Mohammad Atebayi considered Fajr International Film Festival as an opportunity to meet the audiences’ requirement.
According to the Public Relations Office of the 33rd FIFF, international affairs expert in cinema area, Mohammad Atebayi in an interview highlighted FIFF goals and prospects and said, “Regarding consumed time and energy for the FIFF this event should be taken as an opportunity to meet the audiences’ requirements.”
He referred to the current requirements of Iranian cinema industry and called it as the main step toward turning the Fajr Film into a real reputed international film festival and noted, “Anyhow, we have needs and problems in our cinema and sometimes these needs make us to think we should spend the festival’s budget to resolve those problems instead of investing on festival organization but I believe this is not appropriate for the FIFF since regarding its background it should be held outstanding.”
This international affairs expert in cinema also commented about the separation of the national and international sections of the FIFF and stated, “The festival’s organizers mostly believe that holding these two sections at the same time caused the international section to be neglected but I believe it was because there was no certain definition or dignity for it.”
Atebayi also added, “During the past years, films were screened arbitrary but regarding the place of our cinema in the region if we could define its goals and prospects we could have received enough attention and interest.”
He referred to films selection process and continued, “a huge amount of films are available on DVDs nowadays so the FIFF should screen those films which are not available and may cause a new movement and wave in our cinema.”
Atebayi also added, “The festival should have side events such as workshops, tributes, reviews and etc. Of course workshops should be the main concern since we have serious problems in this area and we hope the festival’s organizers plan for this.”
33rd Fajr International Film Festival will be held from April 25th to May 2nd 2015 in Tehran. This is the first year that international section of FIFF to be held separately from national section.
