Works for All Tastes

Seyed Javad Rooshan: The subject was the International Committee and Mohammad Atebbaee, the manager of this committee was at the meeting. 
At the beginning of this meeting mohammad atebbaee gave a speech and said: “this committee started its work after the end of the twenty seventh festival and so far 285 works from 41 countries has been sent to the secretary office of the festival. 20 of these works are for to the Theater of Nations section and the rest of them for the International Contest section; and the extent of cooperation has increased considerably compared to the last years.” 
Further in his speech he said: “since now the greatest number of works was for 1384 in which 147 works from 43 countries were sent, and this year we can see a fine participation of the foreign groups.”
Atebbaee added: “35 of the received works from Germany, Australia, Peru, Spain, Ukraine, Italy, Tajikistan, Taiwan, Czech, China, Russia, Switzerland, France, Canada, South Korea, Colombia, Poland, Venezuela, Greece and etc. has been selected for different sections and at least 18 foreign works will participate in the festival. It has been attempted to consider different tastes in this selection and there is a variety in the works; therefore among the works there are classic and modern plays, theater of children, puppet show, street and silent plays and etc. It will be still good if we can fulfill 50 percent of the expectations of the audience because there are different tastes anyway and it is not possible to satisfy all of them; but besides the variety of subjects, we are trying to invite good and professional groups to the festival.” 
About the co-productions he pointed out: “although we wanted to have an independent section for co-productions, so far only the presence of “Shahname”, a co-production of Iran and Germany, has been certain; and we are trying to have a play by Yaser Khaseb in the festival which is a co-production with Brazil.”
He also added about the co-production of Reza Guyan with Holland: “we expressed our interest in the presence of this work in the festival from the beginning but his work seemingly changed and this was not pursued by him anymore. Also, since he is attending another section of the festival and it is not possible for one director to attend to sections at the same time, his co-production could not participate despite out interest.” 
Later in the meeting Atebbaee pointed to the training workshops and specialized meetings of the festival and said: “specialized meetings have always received little attention and the media must try to publicize them properly.”
He added: “since the Theater of Nations section is particularly for Latin American countries, we will have several meetings on the subject of theater in Latin American countries. Also the second round of the theater management workshop and some other training workshops such as teaching clowns and etc will be held this year. It has been attempted to plan the subject of workshops according to the needs of the theater society.”
Atebbaee also pointed to Iran’s Theater Market and said: “this is the first time this plan is being carried out and in 5 days 40 stalls will be opened in Vahdat Hall by Iranian artists and groups to introduce their works. Therefore more than 50 managers of world well-known festivals will attend this market. Apart from the Iranian groups that present their works in this market, we have had conversations with some organizations such as the Realm of Art, Municipality of Tehran, University Theater, Puppet Theater Office, Street Theater, and etc to open stalls and present their works. We have also created conditions under which artists and groups that do not have enough works for a separate stall can present their works in the central stall.”
He announced the publication of two books in the international section and said: “the book of Theater Market with full information about Iranian and foreign groups in the festival and the Annual Book of Iran’s Theater will be published in English at the same time as the festival.”
Atebbaee said: apart from the Jury of the International Contest section, the members of which will be announced soon, an international jury from the Critics Center will judge Iranian works and award their selected work.”
About the presence of the foreign reporters in the festival he said: “we did our best but this matter must follow some regulations and we are not the only decision makers in this case, so we abandoned this attempt.” 
It is worth mentioning that in this meeting a film of 21 candidate plays for the International section was played for the reporters.
The 28th Fadjr International Theater Festival will be held from the 2nd to 11th of Bahman in the current year. (22nd to 31st January)