Golden Leopard of Locarno for South Korea; Swatch Award for Iranian Cinema

The 68th edition of the Locarno International Film Festival concluded on Sunday night (August 15/24 Mordad) with the awarding of prizes. Iranian cinema participated in the competition section of this festival after years, and the Iranian film titled "We are in Heaven" (internationally titled "Heaven"), the first work of Sina Ataeian Dena made without permission in Iran, did not win any of the main awards but secured the Swatch Art Peace Hotel award; an award that actually provides a residency of three to six months in a calm environment for artistic creation and is awarded to young artists. Sina Ataeian Dena, who has a short film, a documentary, and an animation in his portfolio, shot many scenes of the film using blue screen due to filming restrictions without permission in Tehran, and special effects play a significant role in this film. However, few people notice this type of special effects in the film, and the subject of the film can be more provocative for the audience. The visual representation the filmmaker provides of today’s Tehran, despite its realism, may seem filled with common clichés to an Iranian viewer, but for a foreign viewer, an image of an unknown society can appear extremely attractive. The filmmaker's camera attempts to observe a society where violence exists in various layers. Ataeian Dena states that he will add two more parts to this trilogy; a trilogy about violence in Tehran for which he has prepared the screenplay long ago. The Golden Leopard of this festival was awarded to the film "Right Now, Wrong Later" by Hong Sang-soo; a film about cinema and a filmmaker from a country that has introduced an attractive cinema to the world in recent years with prominent filmmakers like Kim Ki-duk: South Korea. The film attempts to describe a filmmaker's world in relation to simple and human events around him; a filmmaker who wants to fill the remaining day until the screening of his film in a city with familiarity and conversation with others, but his acquaintance with a painter woman leads to a romantic relationship; a relationship that, with her confession of having a family, disturbs this woman's mental world. The best director award went to the film "Cosmos" by Andrzej Zulawski, and the best actress award was collectively awarded to the actresses of the film "Happy Hour" from Japan, while the best actor award went to Jung Ji-young from the film "Right Now, Wrong Later." The jury of this year’s festival included Jerry Schatzberg (filmmaker, USA), Udo Kier (actor, Germany), Nadav Lapid (filmmaker, Israel), Daniela Michel (festival director, Mexico), and Moon So-ri (actress, Korea), who awarded their special prize to the film "Tikkun" (meaning "repair" in Hebrew) from Israel: an astonishing film about the concept of faith and sin. The black-and-white images of the film—and its brilliant cinematography, which was also specially mentioned by the judges—create a striking apocalyptic world where human instincts are in conflict with orthodox religious teachings. Dreams and reality blend together to create a profoundly dark film that depicts the challenges of a young Jewish cleric with the concepts of women and sex, ultimately leading to a strange conclusion. The film creates a complete world where religious beliefs become part of the film's universe, and without passing judgment on them, it attempts to share a shocking image of their impact on the life of a young religious person with the audience: the result is a surreal film that simultaneously appears extremely real. The scene of the father's dream, where crocodiles open their mouths to swallow his children—with clear references to religious stories like Abraham and his son—sets the stage for a dreamlike sequence—yet this time real—where a woman collides with cows that this young man has released—a form of religious defiance—and this man, filled with questions and doubts, touches a woman's genitalia for the first time; in a fog that is extremely thick and mysterious, casting a shadow over human life and thoughts.