The public relations of the Visual Arts Center reported that The fourth Photo Festival of FIVE holds at the Museum of Contemporary Arts. On Thursday evening, June 22nd, the festival and commemoration of Abbas Kiarostami was held at the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Tehran. The event started with reading selected poems from the book Wind and Leaf by Abbas Kiarostami. Nazanin Farahani and Armin Deylam read poems in Persian and Italian languages accompanied by the cello performance by Anahita Izadparsa. In a part of the main ramp of the museum, a drawing by Hamid Hadinejad – a painter – was drawn on a five-meter-long canvas. The audience admired and applauded Hamid Hadinejad’s performance on Canvas. It was decided to be donated to the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Tehran. After that, The fourth Photography Festival of “FIVE” and the commemoration of Abbas Kiarostami began in the Cinematheque Hall of the Museum of Contemporary Arts, Tehran. Referring to the efforts that have been made to hold this festival Mahdi Shadizadeh, the secretary of FIVE Photo Festival, said: I hope the cultural department can do its work without debate and controversy. I thank those who stood by the festival and I hope the festival will pursue its way with the existing support. We are trying to keep this festival going without any problems.
Behdad Najafi, painter, photographer, and director of Ragadeid Gallery, also attended the ceremony and read the jury’s statement. Najafi, one of the jury members of the festival, said: Nakafuji, the head of the jury, could not attend the ceremony. Therefore, I will read this text on his behalf. He added: this year’s competition was very competitive and so many good photos made it difficult to choose the best ones. Many photographs were monochromatic and reminded us that photography is the art of light, color, and shadow. In terms of aesthetics, this is considered a subtractive category, therefore, many of the selected photos were monochrome. Some photographs tried to make the real world seem surreal by the influence of surrealism and expressionism schools. Many were surprised that photographers express themselves through photos and not just to document and record. We look forward to seeing photographs in the years to come. It will be hard to choose the best ones. Najafi continued: more than 2700 photos from Iran, Italy, Thailand, France, the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Turkey, Japan, part of South America, etc were sent so the deadline was extended. The difference was that we were not the people before these 2700 photos and this was a great lesson taken. It was a great chance to see 2700 photos from good photographers. This year, another award called the New Look Award is included in the Five Photo Festival, which is devoted to the thoughtful look of photographers. It also announced that the “Golestan Gallery Award” under the title of Lily Golestan will be awarded from now on.
Ali Foroughi, director of DidNegar and a supporter of the festival said: The truth is that I have enjoyed the festival since it started. Many friends sent some interesting photos to the festival. He added: “I considered The DidNegar event as a concept about what I am and what I should do.” Our main goal is to showcase the capabilities of our friends, but empowering people is our mission. I feel that there is a connection between different generations of artists. And I hope those friends who work in the industry of photography feel our concern either. I think art economics is important and necessary for activists to get familiar with this subject.
In the last minutes, Mahdi Shadizadeh, Niki Karimi, Ali Foroughi, Amir Hossein Sediq, Alireza Shadizadeh, Siah Qalam, and KhosroPanah, Adel Heravian, Ebadreza Eslami Kolayi awarded the prizes. The New Look prize refers to the creative perspective of photographers Saeed Rezvanian won this. He has also won the second round of this festival. A Japanese photographer named Chiharu Hari was another winner. Fateme Rouhani from Iran and “Serkan Kulak” from Turkey won the prize for first place in photography. Sajjad Dadpour won The first video art award. Niki Karimi awarded Lily Golestan Award to Mahdi Abbasi. Khosropanah was present at this ceremony at 10:49. He is the director of the cinema art department of Tehran Technical Complex. He presented the award of Tehran Technical Complex. Alireza Kanji, one of the professors of this collection and the judge of the Five Photo Festival, attended the ceremony. Yousef Noorian won The Tehran Technical Complex award.