Award Belgrade Victor for Outstanding Contribution to Film Art at the 52nd International Film Festival FEST, which runs from February 23rd until March 3rd, goes to Iranian director AsgharFarhadi.
Two-time Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi, an Iranian film director and screenwriter, who will receive the Belgrade Victor on February 29th in the Serbian capital, is considered one of the
most prominent filmmakers of Iranian and world cinematography of the 21st century.
Farhadi (1972) became interested in cinematography in his teenage years, and started his education in filmmaking by joining the Youth Cinema Society of Esfahan in 1986 where he made 8mm and 16mm short films. He received his Bachelor of dramatic Arts at Tehran University in 1998 and his Masters in Stage Direction a few years later. He devoted his final thesis to Harold Pinter, under the title of the importance of silence and pauses in the playwright’s work. Almost all of Farhadi’s films have won awards at every festival where they were displayed. According to critics, his scripts are deep sociological, psychological, and philosophical studies of problems that are universal in society, and his films have gained recognition because of their focus on the human condition and because they describe intimate and challenging stories about family conflicts.
Farhadi made his debut as a director with the film "Dancing in the Dust" (Raghs dar Ghobar), which was awarded at the International Film Festival in Moscow. In 2004 he made "Beautiful City" (Shahr-e ziba) which was awarded at the International Film Festival in Warsaw, followed by "Fireworks Wednesday" (Chaharshanbe-soori, 2006) which won the Golden Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival. Then "About Elly" (Darbareye Elly, 2009) -, which film critic David Bordwell called a "masterpiece", won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival and the Award for Best Film at the Tribeca Film Festival. In 2011 his film " A Separation" (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin) won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and received critical acclaim inside and outside of Iran, as well as the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, and won the Golden Globes and the Caesar Award. The film "The Past” (Le passé, 2013) won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival. The film "The Salesman" (Forooshande, 2016) brought Farhadi his second Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, making him one of the few directors worldwide who have won twice this prize. His following movie "Everybody Knows" (Todos lo saben), with the Cruz - Bardem tandem, opened the 71st Cannes Festival, and his film "A Hero” (Ghahreman, 2021), which won the Grand Prix at the 74th Cannes Film Festival was also screened at the 50th FEST Belgrade.
Farhadi is on the list of directors who have won the Best Foreign Film Oscar more than once. The others are Vittorio de Sica and Federico Fellini (four times each), Ingmar Bergman (threetimes), and René Clément and Akira Kurosawa (twice each).
