Acclaimed Iranian documentary maker Mehrdad Oskoui attended a workshop in the 9th Varesh International Film Festival in northern city of Babol in Mazandaran Province.
Addressing a workshop dubbed the “Beginning and Ending in Documentaries”, Oskoui said a documentary filmmaker should peruse a purpose and introduce the film’s characters.
He added that the starting point for the documentary is when the filmmaker enters the process of filmmaking and answers the question "Who am I?"
“If a documentary filmmaker does not recognize himself, hence does not recognize the correctness of his characters, and what he/she produces is a set of characters that are only attractive on the paper,” Oskoui added.
Oskoui, a Cinema Directing graduate, has won numerous awards in national and international festivals. He was titled the world’s cultural figure of the year by Netherlands Prince Clause cultural entity in 2010 and the world’s best documentary filmmaker by America’s True/False Film Festival in 2016. He is also a cultural ambassador in United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Oskoui has won many creditable awards including the trophy and award of 60th London Film Festival (BFI), Amnesty International Award of 65th Berlin Film Festival, trophy of Netherlands IDFA Festival, big award of the jury in 19th America Film Frame Festival, the trophy for the best film in Canada Hot Docs Festival, the Golden Dragon trophy for the best film in Poland Krakow Film Festival, award for the best documentary in Munich Film Festival, big award of Montreal Documentary Film Festival and so forth.
The film festival of six Caspian Sea littoral states opened on Monday (April 29) in Babol in presence of a number of cultural officials and cultural figures.
Republic of Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Iran are the international competitors of the film festival known as Varesh.
The 9th Varesh International Film Festival will run from April 29 to May 3.