The 11th edition of Iran Cinema Celebration proved that it is the most important cinema event in Iran after International Fajr Film Festival, which is held every year at the end of summer and concurrent with the National Cinema Day. Many filmmakers, who have not been successful at Fajr Festival, look forward to this occasion and those who are angry at judgments at Fajr Festival, appreciate this celebration which is held by cinema-related guilds and try to make it a competitive event. There is no doubt that International Fajr Film Festival is still the most important cultural affair of the year due to its background, diversity of sections, internationality, and most importantly, its 10-day period as well as screening of the Iranian and foreign films. The celebration of the Iranian cinema is organized by “House of Cinema” while Fajr Festival is held by “Farabi Cinema Foundation”. Experiences gained in recent years show that important films which have been ignored in final judgments of International Fajr Film Festival, are rated among the most important works in Iran Cinema Celebration. For example, The Crossing (Abolhassan Davoudi) failed to win a major prize from Fajr Festival two years ago, but it was the best film of Iran Cinema Celebration. A year before that, Bahman Qobadi’s Turtles also Fly was not screened in Fajr Festival, but won the main prizes from Iran Cinema Celebration. This did not happen this year just dismiss the wrong mentality that the celebration has taken a different approach to films than that of Fajr Festival. Of course, when it was announced that The Wages of Silence (Maziyar Miri) was candidate for most prizes, it strengthened that notion because The Wages of Silence had not been given any important prizes at Fajr Festival and its director as well as producer had criticized judgments. However, Iran Cinema Celebration also chose Kioumars Pourahmad’s The Night Bus as winner of the best film and the best screenplay. It has also won the best prizes of Fajr Festival along with The Dulcimer Player (Dariush Mehrjui) and Mainline (Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, and Mohsen Abdolvahhab). Dulcimer Player, which was the audience choice of Fajr Festival, was not present in Cinema Celebration because after a long dispute between some prominent members of film producers’ guild association and directors of House of Cinema, the former decided not to send their films to Cinema Celebration.
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