The Iranian thriller World War III directed by Houman Seyyedi has been selected as Iran’s entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards.

Parviz Sheikh Tadi, the speaker and a member of the committee in charge of introducing Iranian films to the 95th Academy Awards, has stated, “After holding numerous sessions and evaluating 57 movies entering the first stage, the selection committee picked out 17 films for further revisions and evaluations, finally to choose five of them as final candidates.”

“Hadi Hejazi’s ‘The Situation of Mehdi’, Mohammad Kheyrandish’s ‘Dolphin Boy’, Behrooz Shoeibi’s ‘No Prior Appointment’, Mani Haghighi’s ‘Subtraction’, and Houman Seyyedi’s ‘World War III’ were the five finalists for representing Iran in 2023 Academy Awards.”

World War III premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival where the film won Orizzonti Award for Best Actor and Orizzonti Award for Best Film. The film stars Mohsen Tanabandeh, Mahsa Hejazi, Neda Jebraeili and Navid Nosrati.

In the film, Mohsen Tanabandeh stars as Shakib, a homeless day laborer who never got over the loss of his wife and son in an earthquake years ago. Over the last couple of years, he has developed a relationship with a deaf and mute woman, Ladan played by Mahsa Hejazi. The construction site on which he works today turns out to be the set of a film about the atrocities committed by Hitler during WWII. Against all odds, he is given a movie role, a house and a chance at being somebody. When Ladan learns about this, she comes to his workplace begging for help. Shakib’s scheme to hide her goes tragically wrong and threatens to ruin his newfound status and what seemed to be the opportunity of a lifetime.