Edinburgh Film Festival Review: Hassan Nazer’s ‘Winners’

An Oscar statue goes lacking in Hassan Nazer’s amiable characteristic Winners, which had its world premiere on the Edinburgh Worldwide Movie Pageant.

After the Oscar is inadvertently left in a taxi in Iran, the prize is distributed to the submit workplace, the place it’s as soon as once more misplaced by a well-meaning postal employee. Whereas he insists that it will need to have fallen out of his automobile in a rural location, the authorities insist that the person is detained, assuming theft, till the statue is situated. And so there’s a ripple of urgency operating by this in any other case gently paced comedy-drama.

It’s no spoiler to disclose that the Oscar results in the arms of two kids: nine-year-old Yahya and his buddy Leyla. We’re let in on their secret as they cover the “doll” from their buddies and, amusingly, put it in a costume to protect its modesty (“It’s so Leyla received’t see him bare,” explains the boy). Their efforts to promote the discover are thwarted: such gadgets are of no use to the locals.

Because the identification of sure townspeople is revealed, this statue turns into symbolic of the chasm between them and the movie business at giant. One, Naser Khan (The Track of Sparrows’ Reza Naji), is a recluse who was as soon as made well-known by his function in an award-winning film. He curses the day he took the half, claiming that fame made everybody anticipate him to be beneficiant together with his presumed wealth — however he wasn’t even paid for the movie. In a nod to actor Naji’s real-life accomplishments, a Silver Bear lurks in a field in his humble house, together with previous classics like Cinema Paradiso and Taxi Driver. The mortgage of those movies fuels Yahya’s love for cinema — one thing his mom strongly discourages.

On the one hand, Winners, from Scotland-based Iranian Nazer, is an ode to cinema and the thrill it brings, and it additionally pays tribute to the nice achievements of Iranian filmmakers, dedicating the work to Abbas Kiarostami, Asghar Farhadi, Majid Maijdi and Jafar Panahi.

But it surely additionally highlights the distinction between movie pageant plaudits and actual life: what the forged and crew are left with as soon as the celebration’s over. This sense of self consciousness will increase in the course of the film’s meta conclusion — however the general tone stays genial and upbeat. Winners might not have Oscar potential itself, but it surely’s more likely to win over audiences and depart them with a smile.