Tirana International Film Festival

Posted by By at 12 November, at 13 : 06 PM Print


Tirana International Film Festival

The 14th edition of the Tirana Film Festival was held in Tirana, the capital of Albania, from November 3-11, 2016.

Albania’s international film festival is small compared to many others, as is the country itself, but the festival’s modesty makes for an especially warm and friendly experience.

The program included the following sections: Features, Short Fiction, Animation, Documentaries, Experimental, New Features-Parallel Screenings of Student Films, Market Corner, Video Art, A Tribute to Ettore Scola, the Italian master, and a few sections dedicated to Albanian films.

The festival’s Retrospective section, which, appropriately enough, had a different flavor than the rest of the festival, was Taste of Kiarostami. This program was curated by Mehdi Abdollahzadeh, film critic and specialist in Iranian Cinema, and Blerina Hankollari, researcher in the Department of Ethnology, Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Art Studies in Tirana.

The program was made up of eight films by Abbas Kiarostami, who had passed away suddenly the previous June, and two documentaries about him and his cinema.  The two documentaries were 76 Minutes and 15 Seconds with Abbas Kiarostami by Seifollah Samadian, his close friend, and my own film, Abbas Kiarostami: A Report. While my film was theoretic and meant as an introduction to his cinema, Samadian’s film was personal, behind-the-scenes and effective. I particularly enjoyed its poetic ending.

Blerina Hankolari led a discussion with Mr. Samadian and Bahman Maghsoudlou at the end of the screening, which, judging by the audience’s reaction, turned out to be very interesting and useful for the students and cineastes in Tirana.

Mona Zahed, an Iranian filmmaker and artist, and Shabnam Zeinolabedin, an Iranian film critic, also participated.

 

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