"We want to shine a light on refugee children and the struggles that they have," Panta Mosleh, a Kurdish producer from Iran's central Kermanshah province, told Rudaw's Payam Sarbast.
Mosleh and Iranian-Canadian screenwriter Alireza Kazemipour were awarded for their short film Hatch about a child and his mother fleeing their home inside a water tanker. The film also portrays the lingering trauma the child refugee faces as an adult in Canada.
Kazemipour said that they dedicated the award to "all refugee kids displaced and stateless kids of the Middle East."
She described the Iranian film industry as not very "independent" and said that it becomes "tougher and harder each year” to produce films.
Mosleh said it is important to bring Iranian stories to international audiences.
"Now is the time to really shine stories on Iranians, the situation happening there, people's lives, people's stories. Now is the time to tell our stories. We have been underrepresented for far too long," she said.
Mosleh also expressed her excitement about speaking to a Kurdish network at the festival. "We're very happy to be here, and especially talking to a Kurdish network because I am Kurdish," she said.
There are more than 8,000 Iranian refugees in the Kurdistan Region, according to data from the government’s Joint Crisis Coordination Center in May 2023. Many of these refugees are political dissidents from western Iran (Rojhelat).
Iranians are also among the thousands of people who make the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.
