Zhuang Zhuang Tian praised the works of Abbas Kiarostami, Majid Majidi, and Asghar Farhadi.
According to the Public Relations Office of FIFF, on Wednesday 20th of April, Zhuang Zhuang Tian, the Chinese director, was the guest of the students and professors of Cinema and Theater Faculty. With students he watched the movies “Kohl” (Azadeh Ghochagh) and “Slaughterhouse” (behzad Azadi), which were the winners of Nahal Festival.
Surprised by the capabilities of the students, Zhuang Zhuang stated China’s cinema has two main courses: artistic and commercial. Unfortunately, recently the commercial approach is overpowering the artistic approach even in the short films section. Couple of days ago, I watched some short films made by Chinese students, and all of them had commercial undertone. I am really glad that Iranian students have this high level of artistic and technical talents.
He added: “China and Iran have many cultural and historical common backgrounds. Both of these countries were colonized and suffered from this issue. We have to strengthen our cultural and artistic ties. Iran’s cinema can reemerge in world’s cinema”.
Zhuang Zhuang said: “Iran’s cinema is privileged to have people such as Abbas Kiarostami from the older generation and Majid Majidi and Asghar Farhadi from the younger generation. Iran’s cinema has a great potential and cultural exchange between Iran and China can be quite valuable”.
After praising the movies “Children of Heaven” and “A Separation”, he mentioned that: what I realized from watching the students’ movies is that Iranian youth are very talented. I hope there is a possibility that the professors and students of Cinema and Theater Faculty can travel to china and visit the Beijing Film Academy where Chen Kaige teaches. I really hope this can happen in the near future.
The 34th edition of Fajr International Film Festival is being held from April 20th to April 25th, 2016 in Charsou Cineplex, under the supervision of the well-known Iranian filmmaker, Mr. Reza Mirkarimi, who is also the Managing Director of Khaneh Cinema.
For more information on Fajr International Film Festival, visit the festival website, www.fajriff.com.
