Majid Majidi honoured with 'Asian Film Culture Award

Mumbai, Oct 16 (UNI) The Third Eye 5th Asian Film Festival has conferred Iranian director Majid Majidi with the 'Asian Film Culture Award'.

The award is given each year to one of the good movie makers of Asia.

''In just over a decade Majidi has created a gallery of unforgettable characters, be it lovable brother and sister of 'Children of Heaven', sharing a pair of sneakers, a quarrelsome adolescent of 'Baran' who exhibits extraordinary selflessness in easing the burden of a young Afghan refugee,'' said Maithali Rao, a journalist and critic.

''The simplicity of his narrative style is layered with meanings added with a textural richness,'' she said.

The blind boy in 'Colour of Paradise' has an acute sensitivity to life that reaches a spiritual dimension of oneness with nature.

In 'The Willow Tree', the protagonist regains eyesight after 38 years of blindness. Majidi leaves us to ponder over the existential question: ''is what a man sees after regaining sight necessarily more beautiful?'', the journalist said.

Majid has travelled far from the neo realistic path of films to express the spiritual side of his sensibility. His journey has enriched us,'' Ms Rao said.

Majid Majidi was born in a middle class family of Teheran in 1959.

After the Islamic revolution in 1978, his interest in cinema took him to act films. He made his debut as director and screenwriter with 'Baduk' in 1992. The film was presented at the 'Directors Fortnight' in Cannes.

His film 'Children of Heaven' (1997) was nominated for 'Best Foreign Film Academy award and the 'Colour of Paradise' (1999) had been selected as one of the best 10 films of in the year of 2000 by the Time Magazine and the 'Critics Pick of The New York Times'.

He won several awards including the 'Best Award' at the '25th Montreal World Film Festival' and was nominated for the 'Europeon Film Academy Award.

In 2001, during the Afganistan war, he produced 'Barefoot to Herat', an emotional documentary on Afganistan's refugee camps that won the Fipresci Award at Thessaloniki Festival.

In 2005 he directed 'The Willow Tree' that won four awards at the 2005 Fajr Festival in Teheran.

Majid Majidi was also conferred with the Douglas Sirk Award in 2001 and the Amici Vittorio de Sica Award in 2003.

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