Tehran International Short Film Festival

In the Name of the Greatest of all Artists, the Loving God
To all friends, folks and appreciators of art from all over the world, we would like to welcome you with the greatest esteem to join us in celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Tehran International Short Film Festival by contributing your works, all of which shall be registered and processed free of charge. It is with great honor to announce that our festival is the world’s only Academy Awards® (Oscars) Qualifying International Short Film Festival with no entry fee.
The number forty is considered the age of wisdom and recognition of truth; likewise, we too take our festival’s 40th anniversary as a good omen and a sign of restoration and revival that shall be heard throughout the cosmos. Like spring, we welcome every sound, color, light, and image that seeks the excellence of wisdom, love, life, mindfulness, truth, and beauty; and like spring, we turn a blind eye to every sound, color, light and image that promotes oppression, fear and deception, attachment, slavery and totalitarianism. This is to ensure that we witness a new way of life and a new human being, and how right was the Persian poet, Hafez, when he said:
’Tis the time to usher in a new world with new souls…
This year’s festival includes two new awards – “The Truth-seekers Award” and “The Silk Road Award” – in addition to the previous awards i.e. the Grand Prize, whose winner is eligible for the Oscars, and awards for best movie, best documentary, and best experimental and animated films. There will also be events with a focus on science, culture and arts with new and diverse approaches.

The Tehran International Short Film Festival has been held for 40 consecutive years in Iran, by the Iranian Youth Cinema Society – one of the most renowned schools of cinema and short film production in Iran and throughout the world.
With more than 80 branches across the country and a family of 250 thousand graduates, the Iranian Youth Cinema Society has gone through excellent educational and effective filmmaking courses, producing hundreds of short films every year and winning hundreds of awards from prestigious and prominent international film festivals in the past four decades. Many of its graduates rank among the top celebrated filmmakers of both Iran and the world.
With a new approach to both the Iranian Youth Cinema Society and its festival, we are honored to announce that we are ready to receive foreign students into our courses for theoretical and practical filmmaking as well as to extend our relations with different countries and creative filmmakers worldwide. We also look forward to having joint international endeavors in producing and distributing short films and holding regional and global film markets.

New awards with their themes and subjects introduced and presented at the 40th Tehran International Short Film Festival:

The Truth-seekers Award ($2,000 Cash Prize)
This award is to honor the endeavor, sacrifice and bravery of those filmmakers who, among the enticing glamour of most of today’s media, strive to seek and convey the truth.
It is an attempt to seek the true manifestations of a heavenly heritage like Islam which has been defamed and distorted by totalitarian media corporations that incorporate lies and techniques of deception to hide from the public eye the beautiful wisdom of life and love that constitute the essence of the human being.
It is an attempt to honor endeavors that seek to dispel fears of divinity, especially with a focus on Islamophobia; it is an attempt to honor a movement against the false depictions and disdainful characterizations of nations, kinfolk, and divine religions.
It is an award for:
– New discoveries that shed light on forgotten truths and introducing truth-seekers throughout history, religions, and anthropology.
– Illuminating the world with hope and promoting peace and reconciliation instead of war and violence.
– Reviving notions of fraternity, justice, and fairness among nations.
– Reviving the status of women and the family and raising awareness on future threats against humanity.
– Attempts to break the emotional barriers set between humans and the truth and the loyalty towards a natural inner calling.
– Confronting neocolonialism, challenging the imposition of dominant cultures on other nations, and opposing the scorning of independent cultures.
– Criticizing dishonest acts and the double-standards of some politicians towards people.
2. The Silk Road Award ($1,000 Cash Prize)
The Silk Road has long been a major platform for promoting cultural and human interactions that have manifested into a sort of common heritage among the residents of 300 cities and 73 countries. In consideration of its illustrious historical role of establishing rich and stable connections, be it cultural, political, economic, or religious, among the many civilizations, nations, and governments that have come and gone throughout the region in the course of time, as well as recent considerations for the revival of this road, it is quite evident that the Silk Road is strategically imperative for the success of international cooperation in various areas of activity. Accordingly, the Tehran International Short Film Festival, on the brink of its 40th anniversary and with new courses of action undertaken, has put on its agenda a new outlook on the cultural and economic opportunities of this facilitative road, as a sign of a long-enduring relationship between the two civilizations of the east and the west.
The Silk Road Award honors outstanding merits in the film industry that seek to represent the evident and hidden capacities and heritage of the Silk Road as a prosperous motif of:
Sustainable and comprehensive development, peaceful coexistence, ethnical cohesion, consolidation of civilian relations, national integrity, interfaith dialogue, religious tolerance, promulgator of peace and fraternity among individuals, ethnicities, and nations, retainer of individual and group rights and properties, compliance with neighborly rights, fair trade, generative economy and collective production of wealth, cultural diplomacy, and mutual respect for other cultures and native or national values.

TISFF is organized by the Iranian Youth Cinema Society (IYCS). Iranian Youth Cinema Society (IYCS) is an independent educational film organization which has been established over 40 years ago. IYCS is associated with the Iranian Ministry of Culture and has 70 branch offices around the country.

Activities of IYCS are in 3 fields:
1- Management of short film festivals.
2- IYCS is one of the oldest film schools in the country and perhaps in the world with more than 70 branch offices all around the country. It educates youth in compacted one-year film courses.
3- Production and distribution of short films.