39th Oscar-Qualified Tehran International Short Film Festival to be Held in Iran

The 39th edition of Tehran International Short Film Festival will be held as a preliminary event for the Academy Awards, as well as an Oscar-qualified festival, screening 60 short films by filmmakers from 35 countries all around the world, and the film receiving the Grand Prix in the international category will be eligible for Oscar consideration.

The 39th edition of Tehran International Short Film Festival, presided over by Mehdi Azarpendar, is held by the Iranian Youth Cinema Society, heralding the motto of “Variety in Genre” and will focus on the subject of genre, to be held in two categories of national and international competition. With in-person attendance, the festival is set to screen more than 60 short films in categories of fiction, documentary, animation, and experimental, in several competition sections; domestic and international, with filmmakers from 35 countries such as the US, France, Chile, Argentina, Japan, Germany, Austria, China, England, Italy, Poland, Lebanon, Canada, Kyrgyzstan, India, Spain, Finland, Switzerland, Denmark, Australia, Thailand, Croatia, Hungary, the Philippines, Lithuania, Romania, Pakistan, Indonesia, Morocco, Armenia, Luxemburg, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. The jury members come from the following countries: Portugal, Turkey, Lithuania, Romania, and Iran. The international cinema instructors’ summit is held from October 19-24, 2022, in Mellat cinematic complex of Tehran.

Tehran International Film Festival is one of the most significant and prestigious short film festivals in the world, and it is an Oscar-qualified event, with good standing among global short filmmakers. This year, 5042 films from 131 countries have been submitted to this festival.

This cinematic event is among the 63 Oscar-qualified events in the world, one of the 9 international festivals in Asia, and one of the two Oscar-qualified events in the Middle East.

In the press conference held on Sunday 16 October 2022, in Bagh-e Ziba, Mehdi Azarpendar, the president of the 39th round of Tehran International Short Film Festival, stated, “Today’s festival is the most international cinematic event in Iran, and requires lots of prior planning. Last year, it was held from October 19-24, and since it was included in the Oscar-qualified festivals’ calendar, we felt that this international event should have a fixed date.”

He also added, “The total number of submitted films in the international category of the 39th Tehran Film Festival is 5042 films, 2925 of which belong to the genre of fiction, 689 animations, 804 documentaries, and 594 experimental films from 131 countries attending the international section of the 39th edition. In addition, France with 572 films, Spain with 401, India with 231, and the US with 221 works are the countries with the highest submitted works to this event. The next on the list is Brazil with 213 films, Germany with 191, Italy with 188, Russia with 162, Turkey with 149, Canada with 101, and Mexico with 86 films submitted.”

The festival president continued his remarks on the competition section of “National Competitions”, saying, “This section of the festival comprises 99 films including 47 fictions, 14 documentaries, 13 experimental movies, and 25 animations by Iranian filmmakers all across the country.”

Aiming for human and communal values, the category of “International Competitions” in this festival includes films in different sections of fiction, documentary, animation, and experimentals made outside Iran. The works submitted to this category must have been produced before 2021, with no prior screenings in other festivals of Iran.

The objectives of this festival comprise the following: identifying and introducing new talents in cinema, enhancing the position of short films as an independent and intellectual movement in Iranian cinema, updating the cinematic knowledge of filmmakers regarding the field of short films, strengthening the cycle of short film distribution via the provision of domestic and global marketing prerequisites, and the expansion and attraction of short film audiences.

The “20-39” specialized summits are attended by notable international and domestic instructors and students and enthusiasts of the craft, focusing on issues like creativity in work, lighting and cinematography, empiricism in work, interviewing the acting coach, screenplay, genre in short films, genre, form, style, similarities and differences, preparation and production, evaluation of short film genre samples, sound, visual effects, and production design.

Holding the “Literature and Cinema” fair is another agenda of this cinematic event, consisting of specialized cinematic books and the latest releases from the Iranian Youth Cinema Society. These publications include translations and compilations in fields as varied as production management in cinema, recommended stories for short film adaptation, debut filmmakers’ documentation, realism in fiction, genre-related articles, photography, music, experimental cinema, etc.

Unveiling the Cinema Graduates Center of the Iranian Youth Cinema Society and holding the first summit for them are other programs of the 39th round.

Tehran International Film Festival is held annually by the Iranian Youth Cinema Society which is the biggest filmmaking society in Iran, having 58 educational and filmmaking offices all across the country, besides being one of the largest filmmaking schools in the world when it comes to the number of works produced. Holding seven-month filmmaking courses, single-subject short-term courses, and Tehran International Short Film Festival as the most important short film event in the Middle East are among the activities of this society.

Great Iranian filmmakers have been introduced to the world via Tehran International Short Film Festival, including figures such as Asghar Farhadi, Bahman Ghobadi, Mehrdad Oskouei, Shahram Mokri, Reza Mirkarimi, Majid Barzegar, Saeed Roustayi, Mohsen Amiryoussefi, Ida Panahandeh, Arsalan Amiri, Arian Vazirdaftari, as well as other well-known Iranian filmmakers.

For more information:  www.tisff.ir/en/