Variety

Iranian filmmaker Farahnaz Sharifi‘s “My Stolen Planet,” an intimate family portrait of life during Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, won the Golden Alexander at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival on Sunday, bringing a close to an emotional and politically charged week in Greece’s second city.

Using both the director’s personal archives and 8mm recordings of strangers’ lives, the film — which world premiered in the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama strand — uses an essayistic style to present the joy and vitality of life in Tehran in the 1970s, in contrast with the oppression imposed on the Iranian people by the country’s hardline regime.

The jury praised “My Stolen Planet” as “a well-crafted and moving first-person essay that brilliantly confirms that every political reality has a sub-reality and that resistance comes in many forms, not least among them in the private realm.”

In a pre-recorded video, Sharifi heralded the award as a “recognition of the people of ‘My Stolen Planet,’ especially Iranian women,” and borrowed a quote from Iranian writer Sepideh Rashnu, who is imprisoned for protesting against state-imposed hijab rules: “The only thing more beautiful than freedom itself is standing and fighting for freedom.” >>>