A merican news and culture paper The Village Voice, has recently introduced a list of the best 25 feature films of 2017 on its website, where Iranian documentary ‘Starless Dreams’ by Mehrdad Oskouei ranks 7th.
“In a rehab center, some girls – most of whom are there for drug-related offenses – gossip, pray, goof off and argue. But the real emotional dynamite comes in Oskouei’s individual interviews with the young inmates who reveal unfathomable depths of shame and self-loathing. We hear his patient voice and see his interactions with the girls; he even buys things for them on occasion,” the website wrote about the film.
The documentary is ranked above films of prominent directors such as ‘The Post’ by Steven Spielberg, ‘Loveless’ by Andrei Zvyagintsev, ‘First They Killed My Father’ by Angelina Julie, ‘Get Out’ by Jordan Peele and ‘The Square’ by Ruben Östlund.
‘My Happy Family’ by Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross, ‘Dunkirk’ by Christopher Nolan and ‘After the Storm’ by Hirokazu Kore-eda have respectively taken the first, second and third places in the list.
A 2016 production, Starless Dreams was screened in the US in January 2017. Participating in numerous international festivals, it has won several awards including the best documentary awards at the 60th British Film Institute London Film Festival and 25th Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival in Arkansas.