ASAK won the Best Short Film Award of 15th ethnocineca - International Documentary Film Festival Vienna

Best Short film Award

WINNER: ASAK,

Mahdi Zamanpour Kiasari | Iran 2019 | 30 Min.

 

The jury has selected one film as the winner of the ISA award: ASAK, 

 

ASAK is a story about human labour and environment. It shows the work of a blind stonemason, Aziz, who goes to the mountains

to find rocks, touches and tastes these rocks carefully to select the right ones, then cracks them loose and brings them home to sculpt the stones into decorative items that are sold on the market. ​On the one hand this is a process film,which shows how a rock is transformed into a commodity through strenuous human labour.

​On the other hand,the process narrative is juxtaposed with scenes of the stonemason's family life: his daughter and grandchildren, who help him, hug him, cook for him, or talk to him on the phone while he is sculpting the stones.

The jury is impressed by the sensory aspects of the storytelling, which translates at a visual, sonic, and haptic level to

show the intimate relation between the stonemason and the rocks.

The textures of stones and face, the tasting and

fondling of the dusty rocks, and the repetitive sound of the hammer – these and other striking sensory elements work

to reveal the corporality of human labour, and its cost.

The immersion in daily life, focusing not on the spectacular but

on the routines of everyday life, translates into a layered portrait of a stone worker and his social, spatial, and material

surroundings. The relation with his daughter raises questions about transgenerational transmission and creates space

for imaginary levels that are larger than humankind - through the integration of dreams and fears told by his daughter

on the phone and signified by the old man