‘A Separation’ Actor Leila Hatami Wants Wider Range of Iranian Cinema to Find Overseas Release
variety.comNaman Ramachandran Iran’s Leila Hatami, Berlin best actress winner for Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar-winning “A Separation,” has called for a wider range of Iranian cinema to be represented internationally.“More various films should be shown internationally from Iran because usually as everything is commercial, people choose the films which are more touristic [because] it gives you an aspect of the society,” Hatami told Variety. “What I would like is that the art of Iran would be shown more, because you see facts, events, moods in Iran – but you can see that everywhere.
You can see it in the news.” “It’s good to have films about problems of society and such things, but what I appreciate especially is the art of Iranian cinema,” Hatami said. “What has happened internationally usually, you don’t see the best things of a country as you eat, for example, touristic plates, it’s not necessarily the best one, it’s just the famous one.” Hatami added that the Iranian films that go deeper into the country and talk about the people and stress on the human aspect, should gain wider exposure.
The actor said that in addition to the globally well-known auteurs of Iranian cinema, there are many more who are waiting to be discovered but they lack exposure due to lack of international distribution. “Maybe the distributors underestimate people.
And they think they cannot feel it, they cannot understand it. So they don’t present it outside. And they look for some easy food – easy digested food, and not very sophisticated,” Hatami said.
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