Farhang.org

For Immediate Release

Announcing the 13th AnnualFarhang Foundation Short Film Festival

Calling on filmmakers worldwide to submit short films visualizing aspects of Iranian art, culture, and heritage. Farhang Foundation's Annual online Short Film Festival offers filmmakers the opportunity to compete for prestigious recognition and cash prizes of $10,000, $5,000, and $3,000.

Since its launch in 2008, the Farhang Foundation Short Film Festival has awarded over $234,000 in cash prizes to filmmakers from around the world who share a mutual passion for Iran and its culture. "We are extremely proud of what the festival has accomplished as it enters its thirteenth year of competition," said Mark Amin, Festival Jury Chair and Vice Chairman of Farhang Foundation. "The Farhang Short Film Festival is the only global festival dedicated to Iranian short films. We are thrilled to be able to provide an accessible platform year after year to showcase the best in Iranian shorts to our global audience."

The Festival's submission period opens on April 25 and runs through July 25, 2022. Filmmakers can now submit their films online directly via FarhangFilmFest.org. The award ceremony, during which the top six finalists will be screened, with top awards handed out, will take place on Saturday September 24, 2022 with host Melissa Shoshahi.

Farhang Foundation is pleased to announce the esteemed jury panel for this year's competition. The impressive group includes a diverse and talented team of international artists, scholars and visionaries, each with a unique background in Cinema. The 2022 jury is lead by Lily Amir-Arjomand, the founder and champion behind Iran's influential Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, Ghasem Ebrahimian, award-winning filmmaker and cinematographer, who recently completed Shirin Neshat's LAND OF DREAMS, Paul Malcolm, UCLA Film and Television Archive's Film Programmer, responsible for the long running series, the UCLA CELEBRATION OF IRANIAN CINEMA, Shahram Mokri, the ground-breaking writer and filmmaker responsible for FISH AND CAT, and CARELESS CRIME, and Sara Nodjoumi, the prolific filmmaker, producer and festival programmer who's most recent critically acclaimed documentary OF KINGS AND PAINTINGS provided a great insight into the world of Qajar art.

"Words cannot express how honored we are to welcome this year's exceptional group of visionaries" said Alireza Ardekani, Executive Director of Farhang Foundation. "Every year we strive to gather a group of diverse individuals to join our jury, and this year's panelists represent one of the most brilliant and influential group we have ever managed to welcome to the festival."

Short film submissions should be under fifteen minutes in length, and can be of any genre or style, visualizing an aspect of Iranian art, history, culture, crafts, cuisine, literature, music or lifestyle that will inspire and spark the audience's interest in learning more about Iran. All foreign language submissions must include English subtitles.

All entries will be judged for creativity, quality, and originality by the esteemed jury panel. Views expressed by the filmmakers do not represent those of Farhang Foundation or the jury panel. For more information, including submission guidelines, deadlines, and past winners, visit the official Festival website at FarhangFilmFest.org.

ABOUT THE JURY

MARK AMIN - JURY CHAIR, is currently the CEO of Sobini Films, a motion picture production and financing company. Through Sobini Films, Amin has produced a diverse slate of feature films, including THE PRINCE & ME, PEACEFUL WARRIOR, and his directorial debut, EMPEROR, which was nominated for two NAACP Image Awards, most notably Outstanding Independent Motion Picture. Upcoming projects include NELLIE BLY, starring Chloe Grace Moretz in the leading role, and ZORRO 2.0, a futuristic reboot of the lucrative Zorro franchise starring Gael García Bernal. Mr. Amin served as Vice Chairman and member of the board of directors of Lionsgate Entertainment from 2000 to 2009.
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Lily Amir-Arjomand, is the visionary founder and champion behind one of the most progressive institutions for the culture, education and creativity of children and young adults, known as Kanoon in Iran. The Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, was involved in various cultural and artistic activities. Ms. Amir-Arjomand formed Kanoon by building a network of permanent and mobile libraries across Iran to promote culture and education to children and young adults. The organization was at the center of the vanguard of cultural production in Iran through the 1970s, serving as the platform through which many of Iran’s most highly regarded creative minds launched their careers. Kanoon quickly became a creative incubator that offered unprecedented freedom and support to an incredible group of artists, many of whom worked across different media, including filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, graphic designer Morteza Momayez, animator Noureddin Zarrinkelk, and painter Ali Akbar Sadeghi. Kanoon remains the single most important cultural and educational network for children in Iran.
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Ghasem Ebrahimian is an award winning filmmaker who came to the US in 1974 to study cinema. He graduated from SUNY Purchase in 1979. His thesis film, WILLIE earned him a Student Academy Award and was shown in festivals around the world and on Public Television’s Independent Focus.

He formed Ebrafilms with Coleen Higgins in1980 and the company produced over forty documentaries for Italian and French televisions among other commercial productions.
His feature film THE SUITORS (1988) which he wrote, directed and produced was an official selection for the Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for Camera d’OR. THE SUITORS was theatrically released in the US and was shown on Germany’s WDR and UK’s Channel 4.
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Paul Malcolm has been a film programmer for the UCLA Film and Television Archive since 2007 where he has overseen the Archive's may powerful film series, including the incredible annual UCLA CELEBRATION OF IRANIAN CINEMA, which now enters its 30th year. Malcolm served as an associate programmer of feature and short films for the Los Angeles Film Festival 2006-2010. He has taught courses in the history and aesthetics of 3D film and film criticism at Chapman University. He has an MA in Film Studies from UCLA and is a Sundance Institute Arts Writing Fellow (2001).
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Shahram Mokri began his filmmaking training in the Young Cinema Association and entered the professional world of cinema with his short film Dragonfly Storm (2002). Mokri received three Crystal Simorghs from the Fajr Film Festival for short films. He holds the record for receiving Crystal Simorghs in this category. In addition to filmmaking, Shahram Mokri has taught filmmaking at the Sooreh University of Tehran, the University of Arts, Karnameh Film School, and the Bamdad Film School. Mokri won the Venice Film Festival's Horizons Award in 2013 for "Creative Content" for his film Fish and Cat; he also won a Silver Hugo medal at the Chicago Film Festival for Careless Crime, and the Venice Critics' Best Screenplay Award for the same film.
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Sara Nodjoumi is an independent filmmaker, producer and festival programmer. Her work often explores international subject matters featuring nuanced perspectives outside of the Western media focus and often challenging mainstream perceptions. Recent credits include WHEN GOD SLEEPS (2017), supported by the Sundance Institute, the Catapult Film Fund, which premiered at Tribeca, played over 100 festivals worldwide, premiered nationally on Independent Lens, and won numerous international awards, before being shortlisted for the 2018 Academy Award in Germany. She previously produced THE IRAN JOB (2012), also shortlisted for a German Academy Award and released worldwide on Netflix. More recently, Nodjoumi released her latest documentary REGGAE BOYZ (2019), which received an Audience Award at Brooklyn Film Festival and screened in digital theaters across America.
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ABOUT FARHANG FOUNDATION

Farhang Foundation is a member-supported nonreligious, nonpolitical and nonprofit foundation established in 2008 to celebrate and promote Iranian art and culture for the benefit of the community-at-large. The foundation supports a broad range of academic and cultural activities by funding university programs, diverse cultural programs such as the celebrations of Nowruz, and Shab-e Yalda as well as musical performances, film screenings and festivals.

 

For media inquiries contact:
Tannaz Guivi | press@farhang.org / 310-666-1546