Interview: Houman Seyyedi & Azad Jafarian – World War III

In anticipation for the upcoming 95th Academy Awards, I chatted with director Houman Seyyedi and screenwriter Azad Jafarian, whose film World War III is Iran’s official submission in consideration for the Best International Feature Category. After premiering at the 2022 Venice Film Festival, where it won Best Film in the Horizons sidebar, the film has garnered a number of awards at various film festivals. Seyyedi and Jafarian discuss how they came together to collaborate on the feature. Seyyedi discusses the filming of key sequences and crafting the lead role for actor Mohsen Tanabandeh.
Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2021: France (Bruno Dumont), Passing (Rebecca Hall) and Nightmare Alley (Guillermo Del Toro). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.
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