Back in December 2022, Nina spoke to Nassan Hazer about his touching film Winners. The story is inspired by Asghar Farhadi's win for The Salesman at the time of U.S. president Donald Trump's anti-Muslim travel ban and how the statuette was shipped through different hands to Iran, finally ending in the hands of the winning filmmaker.
Winners features an Oscar statuette that goes missing inside a Tehran taxi, only to find its way to the hands of film-obsessed nine-year-old Yahya and his best friend Leyla. Yahya even dresses the statuette for the sake of Leyla and when Yahya’s boss Nazer Khan (played by Berlinale winning actor Reza Naji) gets involved in trying to find the Oscar's rightful owner, the film turns into a tribute to the power of cinema.
The film was the UK entry to this year's Best International Film Oscar race and has been touted by the UK media as a quiet masterpiece, in our opinion a grand idea that comes wrapped within a small, soft spoken package. Everything that is right about indie cinema and should be supported in order to keep the entertainment landscape diverse and exciting.
Now Winners is finally being distributed in UK cinemas starting on Friday the 17th, distributed by Modern Films, and to mark the occasion, there is also a new trailer and poster which have been released.
Mark your calendars and make sure you watch this gem in a theater, surrounded by the kind of energy that only live audiences can transmit.
