The Eighth Tajikistan International Film Festival, Didor 2018, is taking place in Dushanbe from October 16 through October 20.
A ceremony of an official opening of the festival is being held today.
The Swiss Cooperation Office in Tajikistan and the Open Society Institute/Assistance Foundation in Tajikistan (OSI/AF-Tajikistan) have provided financial support for the Didor 2018 festival.
The international jury members include Peter Scarlet from the unites States, Diana Ashimova from Kazakhstan and Daniel Zust from Switzerland.
This year, filmmakers from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Mongolia, Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan have presented their works to audience and the festival jury.
In all, 70 movies have been selected to be shown during the Didor Festival in Dushanbe this year.
It is to be noted that only feature and short films as well animated cartoons will participate in this year’s Festival.
A parallel program is expected to include a roundtable.
The Eighth Tajikistan International Film Festival, Didor 2018, is dedicated to the memory of well-known Tajik filmmaker Tohir Sobirov.
Tohir Sobirov (December 21, 1929 – May 30, 2002) is a Tajik film director, actor, screenwriter, art director, and one of the most notable figures of the Tajik cinema. He is known as the "founding father" of the One Thousand and One Nights dynasty of the film industry due to his creation of the 'Scheherazade' trilogy.
His first film, "Roh" (1955) produced by Mosfilm initiated him into the film industry, but the role of Yodgor in "Dokhunda" (1956) sparked his career and was followed by several successful roles. His directorial debut was in "Vaqti Zangirii Pisar Rasid" (1959), which was the first comedy musical motion picture in the Cinema of Tajikistan. His film "Margi Sudkhur" (1966) was nominated at the International Film Festival of Asia and Africa in 1968.
His trilogy of "New Tales of Scheherazade", "Another Night of Scheherazade" and The Last Night of Scheherazade that were based on the Arabic folktale One Thousand and One Nights had made a great impact in the Cinema of Tajikistan by opening it to European audiences and borders. The Scheherazade trilogies were among one of the first Tajik film productions that achieved distribution beyond Russian (former USSR) borders, placing Tajik film on the map of International Film Festivals.
In 1999, he was part of the judging committee in the 21st (XXI) Moscow International Film Festival. He became the first Tajik film director to be honored with the position of a film judge. In 2002, he was an honorary guest at the 55th (LV) Cannes Film Festival.
The First Tajikistan International Film Festival, Didor, was held in October 2004 and the upcoming festival’s program furthers the concept of the first Didor festival, which was intended to be a cultural bridge between eastern and western cultures and remove any critical attitudes of the West to the East and vice versa.
