Report by Mehr News Agency, Tehran; photos by Azin Haghighi, Mehr News Agency

The 7th Image of the Year Ceremony announced winners during the closing ceremony at the Iranian Artists Forum on Friday.  The event was performed by cameraman Mahmud Kalari and photographer Seifollah Samadian.

1673 artists submitted entries to the secretariat of the gala out of which 830 works were selected, Samadian mentioned during the ceremony.

In the film section, more than 400 films were submitted in the youth and free categories of the festival out of which 255 films were selected, he mentioned.

Entitled the Image of an Artist, the documentary film festival was held on the sidelines of the Image of the Year Ceremony.

Abbas Kiarostami's "Shirin" opened the festival which was considered to be the movie's first public premiere in Iran. It was followed by a review session with Kiarostami, crew member Mohammadreza Delpak, and film critics Ahmad Talebinejad and Javad Tusi.

"Despite the opinion of those who think that culture should be a part of politics, politics is considered to be a part of culture; and due to the recent social and political conditions in Iran, we do not have any sponsorship," he lamented.

Recently deceased photographers Bahman Jalali and Abutaleb Emam were honored during the ceremony.

After that, the winners of each category were awarded with the Mohsen Rasulof Award as follows:

Best Social Documentary Photo Award: Saeid Ameri

Best Sports Photo Award: Vahid Sohrabi

Best Press Photo Award: No work deserved the prize for this section.

Best Art and Artists Photo Award: Avideh Najafi

Best Photographer from Photographers' View Photo Award: Mona Hubefekr

Best Creative Photo (Other View) Award: Ghazaleh Ghazanfari

In the cartoon section, the jury members Kambiz Derambakhsh, Hassan Karimzadeh and Hadi Heydari selected Hossein Yuzbashi as the winner of the section.

Mehdi Mokhtari was selected as the winner of the Graphic Design Section by the jury members Firuz Shafei, Saed Meshki and Maryam Khansari.

The Youth Category of the film festival was judge by Farzad Motamen, Hamid Jebeli, Morteza Pursamadi, Turaj Aslani and Shahram Mokri.

"Everything is in its Place" by Milad Sabetkar was selected as the Best Feature Film and "Arrow" by Mohammad Javad Qasempur was chosen Best Short Film.
 

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