Filmmaker Nasser Taqvai, famous for his TV series “My Uncle Napoleon” (1976), was honored for his lifetime achievements during a ceremony held in the Film Museum of Iran on Saturday.

The ceremony was followed by screening Taqvai’s short film “Greek Ship” (1998) and two documentaries “Tazieh” and “Last Rehearsal” both produced in 2004, Persian media reported on Sunday.

Taqvai directed the two documentaries, which were submitted to UNESCO along with Iran’s documents about the Iranian passion play tazieh that was registered on the UNESCO List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010.

A number of veteran cineastes and theatrical figures including Bahman Farmanara, Behzad Farahani, Habib Rezai, Atefeh Razavi and Pari Saberi attended the ceremony.

Speaking at the ceremony, Taqvai said that among all arts, writing is the art most dependent on man.

“Many works might be ruined and destroyed, but there is art that will remain, and for me cinema is such an art,” he said.

Taqvai, whose “Captain Khorshid” (1987) was also a big hit, continued, “The past teaches us more compared with the future, since the future has not arrived yet.”

He added, “Even if we do not like one work by a filmmaker, when we see it is being threatened, we need to take action and defend that work, and nobody should decide on behalf of someone else.”

Next, several music videos by famous cineastes were screened for the audience.

Asghar Farhadi’s video message submitted from Spain, where he is making his new production, was shown to the participants where he talked about his interest in Taqvai and his works.

“Talking about you is both easy and hard. It is easy because one can easily name the number of films you have made and hard since you have a special character and you are like nobody else,” he added.

“Among the filmmakers who are working today compared to the ones who worked over past decades, we can hardly find one who is both able to make films and is also knowledgeable in other fields, and Mr. Taqvai is one of those few,” he added.

The ceremony concluded with a presentation of a portion of the screenplay of the film “Captain Khorshid” that was written by Taqvai and apparently lost, but film producer Harun Yashayai owned part of it and had donated it to the Film Museum of Iran. / Tehran times /