CIFF President Amir Al Omari had asked Farhadi to screen the movie in the festival, which was warmly received by Farhadi, Egyptian daily newspaper Al-Ahram recently reported.
The film will go on screen in the non-competition section of the festival, because of its appearance in the competition section of the 66th annual Cannes Film Festival in May 2013, the report added.
“It is crucial that Iranian filmmakers attend the event and we will certainly screen films by Iranian directors, even if they will not be able to attend the event,” Al Omari had previously told the Persian service of FNA in an Internet interview last month.
Al Omari, a film critic who has recently been appointed to the CIFF, said that he plans to invite Iranian filmmakers to the festival. However, he added that issuance of visas to the filmmakers will depend on the climate of political relations between Iran and Egypt during the upcoming months.
Egypt refused to issue visas to a number of Iranian cineastes to attend the 35th CIFF in 2012.
The French-language film of “The Past”, which is Farhadi’s first project shot outside of his homeland, is about an Iranian man named Ahmad who returns to Paris from Tehran after a four-year separation, upon his French wife Marie’s request, in order to finalize their divorce.
The film brought its French star Berenice Bejo the Palme d’Or for best actress at the 66th annual Cannes Film Festival.
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s acclaimed film “The Past” will open the 36h Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF), which will be running from November 19 to 26 in the Egyptian capital.
News ID 185047
