Cinéma Vérité picks “Froth”, “Punks” for World’s Best

TEHRAN –(Iranart)- The 14th edition of Cinéma Vérité, Iran’s major international festival for documentary films, has selected the Russia and Qatar co-production “Froth” and Dutch documentary “Punks” to screen in its World’s Best category.

World’s Best features a selection of documentaries acclaimed at 2020 international events across the world.

“Froth” directed by Ilya Povolotsky won an honorable mention at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival – IDFA.

The film depicts the customs and everyday life on the coast of the Barents Sea. At the heart of the narrative are the stories of three ordinary people. Bardak is a salty old sea dog, who after taking his pension opts to see out his years with hard work in an abandoned village on the very edge of the world. Sasha and his team of self-taught divers have taken the initiative to raise World War II shipwrecks, which the experts consider to be outside the realms of possibility. Young poacher Dima, whose sense of adventure and recklessness have earned him the nickname “Catastrophe”, manages to evade capture and read his daughter a fairy-tale all in one evening. The characters are united by an incredible blend of humility, inherent rebelliousness, a very specific moral code and attitude towards life. Nowhere except in these hills and on the harsh sea can they find peace, while they hustle through the days and the waves making froth.

“Punks” directed by Maasja Ooms shows three Dutch teenagers whose behavior is criminal. They are trying to better their lives with the help of a no-nonsense caretaker, somewhere deep in rural France. If they fail, they will be handed over to a closed juvenile home. In “Punks” the filmmaker is in search of the root cause of the survival strategies that unmanageable young people have developed and by which they have been derailed. What makes these kids so angry, indifferent, numb and even unscrupulous? What happened to them? Why do they behave the way they do?

Due to the pandemic, this year’s Cinéma Vérité will be organized totally online from December 15 to 22.

“Rockfield by Hannah Berryman from England, “Tony Driver” by Ascanio Petrini from Italy, “Two Roads” by Radovan Sibrt from Czech and “Acasa, My Home” by Radu Ciorniciuc from Romania have also been selected to be screened in the World’s Best section.

source: Tehran Times