Heiran (Movie)
“Heiran” portrays the story of a young rural girl in war stricken Iran, who falls in love with a gallant Afghan refugee. Even though a drama, Shalizeh Arefpour, the director, has used real footage of illegal immigrants and refugee camps to depict how Afghans’ rights are being trampled, and mirrors this with the treatment of women in Iran.
Credits
Color, 35 mm, 1:1/85, 88 min, 2009, Iran / English Subtitle
Production of Cinema 79 Co.
First theatrical release in North America by Parastoo Film (http://www.parastoofilm.com)
Scriptwriters: Shalizeh Arefpour, Naghmeh Samini
Director of Photography: Hossein Jafarian
Executive Producer: Nava Rohani
Producers: Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Jahangir Kosari
Cast: Baran Kosari, Mehrdad Sedighian, Farhad Aslani, Zhaleh Sameti, Fouzhan Arefpour, Mohsen Mokari, Khosro Shakibaei (this was the legendary Shakibaei's last film)
Director: Shalizeh Arefpour
Shalizeh Arefpour was born in Tehran in 1970. She graduated from the Filmmaking Training Center. In 1990 she started her cinematic career as script supervisor and has since cooperated with many cinema and TV filmmakers, such as Rakhshan Bani-Etemad and Mohammad Reza Honarmand, in 26 movies as programmer, assistant director, screenwriter and editor. She landed her directorial debut in 2004 in the short "The Shadow of the Moon". Heiran is her first feature film for which she is also the screenwriter.
Awards and Festivals
- Toronto International Film Festival 2009, Contemporary World Cinema
- Tunis International Film Festival 2009, Competition (Best Picture) Winner of the Best Film
- Hamburg International Film Festival 2009, Official festivals selection, Competition (For First Feature Award)
- Hong Kong Asian Film Festival 2009, Competition (New Talent Award)
- Sao Paulo International Film Festival 2009, New Filmmaker Competition
- Denver Film Festival 2009
- Stockholm International Film Festival 2009
- Tertio Millennio Film Festival 2009 (Italy)
- Dubai International Film Festival 2009, Competition (Muhr Asia Africa Awards)
- Portland International Film Festival 2010
