Anthelme Vidaud is from France, but he works for a Ukrainian film festival, this is called the Odessa Film Festival and he is the program director of this festival. He came to Fajr to watch some movies to pick up for their festival program, because the festival is going to happens soon. The 7th edition will be from 15th to 24th of July. Therefore, they now collecting the films for the program.
Are you familiar with the Iranian Cinema? Have you shown any Iranian film in your festival before?
Yes, I like Iranian Cinema very much. I like Kiarostami, Asghar farhadi and we screened last year in our International festival competition section an Iranian film which is called Atomic Heart by Ali Ahmadzadeh. The first time that in our festival an Iranian film was in the completion and the director was invited there to present his movie.
We generally are interested in old kind of movies that are representing the diversity of the World Cinema, because our goal is to show a panorama of different talents, young talents who are shooting now in the world and also in Iran, because Iran is a big consummate cinema. Odessa is a port on the Black Sea and it traditionally have a lot of different cosmopolite population inside the city and always looking towards East, towards Middle East such as Turkey, Iran. So it’s interesting for us to know what is happening in the Middle East.
Why do you choose Middle East instead of Europe or anywhere else around the world?
Medium choose Middle East. I mean we are interested in all the direction around the world.
I thought that there is a specific interest for the Middle East?
Yes, we can say that, there is a specific interest, because we have two or three film each year for the completion section that come from this reign. But we also have film from South America. From East from China for example. We try to reflex the geopolitical balance of the world and not showing only American, European movies.
How long has it been since you started to show Iranian movies at your festival? Is it just a year or you started from the beginning of the festival?
In fact I’m working for the festival for two years, I started my work from 2014 and as far as I remember I think that other Iranian movies also screened before, but out of competition. I think for example Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation have been showed.
How was your audience feedback to the Iranian movies?
I’m not talking specifically but for Atomic Heart, the response was good. We also have the assistance of viewers and spectators. They vote and they give remark for all the movies they have seen, so as far as I remember this film got a good quote from the public. It didn’t receive any prize from the Jury, but it doesn’t mean anything. I mean doesn’t mean the film had a badly welcome. In general people are curious to see films from Iran. This is the only opportunity to watch Iranian movies, because in Ukraine there are difficult restriction for film distribution. This makes it difficult for Iranian movies to get into the cinema halls, so you only have time to watch Iranian movies at the festival and that is a good occasion for them to watch Iranian films and know about what is going on in Iran.
What do you see the quality of this festival so far?
It’s the first time I come here to Iran and I like it. The organization is great, I’ve been only welcome and people are very nice. In fact I was very much interested in Iran before I come, partly because of the cinema and because of the old civilization I was curious to visit this country and I’m very glad that I’m here. So yes, I’m looking forward and I’m going to stay here for three days, but I wish I will come back at some point.
