Mohammad Rasoulof and Malika Rabahallah

Source: Martin Kunze

Mohammad Rasoulof and Malika Rabahallah

Exiled Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof is to serve as jury president for the International Competition for this year’s Kyiv International Film Festival Molodist, which takes place October 26 – November 3.

Rasoulof will be joined in his deliberations by former Filmfest Hamburg director Albert Wiederspiel, Lithuanian writer-director Marija Kavtaradze, Ukrainian actress Anastasia Karpenko and Ukrainian producer Maxim Asadchiy.

Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig won the Special Jury prize at Cannes and had its German premiere at the beginning of Filmfest Hamburg on September 27.

At Filmfest, Rasoulof took part in an in conversation event with Farzad Pak, producer of Rasoulof’s 2020 Golden Bear winner There Is No Evil, about what it means to make films under a repressive regime and to find ways to achieve artistic freedom.

Earlier this year, Rasoulof fled Iran after being handed an eight-year prison sentence of his ongoing criticism of the country’s regime, and now lives in Germany.

Molodist’s National Feature Film Competition is being staged as a “festival within a festival” during Filmfest Hamburg.

The seven films competing for the festival’s Scythian Deer statuette in Hamburg include Taras Dron’s hypnotic thriller The Glass House, Roman Bondarchuk’s satire The Editorial Office, Maria Stoianova’s documentary Fragments Of Ice, and Maryna Vroda’s Golden Leopard winner Stepne.

The artistic director of Kyiv’s Molodist festival is Andriy Khalpakhchi.