Farhadi’s “The Salesman” Receives Best Film Award at Munich Festival

‘The Salesman’ was awarded the €50,000 [$56,300] prize for best international film in the closing ceremony of the 10-day festival.

“The CineMasters Jury unanimously awards the ARRI/OSRAM Award 2016 to The Salesman by Asghar Farhadi. We choose to give the award to a film that we found contemporary and yet universal and, most importantly, an opening to the future. A story that was both thrilling and full of surprises. A film about who we are and could be as human beings. Sooner or later we will have to address the issue of the masculine and feminine aspects of our humanity,” the Jury said in a statement.

“The Salesman presents us with an alternative to the predominant masculine approach of attempting to solve problems with violence and revenge. The beauty we found in the film is that it shows a path towards solutions through the feminine way of thinking and feeling, with an intelligence not only or always of the mind, but also the heart,” the statement added.

Farhadi’s latest flick had recently won Best Actor and Best Screenplay awards in Cannes Film Festival.

Over 200 films from 62 countries were screened in what is Germany’s second-most important cinema industry event after the wintertime Berlinale, held on June 23 to July 2 in the German city of Munich.

In addition to ‘The Salesman’, ‘Avalanche’ by Morteza Farshbaf and ‘Yahya Didn’t Keep Quiet’ by Kaveh Ebrahimpour also participated as International Independents in the festival.

Iranian top actress Fatemeh Motamed Arya who starred in both films was in Munich to present her films in person, Mehr reported.