January 06, 2007	Saturday	Zilhaj 15, 1427

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LAHORE, Jan 5: The National College of Arts in collaboration with the Iranian Culture Centre is organising a three-day film festival which began with the screening of Range Khuda at the Shakir Ali Auditorium here on Friday.

The formal opening of the festival is being held on Saturday (today) in which internationally acclaimed Iranian director Majid Majidi’s films will be screened. The director will himself be present at the opening for which he will specially arrive Lahore from Iran.

The films which will be screened during the festival are: Range Khuda, Buchaey Asman, Pider, Baran and Bayd-i-Majnoon, all of which have been directed by Majidi.

Born in Tehran in 1959, Majidi was raised in a middle-class family and he developed an interest in theatre in his early teens, and began performing with a group of amateur players at the age of 14. While studying theatre at the Tehran’s Institute of Dramatic Arts, Majidi started taking interest in film-making which grew when he began winning small roles in local film productions. His first screen role to gain any significant notice outside of Iran was in the 1986 drama, Boycott, and shortly after his acting career began to take flight, he moved over to director’s chair.

Baduk (1992) was his first feature film and it began to earn the film-maker a reputation in the west. In 1996, Pedar became Majidi’s real breakthrough which received awards at a number of international film festivals and found distribution in nations not known to screen Iranian films.