ROME – “I wrote an open letter to explain my position to those who accuse me of being on one side (with the system) and on the other (against the system). In this letter I tell whoever presents my film in the running to Oscar: if you have to do it to make me weigh it, you are free not to. I’m just someone who makes films “. Thus the Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, in Rome to present A HERO in theaters from January 3 distributed by Lucky Red, replies to the controversy two weeks ago that had led him to threaten the withdrawal of his film, Iran’s candidate for the Academy race Awards. “Both the pro-government and the opposition have this desire to appropriate someone – he adds -. And I must say, as far as I’m concerned, it’s not the first time this has happened”. How do you see the advent of platforms? “I am of the generation of the cinema and I cannot imagine that the platforms win. Sometimes I see at home films I have seen in the room many years ago and they no longer seem the same to me. The fact is that the atmosphere of sharing is lacking. I understand, mine is a sentimental attitude “.
As for A HERO, a drama-thriller in Farsi language already in competition at the Cannes Film Festival where it won the Special Jury Prize, it must be said that the protagonists, father and son, look exactly like those of BICYCLE THIEVES with an immediate look ready for genuine joy and shame. This is the story. Rahim (Amir Jadidi), in prison for debts, released for a few days from prison, tries in every way to find even a part of the money to have the complaint dropped and remain free. At one point he encounters luck in the form of a bag full of gold coins that his new girlfriend finds abandoned at a bus stop. The two initially try to get some money out of it, then, for a whole series of strange ‘signs’, Rahim decides to look for the owner by placing an ad. When the woman who lost her purse lands in the house of Rahim’s sister, where the man also lives with his teenage son, and proves to be the legitimate owner, the prisoner immediately becomes a hero: TV and media are looking for him, and the son is really proud to have such a father. Hence the film by the two-time Academy Award-winning director (for A Breakup and The Client) changes dramatically. Capable as he is, Farhadi, to ride all the registers of simple, natural people, he brings suspicion and doubt into the life of the protagonist. A doubt that even the police themselves have, who do not see everything clear in the return of the bag. And a hero, you know, is quick to fall if people no longer believe in him. In the cast of A HERO, in addition to Mohsen Tanabandeh and Fereshteh Sadre Orafaee, there is also the director’s daughter, Sarina Farhadi, who had previously worked with him on A Separation. The film was shot in Shiraz, the ancient capital of Persia, in the south of Iran, one of the most important cultural sites in the country: “I shot in Shiraz not by chance – says the director – because it is a humbler city, ordinary compared to Tehran, where there are still people willing to give you a hand, to offer themselves if you find yourself in a complicated situation “.
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Source From: Ansa
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