Rome, 26 October 2024 - 'Reading Lolita in Tehran', by director Eran Riklis and based on the 2003 best seller by Azar Nafisi, is the winner of the 'FS Audience Award', awarded today at the Rome Film Fest. The film was the most voted by viewers out of the18 films competing in the 'Progressive Cinema' category.
Presenting the award, during the official ceremony at the Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone, were the Mayor of Rome Roberto Gualtieri and FS Group's Chief Corporate Affairs and Communication Officer, Giuseppe Inchingolo.
'It is a great pleasure for us at the FS Group to be here on this stage and to present the FS Audience Award to the best film in the Progressive Cinema Category, as voted by the viewers. - said Giuseppe Inchingolo - Once again this year we have renewed our support to the Film Festival, confirming our commitment to all those initiatives that bring an added value to the Country. And the Film Festival, with its extraordinary ability to engage, amaze and be a mirror of our times, is undoubtedly one of them. This is how Ferrovie dello Stato - which have been rooted for over a century in the civil, economic and social fabric of Italy - help people's mobility and the free flow of ideas.'
The FS Italiane Group is once again this year's Official Sponsor of the Rome Film Fest, a partnership that confirms Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane's role as a mobility leader and the Group's constant commitment to art and culture in all its forms.
Up for grabs, for those who expressed their preference in the competition organised by Fondazione Cinema per Roma, 'gift cards' for travel aboard regional and national rail service trains.
'Reading Lolita in Tehran' (107') was filmed between Israel and Italy, and is directed by Eran Riklis (The Syrian Bride, The Garden of Lemons), with Golshifteh Farahani (Paterson, Pirates of the Caribbean) in the title role. An Iranian married couple, she a professor of Anglo-American literature, he a civil engineer, return to Tehran after Khomeini's revolution in 1979. The suitcase of Azar Nafisi, this is the name of the protagonist, is full of books: The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald, Lolita by Nabokov, Daisy Miller by James, Pride and Prejudice by Austen, dangerous masterpieces according to Iranian law. The film is based on Azar Nafisi's best seller and tells of her struggle to convey beauty and culture to students increasingly exposed to Islamic indoctrination. When political and social conditions no longer allow her to do so, Professor Nafisi leaves teaching at the University of Tehran and secretly gathers seven of her most committed students in her home to read Western classics.