Iranian doc filmfest honors French Orientalist De Fouchecour

TEHRAN,Nov. 12 (MNA) -- The Iranian international festival for documentary films, Cinéma Vérité, honored French Orientalist and Hafez expert Charles-Henri de Fouchecour during a ceremony in Tehran on Thursday. Iranian Deputy Culture Minister for Cinematic Affairs Javad Shamaqdari, Documentary and Experimental Film Center (DEFC) Director Shafi Aqamohammadian and several other Iranian officials attended the ceremony. “Majnun”, an Iranian documentary directed by Mohammad-Ali Farsi about De Fouchecour, was screened at the festival. “Maybe, you ask yourself how a stranger, who has reached old age, is at Hafez’s door and puts his head on the earth that will be the shrine of the wisest on the world,” speaking in Persian, De Fouchecour said during the ceremony at the Honar Cultural Center. “We are a variety of different personalities and happy is he who takes the position of sincerity,” he added. “I have spent over 44 years in the study of Persian poetry, I have taught works of many Persian luminaries, but ‘I know not who has slipped into my heart; Though I am silent, one within me weeps’,” De Fouchecour stated. “Mohammad-Ali Farsi revealed excerpts of my life, which were in a silent mode and reflected them on the screen and then, I saw the reality of myself,” he explained. Deputy Culture Minister for Cinematic Affairs Javad Shamaqdari gave De Fouchecour an award from the Cinéma Vérité, which is held annually by DEFC. Due to his illness, Farsi was not able to attend the ceremony. “Tears of Gaza”, a documentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by Norwegian director Vibeke Lokkeberg, was crowned as the best film in the international competition section at the festival. The winners of the national competition section will be announced during the closing ceremony today.