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Qantas buys My Tehran for Sale

My Tehran for SaleQantas will show the unofficial Iran/Australia co-production My Tehran for Sale as part of its in-flight entertainment selection from February to April.

Producer Kate Croser told Encore that the film will also screen at pay-TV channel World Movies later this year, and she’s still trying to ‘get it out there’ in spite of the limited opportunities for art house films.

“It’s a very art house film, spoken in a foreign language, and there are less places for those films at the moment. It’s hard to find cinemas in Sydney, but the film will continue to find its way into venues over time,” she said.

My Tehran for Sale premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival last year, and had a limited theatrical release in South Australia, NSW and Tasmania. It received funding from the South Australia Film Corporation and the Adelaide Film Festival Fund. It is spoken mostly in Farsi.

With all these elements, and considering the limited amount of Australian films spoken in a language other than English, why wasn’t it even included for Academy Award consideration alongside Samson & Delilah and Van Diemen’s Land, which official reports said were the only options?

“I don’t know why. We didn’t look into that. It probably had to do with qualifying screenings,” admitted Croser.

But the fact that three non-English films were produced and released the same year might means that Australia’s offering is more diverse than ever.

“The number of films made last year and the number of low-budget films indicates its getting easier for people to tell their stories, and it’s a broader range of films.”

The film recently screened at the Rotterdam Film Festival and had its US premiere at the Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) Global Lens program. A US release is on the cards, through The Global Film Initiative.

A screening at Canberra’s National Film and Sound Archive is also being organised.

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