MAR DEL PLATA AWARDS FILMS ABOUT MIDDLE EAST SUBJECTS


In the first days of the Mar del Plata International Film Festival we have seen films with different genres and proposals. In the official competition it seems to be a tendency to epoch film and the films that shows the problems of countries from Middle East. In “Le grand voyage”, Ismael Ferroukhi narrates the confrontation of a conservative father and a modern son. Reda, the son, must take distance from france, where his girlfriend lives, and he must drive the car what transports his father to the Mecca. In this musulman road-movie, the boy chages his mode of thinking, and he becomes religious. The film have a lot of common place and with the message to the public its narration becomes predictable.

In other hand, “Bitter Dream” a film by the iranian Mohsen Amiryoussefi, it does not propose a defined look on Esfandari, who likes watch television what transmit a documentary by Amiryoussefi. In spite of this authoral reference and the relation with the tv format (the only interesting of the film), the argument and its tone are not defined, for example, the film becomes a comedy or terror film to the end.

“The sleeping child”, by Yasmine Kassari, tell story in the northeast of the contemporary Morocoo, where Zeinab a young girl watches her husband leave the country the day after their wedding. Her husband and other men go to Spain to find a better job and in a future find the papers of residence to take his wives with it him. Zeinab is expecting a child, while she is waiting for her husband to return she lulls the foetus to sleep, the time goes by and the husband does not come back. This film shows the life of Zenab, her cousin and her grandmather, showing us the social differences of the women.

A great part of the official awards goes to films about problems from middle east. The fest organizers said at the opening ceremony, that the film by Bahman Gobadi “Turtles can fly” shows the profile of the film festival. Since three years ago, when Miguel Pereira assumed as Director of Mar del Plata Film Festival, he has tried to give an latinamerican look to the festival. But this year, the edtion became political, and films very interesting like “3 rooms of melancholy” by Pirjo Honkasalo or the argentine “Tatooed” gone without an Astor Award.


By Fernando Madedo and Ana Laura Fanelli
FOR FILM FESTIVALS.COM