MOSAIC NIGHTS FESTIVAL | Outdoor event & screening
Drama, 2019, 85 min., Farsi with English subtitles (Iran)
Directed by: Hamidreza Ghotbi
Cast: Afshin Hashemi, Siamak Safari, Maryam Boubani, Behnaz Naderi, Ailin Rashidian
A writer who also works as a primary school teacher, tells her class the beginning of a story about a five-year-old girl named Banafsheh who meets a teacher on a night train after visiting her mother’s grave with her grandmother. The teacher learns that Banafsheh’s mother had died after childbirth and is touched by the little girl’s story, gives her a stuffed toy puppet, and promises to visit her the following week. The teacher invites her students to use their imaginations to decide what happens next which quickly becomes a popular challenge as they enthusiastically start to compete on who has the best ideas to finish the tale. Banafsheh who had formed an attachment to the teacher, waits for her call and eventually takes matters into her own hands.
Photo courtesy of Farabi Cinema Foundation (FCF)
This screening is presented as part of the MOSAIC NIGHTS FESTIVAL, the celebration of 3 international films embedded in 3 different cultural extravaganzas. This year the Ethnic Mosaic Alliance is featuring the cultures of Iran, South-East Asia and other multi-cultural communities. The series is on 3 separate evenings and at different locations.