Farhadi finds passion of young cinema lovers striking in India

Mumbai, March 21 (IANS) Oscar winning Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi is hopeful about the future of Indian cinema as he finds the passion of young cinema lovers in the country very striking.

Farhadi's latest Academy Award winning movie "The Salesman" is due to release in India on March 31.

A special pre-release screening of the movie was organised here on Monday by Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI), where Smriti Kiran, Creative Director of Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, shared a special message from Farhadi for the audience in India.

The message reads: "I've been to India several times and I've been to the Mumbai film festival. What I find really striking in India is the passion of the young cinema lovers. They pursue cinema in a very serious way. They are very passionate and I am very hopeful about the future of Indian cinema.

"I receive many messages, emails, letters from Indian cinema lovers. It's something that I find very comforting and I see that their insight and relationship with cinema is very important and very vivid."

This message was shared with Kiran when she was attending an event called Qumra, organised by the Doha Film Institute earlier this month. Farhadi was one of the masters at the event, and he shared the message as part of a Skype interview for Indian fans, read a statement.

The screening of "The Salesman" was attended by names like Anurag Kashyap, Alankrita Shrivastava, Guneet Amarpreet Kaur, Shlok Sharma, Vicky Kaushal, Rajshri Deshpande, Aamir Bashir and Patralekha.

Producer Sunil Doshi is launching his label Sunil Doshi Presents with "The Salesman".