On Wednesday, April 24, Charsou Cineplex played host to a film directing masterclass by Danish film director Michael Noer.
Held on the sidelines of the 37th Fajr International Film Festival, the main objective of this one-day workshop was to teach the filmmaking process to local and international students by focusing on the director’s primary tasks of understanding the story, guiding actor performances to tell that story, and using cinematics to create a visually compelling story an audience will remember.
Noer said: Directing is not sitting on a chair and giving orders to actors. You don’t want to turn your actors into robots. A good director encourages his actors and actresses to engage themselves in the filmmaking process. Don’t ask a guy who can’t shoot to have a gun. They need to know everything about their roles in advance.
He added: A film tells you where to look, but in theater you are free to look at anything you like. A good story means a greater audience engagement.
Noer made his narrative feature debut with the 2010 prison drama R, which won the Bodil Award for Best Danish Film and the Robert Award for Best Danish Film and earned them the Robert Award for Best Director. He subsequently directed Northwest and Key House Mirror, which were released in 2013 and in 2015, respectively. In 2017, his first English-language film, Papillon, a remake of the 1973 film, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.
In 2018, Before the Frost, his fifth feature set in 19th-century rural Denmark, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. It also competed at the Tokyo International Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize and the Award for Best Actor.
The curtain falls on the 37th Fajr International Film Festival on Thursday, April 25. Vahdat Hall will host the closing ceremony, attended by Iranian and international filmmakers and guests.
