‘The Last Fiction,’ Promising Animated Feature from Iran

It’s been a while since I’ve written about animation produced in Iran–specifically, April 2004 when I interviewed director Amir Dehestani–so I was delighted to learn about a young Tehran-based commercial studio Hoorakhsh 7th Sky Studio that is producing work with production values a few notches above other animation I’ve seen from that region’s developing animation scene.

Hoorakhsh, which has been around since 2005, is currently developing its first animated feature The Last Fiction, which is based on Persian mythology. They have nearly finished pre-production and storyboarding the film. A trailer on their website (under the Reels section) gives a hint of the polished anime-influenced style they’re working towards. According to an email a friend of mine received, the studio is looking for international co-production partners because they feel “that both the story and the visual style of this project has the potential of being developed and published internationally in order to be shown to the audiences of different cultures.”