The International Short Film Competition of the 32nd IFF Art Film Košice features among its titles the French-Iranian short Man in White (L’Homme en blanc) by director and editor Haman Foulad Vand. The film is part of the Short Films VI programme block and had its festival screening on Monday, 22 June 2026 at 4:30 p.m. at Kulturpark JOJ Play, accompanied by an introduction and a Q&A. The film is a five-year self-produced project of its author — an investigative documentary about an anonymous man in white clothing who carried out executions of political prisoners during the first months of the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution — and at the same time a formal experiment in which the author complements archival photographs with images generated by artificial intelligence.
For director Haman Foulad Vand, the film began with a single photograph. “My film tells the story of a man from the first period of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. He was always dressed in white, and he was the one who delivered the decisive shot to Iranian prisoners. When I saw a series of his photographs, I asked myself who he actually was, and I started looking for information about him. That was five years ago and since then I have been working with archive images and with the real history of this man and of the Iranian Revolution. I decided to turn this story into a self-produced film with archive images and artificial intelligence,” said Foulad Vand.
The director frames his film as a form of resistance against authoritarian regimes. “Violence in Iran is not only about a period forty years ago — it is also our present problem. The same applies to other countries that struggle with authoritarian governments. It is important for me to make films that ask questions about violence and injustice, in Iran and elsewhere, because that is how people resist, how they fight for justice,” the director explained.
The film does not look for answers — it asks questions. “I tried this play with the archive and with artificial intelligence to open questions about our history — what is true and what we can consider true. I also ask about the relationship between documentary and fiction. I am not trying to find the right answers; I want to put questions not only to the audience but also to myself. If we see injustice or evil, we have the responsibility to do something about it,” said Foulad Vand.
His position on artificial intelligence in documentary work was particularly sharp. “If you use artificial intelligence, you really need to need it — using AI just for the sake of AI is not good. It has to be justified. In my film I wanted to open the question of the very process of using AI in documentary. I used it, for example, to create images of the man twenty years later — images that in reality do not exist. The use of AI has to be justified morally, but also by the very subject of the film. It needs to be approached very carefully — also because of the environmental footprint it leaves, since creating a single image consumes a huge amount of computer energy,” the director warned.
The theme of Man in White does not end with a short film for Foulad Vand. “I plan to make a feature film about this man as well. Right now, however, I am editing another film about the war between Iran, the USA and Israel, and I hope to finish it within three months,” added Haman Foulad Vand.
The winner of the International Short Film Competition at the 32nd IFF Art Film will be decided by a three-member international jury (Maciej Gil from Poland, Mohammed Almughanni from Palestine and Barbora Sliepková from Slovakia); the winning film will receive the Blue Angel statuette. The full programme of the festival (19 – 25 June 2026) is available at aff.cinepass.sk.
The 32nd IFF ART FILM is made possible thanks to the support of:
Main organizer: ART FILM FEST s.r.o.
Co-organizers: City of Košice, K13 – Košice Cultural Centres, Visit Košice, ART FILM FEST, n.o.
With the financial support of: Audiovisual Fund
The project was co-financed by the Košice Self-governing Region from the Terra Incognita program
Main partners: CODES Brand House, H2O FUND SICAV, Fors – stav
Automotive partner: AUTO-VALAS
Official hotel: Hotel Yasmin
Main media partners: TV JOJ, Pravda, Eurotelevízia
Sponsors: U. S. Steel Košice, ANTIK Telecom, Kino Úsmev, LOKO TRANS Media, CORE Labs, Technical University of Košice
Technological partners: NOV, ZEBRA, Deutsche Telekom Systems Solutions Slovakia, DELTA OnLine, ARICOMA, Datacomp
Official suppliers: DKC Veritas, PLOOM, DOMOS SLOVAKIA, Reštaurácia Contessa, Natura, Kinley, Budweiser Budvar, Julius Meinl
Official wine: KubBo Select, Ostrožovič
Media partners: JOJ play, JOJ 24, Film Europe Media Company, Rádio KOŠICE, Aktuality.sk, Forbes, Startitup.sk, Korzár, Slovenka, SITA, TASR, Mediaboard, AHOJ TV, See & Go, BigMedia, Kino Sterio, Košice City Guide, Košice V Skratke, MOJAkultura.sk, Česko-Slovenská filmová databáze – ČSFD, Filmsk.sk, diva.sk, koktejl.sk, zenskyweb.sk, Naše Košice
Partners: JOJ Cinema, Jojko, Slovak Film Institute, WITKOWITZ SLOVAKIA, DDDental, CK TUI ReiseCenter Slovensko, Wallonie-Bruxelles International.be, Taper, ECO Technologies, Aupark Shopping Center Košice, Košice Public Transport Company, Košice International Airport, YumEarth, Rent2Eat, CPK Transport, iWish.sk, Kvety Garomi, Hair Factory Košice, Face up! Studio by Michaela Petroci, Panta Rhei, ARTFORUM, LOCAL NOMAD, East Slovak Museum in Košice, MIHYRING
