Two Awards at the Erbil Festival for the Independent Short Film Support Center

The first Erbil International Film Festival (Kurdistan Region of Iraq) was held from May 30 to June 4, 2014, in the city of Erbil, Iraq. The festival featured four sections: the Feature Film Competition, the Short Film Competition, a showcase of acclaimed world cinema, and a non-competitive section.
In the festival’s short film competition section, 28 short films from Syria, Turkey, Egypt, the United Kingdom, Greece, Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon were screened. Among them were six Iranian short films, consisting of three films represented by the Independent Short Film Support Center and three productions from the Iranian Youth Cinema Society.
The festival jury, in the short film competition section, presented five main awards and three special mentions to filmmakers participating in this category.
A particularly noteworthy achievement was the strong performance of the films represented by the Independent Short Film Support Center and Iranian independent cinema in this section of the festival, resulting in two awards for the Center’s films.
The festival’s Golden Horse Award, for its outstanding natural visual design and cinematography that effectively served the film’s thematic core, was awarded to “Empty Hands, Full Heart” (Dast-e Khali, Del-e Por) directed by Babak Nabi-Zadeh, with cinematography by Aref Namvar.
In addition, the festival jury presented a Special Mention to “The Last Station” (Akharin Istgah) directed by Mostafa Soltani.
It is worth noting that the jury was chaired by Iranian filmmaker Mehrdad Soleimani.