Pelan #44: Iranian Pet Club
- Director: Hadi Afarideh
- Screening: July 26, 2020, 7 p.m.
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- Cloud video Screening via Zoom
- Run time: 60
Keeping pets such as dogs or cats in Iran is challenged by various religious and traditional beliefs, and municipalities collect and kill urban dogs in an organized way.
In the last decade, keeping special pets such as snakes, tarantulas, alligators, monkeys, and even scorpions has become very common in Iranian houses. Unlike domestic pets such as dogs, these animals do not need to go outside the house and they are kept in the closed apartment spaces. Due to the increasing demand for buying various pets, a large underground network has been created to buy and sell animals, and keeping pets has become a strong culture and economy in Iran.
“Iranian Pet Club” provides a surprising insight into Iranian society and reveals that the affection for animals is something deeply human. Hadi Afarideh's documentary film is a tribute to pets and their owners who slowly continue their triumph against strict laws and religious beliefs of purity.
More about film:
Camera Operator: Reza Teimoori
Editor: Babak Bahrambeigi
Sound Recordist: Shahim Poordadashi
Sound Designing and Mixing: Mehrshad Malakooti
Music Composer: Hamidreza Afarideh
Production Manager: A’zam Sadeqi Monfared
Colour and Light: Reza Teimoori
Producer: Hadi Afarideh
Production: DEFC(Documentary and Experimental Film Center)
Full HD (1080), ST./60Mins, 16/9, Color 2018
Screenings:
Berlinale, Festival de Sofia, Festival Balkan Trafik, Festival International du Film de La Rochelle, Festival de Séville, Underhill Fest, Festival de Douarnenez, Festival de Sakhaline, Message to Man, Saint-Pétersbourg, Aljazeera Balkans Documentary Film Festival, Festival International Jean Rouch, Cineuropa, Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle, Festival du Film d’Europe Centrale et Orientale, Festival International du Film Francophone de Namur, Stockholm International Film Festival, Escales Documentaires, Festival Premiers Plans, Festival Repérages, Festival Passagers du réel, Festival Femmes en Cinéma, Festival2Valenciennes.
Director’s statement:
The way individuals in every society treat the animals indicates the growth of culture and social understanding in that society.
Sadly, animals do not have a good living condition in Iran today, and they are subject to torture and harm, beating, keeping in captivity, mutilation, sexual harassment, unlicensed scientific experiments, training for performance, in various ways and with various excuses.
By portraying a small glimpse on the animals’ living condition in Iran, the documentary Iranian Pet Club tries to attract attention to the way the animals live at the domestic and international levels.
The general approach of Iranian Pet Club is to record the reality that is present in today’s Iranian culture and society, and by depicting those conditions, I try to change the living condition of the animals and society’s general culture and also the way the government deals with animals.
The draft of the bill to ban hurting animals in Iran has been compiled many years ago by the animals’ supporters and has been sent by Iran Ministry of Justice to Iran Islamic Consultative Assembly to be passed as a law but the parliament has not taken any action whatsoever to protect the animals in Iran yet.
About Director:
Hadi Afarideh was born in Tehran, Iran in 1984. He started his art career in theatre in 1998 and in cinema in 2001 in Iranian Youth Cinema Society where he graduated with high grades. He was chosen the best documentary filmmaker in the first specialised workshops of documentary filmmaking in Iran by Documentary and Experimental Film Centre and Iranian Documentary Filmmakers Association in 2006.
Hadi Afarideh has participated in more than 140 Iranian and international festivals and won various awards for the directing, writing, and research of his three short films: Orange, Whistle, Father, and 19 documentaries Baghchehban Children, Under Pine Trees, Ceremony at Dawn, Gordafarid Story, Memory of Nei Avaran, Pale Childhood, Nozood, Veteran Rider, Nowruz Melody, Soorat Khani, Plain Grove, Offer, Nowruz Tehran Time, Lost Orchards, Paradises of Imagination, In Tehran Style, Ofus, Oblivion Migration.
Some of the documentaries made by Afarideh have been screened in renowned universities such as UCLA, Dutch Anthropology Society, and international television channels such as the BBC.
At present, he is teaching cinema direction and holding documentary filmmaking classes in Iranian Youth Cinema Society and Iranian Contemporary Arts Academy and he organises documentary filmmaking workshops.
Hadi Afarideh in juries and selection teams:
Manager of research group and member of the selection team in Bagh Ferdows Cultural and Film Festival in Iranian Cinema Museum, 2008
Selection team member in 12th Iranian Cinema Grand Feast, 2008
Jury member in 2nd Ashura Film Image Festival, 2008
Jury member in 1st Zabul Short Film Festival, 2010
Selection team member in 1st Standard Image Film Festival, 2010
Selection team member in 9th Annual Image Feast and Artist Image Film Festival, 2011
Selection team member in 1st Filmmaking Olympiad in Esfahan Children and Adolescents Festival, 2015
Jury member in 8th Ministry of Health and Hygiene Cinema Festival, 2016
Member of academy jury of sciences and techniques of the arts in the Iranian Cinema in Cinema House, 2017
Selection team member in 34th Tehran International Short Films Festival, 2017
He has also been the public relations manager of Iranian Short Film Association in 2009 and member of the board of directors of Iranian Documentary Filmmakers Association in 2013 and 2014.
At present, he is a member of Iranian Documentary Filmmakers Association and Iranian Short Film Association (ISFA).
Filmography:
Documentaries: Iranian Pet Club, Ofus, Oblivion Migration, In Tehran Style, Paradises of Imagination, Lost Orchards, Nowruz Tehran Time, Offer, Plain Grove, Soorat Khani, Nowruz Melody, Nozood, Veteran Rider, Forgotten Tree, Pale Childhood, Memory of Nei Avaran, Gordafarid Story, Ceremony at Dawn, Under Pine Trees, Baghchehban Children