Iran’s ‘Orange Days’ wins big at Germany Mannheim-Heidelberg festival

Lahooti’s film received the Grand Newcomer Award, the main award of the festival, the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and the Prize of the Jury of International Film Critics (Fipresci).

Iranian actor Ali Mosaffa received the awards on behalf of the film’s cast.

‘Orange Days’ tells the story of a woman named Aban, the only female contractor in the cutthroat and male-dominated orange harvesting industry, who enters a competition to win a large contract. She wins the deal putting her own house at risk by using it as security. Now, she leads a group of female workers who work for her on a large harvest. Her efforts of staying strong in this male-dominated society remain futile while anyone involved in her story including her husband tries to fail her.

The Iranian film has already taken part at several international film festivals, including 16th TOFIFEST International Film Festival in Poland, the 19th Calgary International Film Festival in Canada, 2018 Zurich Film Festival in Switzerland, 42nd São Paulo International Film Festival in Brazil, and the 43rd Toronto International Film Festival.

The cast includes famed Iranian actor Ali Mosaffa and actress Hediyeh Tehrani as well as Mehran Ahmadi.

The Mannheim-Heidelberg Talent Award went to ‘The Fireflies Are Gone’ by Sébastien Pilote from Canada, the Special Jury Prize to actor Christian Malheiros in the Brazilian feature film ‘Socrates’ by Alex Moratto. The winner of the Audience Award was the opening film of the festival, the French-Moroccan co-production ‘Tazzeka’ by Jean-Philippe Gaud.

The festival specializes in new directing talents of artistically demanding film. In the two main sections International Newcomer Competition and International Newcomer Discoveries as well as a children’s film section and special screenings, the festival showed 55 films, of which 23 were premieres.

The 67th edition of the festival was held took place from November 15 to 25.