Houman Seyyedi's drama won the best film and best actor at the Venice Film Festival's Horizons section.
Iran has selected Houman Seyyedi’s anti-totalitarian political drama World War III for submission to the 2023 Academy Awards’ international feature category.
The film was selected by an Iranian government committee to represent the country at the Oscars out of more than 50 submissions that were at first whittled down to 17 and subsequently to five final candidates.
Iran’s selection committee said the decision to pick Seyyedi’s film was “unanimous.”
World War III premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival in Italy and won the Orizzonti Award for Best Film.
The film is about Shakib, a homeless day labourer who never got over the loss of his wife and son in an earthquake years ago.
Over the last couple of years, he has developed a relationship with a deaf and mute woman, Ladan. The construction site on which he works today turns out to be the set of a film about the atrocities committed by Hitler during WWII. Against all odds, he is given a movie role, a house and a chance at being somebody. When Ladan learns about this, she comes to his workplace begging for help. Shakib’s scheme to hide her goes tragically wrong and threatens to ruin his newfound status and what seemed to be the opportunity of a lifetime.
Seyedi in his director’s statement said: “Societies ruled by totalitarian regimes are the most effective creators of anarchists. I’ve always wondered for how much longer there can be tyranny and oppression in the world and who the people are who will be crushed by the powerful rulers of such plagued societies.”
World War III, which Seyyedi co-wrote, directed, edited and produced with financing from an Iranian company called Namava, is the director’s sixth feature. Sales company Iranian Independents is distributing the film internationally
