahram Mokri’s drama “Careless Crime”.

The company will distribute the film in France, overseas territories administered by France, Monaco and Andorra, Variety announced on Monday.

The film had its world premiere on Tuesday at the 77th Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti section, dedicated to films that represent the latest aesthetic and expressive trends in international cinema.

“Careless Crime” goes back forty years ago, during the uprising to overthrow the Shah’s regime in Iran, when protestors set fire to movie theaters as a way of showing opposition to Western culture. Many cinemas were burned down. In one tragic case, a theater was set on fire with four hundred people inside, most of whom were burned alive. Forty years have passed and, in contemporary Iran, four individuals also decide to burn down a cinema. Their intended target is a theater showing a film about an unearthed, unexploded missile.

Damned Films is a regular customer of Mokri’s films. His “Fish and Cat” and “Invasion” were acquired earlier by the distributor.

Dreamlab Films, the France-based international distributor under Iranian film expert Nasrin Mirshab, is handling the international sales of “Careless Crime”.

“We are thrilled to have this deal sealed especially at a time where physically going to a cinema theater encounters a feeling of danger and uneasiness,” said Mirshab.

“It is important, however, and has become nowadays an act of strong faith in film culture. It echoes with the scenes in ‘Careless Crime,’ which embraces the real experience of what cinema is about,” she added.

Negar Eskanadarfar of the Karnameh Institute of Arts and Culture is the producer of the film starring Babak Karimi, Razieh Mansouri and Abolfazl Kahani.

source: Tehran Times