Cinema Vérité receives over 130 submissions on COVID19

TEHRAN.(Iranart) – The 14th edition of the Cinema Vérité, Iran’s major international festival for documentary films, has received over 130 submissions in the pandemic and COVID-19 category.

The organizers have dedicated a special section to screening documentaries on the pandemic and COVID-19 this year.

A lineup of foreign documentaries with the central theme of COVID19 has also been received by the organizers.

The four top selected works in this category will be honored at the closing ceremony, while the international section of the festival is non-competitive this year. 

This year the festival will be organized entirely online during December due to a spike in coronavirus cases in the country over the past month.

The decision to hold the event online was made in a meeting with executives in August.

They also discussed a plan to organize a review of movies acclaimed in previous editions of the festival.

In addition, the organizers plan to design platforms to guarantee the festival's entries against piracy.

The DEFC director Mohammad Hamidi-Moqaddam has also announced the center’s plan to pay tribute to celebrated filmmaker Khosro Sinai who died of coronavirus on August 1.

Cinema Organization of Iran director Hossein Entezami has previously announced that the organization is searching for a safe platform to organize the 39th edition of the Fajr Film Festival online if the pandemic continues until February 2021.

He also said that there is no platform in Iran to guarantee the festival entries against piracy.

“If we cannot have a platform that ensures the safety of films during the festival, it will be impossible for us to organize the event online,” he noted.

Source: Tehran Times