Zar Amir Ebrahimi Bags Göteborg Market Award for Debut Pic ‘Honor of Persia,’ Miia Tervo Wins for Comedy Drama ‘You Crazy Thing’

variety.com:

Göteborg Film Festival, a new section connecting international features to Nordic partners, “Honor of Persia,” the solo directing debut of French-Iranian actor Zar Amir Ebrahimi, was handed Jan.

30 the inaugural Tint Post-Production Award worth SEK 400,000 ($36,600). Inspired by the Cannes-winning actor of “Holy Spider”’s personal experience, the story co-written by Ebrahimi with Mahmoud Chokrollahi, turns on Ava Rad, a beloved star of Iranian TV and cinema adored by the religious Guardians of the Islamic Revolution and Iran’s cultural elite. “When an old explicit tape of her is leaked, the woman starts a descent into hell,” reads the logline.

During her moving pitch to a crowd of industry delegates at Göteborg’s Nordic Film Market, Ebrahimi opened up about the genesis of the project and the urgency for her to bring it to the screens. “In 2005, I was well-known in Iran, acting in movies and popular shows.

Then I found myself in the center of a scandal, with my life torn into pieces after a personal sex tape was leaked – in a society caught between Quranic moral values and modern life in the age of the internet,” she recalled.