Abyar’s Film Wins 2 Minsk Awards

TEHRAN.(Iranart) – T he feature film ‘Breath’ written and directed by author, film director and screenwriter Narges Abyar, 47, won two awards at the 24th Minsk International Film Festival ‘Listapad’ held November 2-10 in Minsk, capital of Belarus.

Abyar’s film was screened in the Children and Youth Film competition section whose slogan was “Truth, Love and Beauty,” and received the Best Director and Best Teenager Actor awards, ISNA reported.

The teen actress who received the award is Sareh Nourmousavi, who plays the role of a young, imaginative and joyful girl named Bahar who experiences the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war as she grows up in Iran.

A deep and well crafted film, it depicts a child’s complex experience of family, school, friendship and social ambitions. Bahar lives in her childish and surreal world full of dreams and fantasies. The film is a journey into the innocence and wonders of childhood.

Based on a novel by Abyar about her own memories and experience, Breath has been selected as Iran’s official submission to the 90th Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

It is Abyar’s third feature film that received an award with a ‘National View’ at the 34th Fajr Film Festival in 2016. It had a successful screening at home last year and collected positive reviews by critics.

Breath has attended many festivals across the globe and won several awards including the best director awards at the 12th Vancouver International Women in Film Festival in Canada in March, and the 20th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia last year. It also won the best script award at the 17th Hafez Cinema and TV Ceremony in Tehran in August.

Born in Tehran, Abyar has written 30 story and fiction books for children, young adults and adults. She has also made several short and feature-length documentaries. Her first and second films, ‘Objects in Mirror’ and ‘Track 143’,   won several awards at foreign festivals.