Iranian Film Festival Australia 2018

Overview

Now in its eighth year, the Iranian Film Festival Australia returns with another lineup of cinema straight from the Middle Eastern country — with 12 features and three shorts in 2018, in fact. Running between Thursday, October 25 and Tuesday, October 30 at ACMI, it's a lineup that both highlights old masters and showcases new talent. And yes, there's plenty of both.

In the tried and tested category sits Jafar Panahi's Three Faces, which sees the filmmaker get playful and star on-screen in his latest combination of fact and fiction. Or, viewers can check out Bahmam Farmanara's Tale of The Sea, a family drama that's also dedicated to the late Iranian auteur Abbas Kiarostami and kicks off the whole fest Then there's Kamal Tabrizi's Sly, a fictional account of a political leader — which features Mani Haghighi, who also directs IFFA dark comedy Pig, about a filmmaker suspected of murder.

If you're keen to check out up-and-coming voices and see different interpretations of classic material, As I Lay Dying offers an Iranian take on William Faulkner's tale of the same name. And, in only their third feature, filmmaking brothers Jamshid and Navid Mahmoudi achieve something extraordinary with Afghan-Iranian co-production Rona, Azim's Mother, with the movie their third title to be entered into the Oscar foreign-language category by Afghanistan.