TEHRAN, Oct. 16 (Mehr News Agency) -- The Third Cinema Verite Festival, an Iranian event highlighting documentary films, opened during a ceremony at Tehran's Felestin Cinema on Thursday.

A total of 35 foreign documentaries from 19 countries including Canada, France, Australia, Germany, Italy, Austria, India, Switzerland, and Poland will be competing at the festival.

The event, which runs until October 21, is also slated to screen 76 films by Iranian documentarians.

Last August, 136 Iranian documentary filmmakers announced that they would not participate in the festival in a letter published by the media.

They referred to restrictions imposed on Iranian documetarians covering the unrest following Iran's June presidential election and said, "These conditions make us react perforce... refusing to participate in the festival."

Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Mehrdad Oskuii, Kamran Shirdel, Mohsen Amiryusefi, Mahvash Sheikholeslami, and Mojtab Mirtahmasb were among the filmmakers who signed the letter.

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