The Night Arezou Disappeared, Arian Vazirdaftari’s drama about a family searching Tehran for a missing teenager during the 2022 protests, has won the Astor Piazzolla for best film at the 41st Mar del Plata International Film Festival. The jury also named Vazirdaftari best director, the festival said on Saturday 14 November, when it published the full list of official and independent awards after the closing ceremony at the Teatro Auditorium.
The Iranian-German film leaves Argentina with the most a single title can carry. Mar del Plata’s regulations, as our guide to this year’s juries set out, cap any film at two awards in the international competition, and it took both of the big ones. The other film to reach that limit was Ricardo Alves Jr.’s Brazilian drama The French Teacher (A professora de francês), which won the special jury prize and best actress for Grace Passô.
Key facts
- Event: 41st Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Argentina, 5–15 November 2026; awards presented on 14 November
- Best film and best director: The Night Arezou Disappeared, Arian Vazirdaftari (Iran, Germany)
- Special jury prize and best actress (Grace Passô): The French Teacher, Ricardo Alves Jr. (Brazil, France, Portugal)
- Latin American competition: The Smoking Fish (El pez que fuma), Luis Fernández; Argentine competition: Brew Before You Cry (Cebar, frenar, llorar), Gerardo Tassan
- Two Latin American winners at Sanfic a week earlier, Narciso and Paulina García, were recognised again with special mentions
The international competition
Vazirdaftari wrote, directed and produced The Night Arezou Disappeared. Set over one night of the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, it follows a piano teacher, Rana, waiting for her younger sister to come home, and the arrival of a conservative older sister who sees the country very differently. The director’s own film page says it was shot underground in Iran at great risk to those involved. The jury of the international competition, chaired by the Peruvian director Francisco Lombardi, cited the courage and honesty of a portrait of present-day Iran made with very few resources.
The film had its world premiere at the Hof International Film Festival in Germany on 22 October and has since screened at Thessaloniki. It has its Berlin premiere at Filmfest FrauenWelten on 22 November. No sales agent is listed on the festival pages or the director’s site. Vazirdaftari, who is based in Germany, made his debut feature Without Her (2022) for Venice and co-wrote Houman Seyyedi’s World War III, Iran’s Oscar submission for 2023.
Andrew Scott won best actor for Simon Stone’s Elsinore, in which he plays the actor Ian Charleson, who played Hamlet while gravely ill at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Elsinore also won the audience award. Muriel d’Ansembourg won best screenplay for Truly Naked, a Dutch, Belgian and French co-production. The jury gave a special mention to Marietta Subong for her performance in Ma-an L. Asuncion-Dagñalan’s Philippine drama 2 Valid IDs. Danny Boyle’s Ink, one of the most prominent titles in this year’s line-up, won nothing, Clarín noted.
Latin America and Argentina
The Latin American jury gave its best film award to The Smoking Fish, a Venezuelan-Spanish co-production by Luis Fernández, and special mentions to Marcelo Martinessi’s Narciso and to Paulina García for Neto Villalobos Brenes’s Costa Rican drama Love Is the Monster (Amor es el monstruo). Both were winners at Santiago’s Sanfic last week: Narciso took best film in Sanfic’s international competition and García best performance.
In the Argentine competition, Gerardo Tassan’s black comedy Brew Before You Cry won best film, and the Argentine film critics’ association ACCA chose it as the best Argentine film across all sections. Gustavo Postiglione was named best director for Chekhov in Rosario (Chejov en Rosario). The work-in-progress award in En Tránsito went to Mariano Cócolo’s The Torment (El tormento), which also collected the section’s sponsor prizes from Banco Galicia, the post-production house Cinecolor and the sound studio El Cono del Silencio.
The audience
The festival’s closing figures, carried by Clarín and Cine Argentino Hoy, put attendance at 75,000 across about 500 screenings of 235 titles from 52 countries, with more than 1,900 accredited guests. It had sold 30,000 tickets before opening night. Ámbito reported that the total was more than double last year’s, putting the 2025 edition at 30,000 tickets; the festival’s own statement does not make that comparison. General admission cost ARS5,000 ($3.20), less than last year, and presales opened for the first time, Ámbito noted.
Full list of winners
International competition – Astor Piazzolla for best film: The Night Arezou Disappeared, Arian Vazirdaftari – Special jury prize: The French Teacher (A professora de francês), Ricardo Alves Jr. – Best director: Arian Vazirdaftari, The Night Arezou Disappeared – Best actor: Andrew Scott, Elsinore, Simon Stone – Best actress: Grace Passô, The French Teacher – Special mention: Marietta Subong, 2 Valid IDs, Ma-an L. Asuncion-Dagñalan – Best screenplay: Muriel d’Ansembourg, Truly Naked – Audience award: Elsinore, Simon Stone – Best short film: Dernier Printemps, Mathilde Bédouet; special mention: Please, Anna Mantzaris
Latin American competition – Best film: The Smoking Fish (El pez que fuma), Luis Fernández – Special mentions: Narciso, Marcelo Martinessi; Paulina García, Love Is the Monster (Amor es el monstruo), Neto Villalobos Brenes – Best short film: Faces, Andrés Molano; special mention: Carrinho, Oriol Barberá
Argentine competition – Best film: Brew Before You Cry (Cebar, frenar, llorar), Gerardo Tassan – Best director: Gustavo Postiglione, Chekhov in Rosario (Chejov en Rosario) – Special mention: Natalia Santiago, It’s Not Tomorrow Yet (Todavía no es mañana), Manu Vazquez Santana – Best short film: Teatro in Inglish, Marina Ilari; special mention: El agua nunca es mala, Victoria Meza
En Tránsito (work in progress) – Best project: The Torment (El tormento), Mariano Cócolo; special mention: Cotillón París, Adriano Salgado
Sponsor awards – Banco Galicia, Cinecolor and El Cono del Silencio, best En Tránsito project: The Torment, Mariano Cócolo – Banco Galicia, best international short: Dernier Printemps, Mathilde Bédouet – Banco Galicia and Alta Definición Argentina, best Latin American film: The Smoking Fish, Luis Fernández – Banco Galicia, best Argentine feature: Brew Before You Cry, Gerardo Tassan – Banco Galicia, best Argentine short: Teatro in Inglish, Marina Ilari
Independent awards – ACCA (Argentine film critics), best Argentine film in all competitions: Brew Before You Cry, Gerardo Tassan; special mention: Fuego amigo, Alejandro Magnone – Fondo Nacional de las Artes, best short in the Argentine competition (ex aequo): Surcromía, Luis Paris, and Las esclavas, Andrés H. Denegri – RECAM (Mercosur film authorities), best Mercosur short: Surcromía, Luis Paris – SIGNIS, best film in the international competition: Children Untold, Miwa Nishikawa – FIPRESCI, best film in the international competition: The French Teacher, Ricardo Alves Jr. – La mujer y el cine, best feature by an Argentine woman director: Perfume, Lucía Ruiz and Andrea Testa
Honorary awards – Astor Piazzolla lifetime achievement awards: Natalia Oreiro, Alejandro Agresti and the composer Emilio Kauderer
The festival did not say whether any award carries cash; its regulations do not state prize money.
Our reading
For Vazirdaftari, the Astor arrives less than a month into the film’s festival life, and at a point when no sales agent is named in public. A best-film award from Latin America’s only FIAPF-accredited competitive festival is a credential a seller can use with buyers, which matters more than usual for a film shot in secret. The next evidence is whether a sales company or distributor attaches before the Berlin screening on 22 November.
The Latin American jury, by contrast, looked past the established names. Narciso and García arrived with Sanfic prizes from the week before and left with mentions, while the Astor went to The Smoking Fish, which now has a top regional award to carry into its next festivals. For the festival itself, the attendance figures matter as much as the prizes: Ámbito tied this year’s ticket push to protecting its A-category status.
Sources
- Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Premios Oficiales: todas las ganadoras, 14 November 2026
- Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Premios Independientes: todas las ganadoras, 14 November 2026
- Mar del Plata International Film Festival, closing ceremony notice, 14 November 2026
- Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Nuevas funciones para los títulos ganadores, 14 November 2026
- Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Conversación abierta con Emilio Kauderer (Astor a la trayectoria)
- Clarín, El Festival de Cine de Mar del Plata cerró su 41.ª edición, 14 November 2026
- Cine Argentino Hoy, Cerró la 41.ª edición del Festival Internacional de Cine de Mar del Plata
- Ámbito, Hay público en los cines y está en Mar del Plata, 15 November 2026
- xe.com, mid-market currency table for 13 November 2026 (ARS per USD)
- Arian Vazirdaftari, The Night Arezou Disappeared film page
- Thessaloniki International Film Festival, The Night Arezou Disappeared film page (67th TIFF)
- Filmfest FrauenWelten, The Night Arezou Disappeared (Berlin premiere 22 November)