Following a series of consecutive meetings, the Board of delegations of the representative of Iranian cinema to the Oscars officially selected the film “SUN CHILDREN” directed by “Majid Majidi” as the representative of the Iranian cinema to be introduced to the 2021 Academy Awards best international feature film category.
According to the PR department of Farabi Cinema Foundation, “Raed Faridzadeh”, the secretary and spokesman of the Iranian Film committee said: Due to the modifications made to the rules and regulations of the Oscars and the deadline change for participating in this edition due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the work of this committee began with reviewing 90 Iranian films and then they came up with a shortlist of 12 films before making its final decision.
According to Faridzadeh, the committee carefully reviewed the rules and regulations of the academy and watched the films and after voting and gathering opinions, among the 3 finalists “SUN CHILDREN” by Majid Majidi, “WALNUT TREE” by Mohammad Hossein Mahdavi “YALDA” by Masoud Bakhshi, “SUN CHILDREN” was selected and with the signatures of the members of this committee, the film will be introduced as the official representative of Iranian cinema in the 2021 Academy Awards best international feature film category.
The films DANCE WITH ME (Soroush Sehat), THE PATERNAL HOUSA (Kianoosh Ayari), DROWN (Mohammad Kart), ORGANGE DAYS (Arash Lahouti), TOOMAN (Morteza Farshbaf), A HAIRY TALE (Homayoun Ghanizadeh), DROWING IN HOLY WATER( Navid Mahmoudi), YALDA (Massoud Bakhshi), SLAUGHTERHOUSE (Abbas Amini), GOLD CARRIER (Touraj Aslani), WALNUT TREE (Mohammad Hossein Mahdavian) and SUN CHILDREN (Majid Majidi) made up the initial list of the committee.
The Iranian film delegation of the representative of Iranian cinema to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Oscar 2021 consisted of Narges Abyar (director), Farhad Tohidi (screenwriter) and Antonia Shorka (critic). Raed Faridzadeh (Secretary of the International Council and Head of International Affairs at the Farabi Cinema Foundation) also accompanied the group as a legal member.