Z365" or "Festival all year round" is the new strategic point of the Festival in which converge investigation, accompaniment and development of new talents (Ikusmira Berriak, Nest); training and cinematic knowledge transfer (Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, Zinemaldia + Plus, Filmmakers' dialogue); and investigation, disclosure and cinematic thought (Z70 project, Thought and Discussion and Research and publications).
Once upon a time there was a director who had to recite a poem to talk about his country. Mohammad Rasoulof’s third film The White Meadows takes the audience to a landscape somewhere in Iran covered in salt lakes and inhospitable small islands. Armed with a bowl, a funnel and a little jug, Rahmat has been visiting the people living on these islands to collect their tears for many years, without anyone asking him why he does this or what it’s for. On the islands they weep with grief and hand over their tears to him. He collects them, does his best to console them and then leaves.
According to actor Mohammad Shirvani the film is “a bitter poem that the director decided to recite,” while the director explained that he aimed to react to the conditions in Iran that the censors prevented him from showing more explicitly.
Because of the political situation in his country, the director had encountered numerous difficulties when he came to make his film. “Any director who wants to make a film without the help or influence of the government won’t get the permits to do so. That’s why we have basically had to shoot in secret”