Co-directed and co-produced by
Shahab Mihandoust & Ariane Lorrain
58min, colour, DCP, 2018. In Farsi & Lori, with English/French subtitles.
Distributed by Les Films du 3 mars.
Synopsis
Zagros follows the creation of carpets across the Western mountains of Iran, the land of Bakhtiaris. Wool is the guiding thread that traverses nomadic and sedentary cultures, revealing the worlds of weavers, dyers and shepherds through their labour. Carpets weave the social fabric of their lives, giving it form as well as colour. The work is hard, and is gradually being devalued by the outside world - but their lives are redeemed through the love they feel for their traditions.
Zagros, excerpt
BEST CANADIAN SHORT OR MEDIUM-LENGTH FILM: “This is a film about process, a work of art about the creation of art, tracing every stage in the production of an object, through various hands and communities and resulting in something both tangible and culturally transcendent. It also gave us a consistently invaluable perspective on people and a tradition too rarely seen and celebrated on screen, and furthermore one that’s increasingly endangered in today’s age of mass production. We present the jury prize for Canadian short and medium-length to Zagros”
