Mansour Jahani
Keywan Karimi’s second feature film project Do you know anything about Omid? has been selected for La Fabrique Cinéma by Cinema du Monde (CNC), which will take place at Cannes Film Festival 2020. Iranian independent filmmaker Keywan Karimi is one of 10 filmmakers whose projects have been selected for the programme, including individuals from Asia, Africa and South America.
Do you know anything about Omid? is Karimi’s second feature film, and its selection for La Fabrique Cinéma 2020 invites him and 9 other directors to attend Cannes Film Festival, to participate in a schedule of meetings and coaching sessions that will connect them with producers, co-producers, distributers and industry professionals from around the world.
Cinema du Monde, part of CNC, and the entire programme, has been designed to support films and promote the emergence of young creators from outside of Europe. Every year, just 10 projects are chosen from outside Europe to arrive at the stage of production. Cinema du Monde supports each one, and 70% will be finished and presented in the major film festivals.
This year as well as Karimi’s film from Iran, La Fabrique Cinéma is also championing projects from Egypt, Mozambique, Senegal, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Vietnam, Montenegro and the Dominican Republic. Director, actor and producer Rachid Bouchareb has been selected as this year’s Patron of La Fabrique Cinéma, saying on the subject: “My films have addressed issues such as slavery, colonisation, the Vietnam War, World War II and more recently, terrorism. Acting as patron for the Fabrique 2020 program will enable me to discover more contemporary concerns through the projects presented by emerging filmmakers from all over the world.”
Keywan Karimi is a 34 year old Kurdish independent filmmaker from Iran, who has made several short films including Broken Border and Adventure of a Married Couple, both of which have been awarded various prizes in a number of festivals.
His documentary Writing on the City, telling the stories of graffiti on the walls of Tehran, Karimi’s first feature film was his work DRUM, which premiered in the Critics’ Week section of the Venice Film Festival, and received acclaim from both the critics themselves and its audience, with a number of renowned critics writing reviews about this film specifically.
The 73rd Cannes Film Festival has been impacted by the effects of Coronavirus and has been postponed, with a new date still under review. The festival has published two press releases in the last months; Marche du film of the Cannes Film Festival will take place between 22-26 June, in an online format, while the worldwide cinema industry is still waiting for news of the festival itself. The French president Emmanuel Macron has announced that festivals, along with bars and restaurants, are predicted to begin reopening after the 15th July.
For more information, visit the following links:
https://www.lescinemasdumonde.com/en/la-fabrique/2020/projet/do-you-know-anything-about-omid
https://www.lescinemasdumonde.com/en
https://www.lescinemasdumonde.com/fr/la-fabrique/2020/projet/do-you-know-anything-about-omid
https://www.if.institutfrancais.com/fr/actualite/la-fabrique-cinema-2020-et-son-parrain