Tajikistan has selected Iranian director Behrouz Sebt Rasoul’s drama Melody as its candidate for the Best International Feature Film category at the 97th Academy Awards.
It marks the second time the central Asian country has chosen the feature to represent it in the Oscar race, after it selected the drama for the 96th edition but missed the deadline for getting all the required material to the Academy.
“It was submitted on time for 97th Academy Awards,” Sebt Rasoul told Deadline via email.
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Combining social drama and mysticism, the film offers a rare cinematic vision of rural life in the mountainous landlocked country, which counts Afghanistan and China among its neighbors.
Diman Zandi stars as the titular Melody who teaches music at a centre for children with cancer. When her students ask her to compose a piece of music using the sound of 30 birds, Melody travels back to her home village to capture their birdsong turning for help to a wise old singer who knows their whereabouts.
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The film is produced by Sebt Rasoul’s Tehran-based Nama Film Company in collaboration with state Tajik broadcaster Safina. France-based Dreamlab Films is handling international sales and distribution.
Melody is Tajikstan’s third Oscar submission to date after Bakhtyar Khudojnazarov’s comedy-drama Luna Papa in 1999, which did not receive a nomination, and Iranian Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s romantic drama Sex & Philosophy in 2005, which was also disqualified after the print failed to arrive in time at the Academy.
The film world premiered at the International Film Festival of India in Goa at the end of last year and has since played at a raft of festivals including Chennai in India, Keswick in London and China’s Silk Road International Film Festival in September, and will screen at the Australian Cinémathèque in Brisbane, Australia in February 2025.