Iran has submitted Reza Mirkarimi’s The Night Guardian for Best International Film category at the 96th Academy Awards, in a move that will likely prompt pushback from the country’s dissident film community.
A press release announcing the selection said the film had been selected by the government-controlled Farabi Cinema Foundation from three short-listed titles which also included Omid Shams’s Conjugal Visit and Ali Hazrati’s The Town.
The drama stars Touraj Alvand as the story of a rural worker forced to move to the city where he ekes out a living on the streets.
The announcement coincides with the first anniversary of the Woman Life Freedom protests provoked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022 after being held in police custody for not wearing her veil correctly.
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