3rd annual Avini Awards for Iranian film - winners

The ceremony for the third edition of the Avini Awards took place Tuesday at the Andisheh Hall of the Art Bureau in Tehran. The awards were created by the Documentary and Experimental Film Centre (DEFC) in memory of documentary filmmaker Morteza Avini. He is considered a martyr, having been killed by a landmine during a 1993 trip to the former Iran-Iraq war zone to make a documentary project about soldiers listed as missing in action. He was renowned for chronicling the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war that Iranians call "Sacred Defense."

The main winners of the evening were Mash Esmaeil by Mehdi Zamanipur, Taman Khala by Ali Delkari, On the Shoulder of the Sky by Ahmad Janmirzaii, and Murtaza Ali Abbas Mirzaei's The Narration of Sign.

A Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Ebrahim Hatamikia, whose films include The Glass Agency and The Red Ribbon. Hatamikia was also one of the Sacred Defense veterans honoured during the cerenomy. The other honourees were the Director of the Art and Literature Department of the Art Bureau Morteza Sarhangi, Production Manager of Avini’s documentaries Asghar Bakhtiari, former director of the Institute for the Narration of Triumph Mehdi Homayunfar, and Iranian eulogist Sadeq Ahangaran.

Hatamikia spoke about the recent arrests of six filmmakers. “The documentary filmmakers might have been arrested for their infringement of law and need to be punished, but I request the security officials to treat them with respectful Islamic manners. I know them, we filmmakers are very fragile,” he said - which was probably as much as he could say without getting himself into trouble too. He added “There are a lot of problems in the field of filmmaking especially in documentary. People are well aware of my strong stance against foreign festivals, BBC, and other networks working against the Islamic Revolution.”

The selection committee and jury members were Bahman Habashi, Mohammad Davoodi, Jahangir Khosrowshahi, M. Dalai and Vahid Chavosh.

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Complete list of winners for the 3rd annual Avini Awards

Best Research
1st (Trophy and 5 Golden Coins): Amir Lashgari
2nd (Trophy and 2 Golden Coins): Arvin Blossom

Best Social Documentary
1st (Trophy and 7 Golden Coins): Taman Khala, Ali Delkari
2nd (Trophy and 5 Golden Coins): Used To,  Professor Mohsen Ali
3rd (Trophy and 5 Golden Coins): My Hero, Ali Khosravi

Best War Documentary
1st (Trophy and 10 Golden Coins): Mash Esmaeil, Mehdi Zamanipur
2nd (Trophy and 2 Golden Coins) - TIE: The Water Limpidity, Brkhda Rezai; Look Back, Sattar Chamani
3rd (Trophy and 1 Golden Coin), Naqi Mesh, Seyed Mohammad Hossein Hashemi

Best Biographical Documentary
1st (Trophy and 7 Golden Coins): On the Shoulder of the Sky, Ahmad Janmirzaii
2nd (Trophy and 4 Golden Coins) - TIE: Teacher,  Mohammad Ali Farsi; Desert Lion,  Rezai Brkhda

Best Resistance Documentary
1st place (Trophy and 7 Golden Coins): The Narration of Sign, Murtaza Ali Abbas Mirzaei
2nd place (Trophy and 4 Golden Coins) - TIE: Children of Heaven,  Seyyed Ruhollah Hosseini; Address, Siamak Kashef Azar, Majid Esmaeili; His Soul, Reza Sobhani

Best Political Documentary
1st (Trophy and 5 Golden Coins) - TIE: Radio Job Passion, Mohammad Hossein Ghassemi & Aboutalebi Salman; Green, White, Red, Mohammadreza Hashemian; Black Box,  Mohammadreza Eslamlu

Lifetime Achievement
Ebrahim Hatamikia