Johnnie To Kei-fung is a Hong Kong filmmaker. Popular in his native Hong Kong, To has also found acclaim overseas. Intensely prolific, To has made films in a variety of genres, though in the West he is best known for his action and crime movies, which have earned him critical respect and a cult following, which includes American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino.
Louis Garrel is a French actor and filmmaker. He is best known for his starring role in The Dreamers, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. He has regularly appeared in films by French director Christophe Honoré, including Ma Mère, Dans Paris, Love Songs, The Beautiful Person and Making Plans for Lena. He has also been in films directed by his father, Philippe Garrel, including Regular Lovers, Frontier of the Dawn, A Burning Hot Summer, and Jealousy.
Bahman Ghobadi is an Iranian Kurdish film director, producer and writer. He belongs to the "new wave" of Iranian cinema.
Huner Saleem, also transliterated as Huner Salim,, is an Iraqi–Kurdish film director. He was born in the town of Aqrah (Akre) in Iraqi Kurdistan. He left Iraq at the age of 17, and soon made his way to Italy, where he completed school and attended university. Later on, he moved to France where he lives now. In 1992, after the First Gulf War, he filmed undercover the living conditions of Iraqi Kurds. This footage was shown at the Venice Film Festival. In 1998, he made his first movie, Vive la mariée... et la libération du Kurdistan. His second, Passeurs de rêves, came out in 2000, and his third film, Vodka Lemon, released in 2003, won the San Marco Prize at the Venice Film Festival. He wrote and directed all three. He was honored with the prestigious title Chevalier des Arts et Lettres by French Minister of Culture Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres in 2005. His memoirs titled My Father's Rifle has been published in French, English, Greek and Tamil.
Kurdish cinema focuses on the Kurdish people and culture. The fate of the Kurds as a people without a state shaped their cinema. Kurdish films often show social grievances, oppression, torture, human rights violations, and life as a stranger. Kurdish cinema has a high significance for the Kurds, as it offers the opportunity to draw attention to their own situation artistically. However, because of state repression, most films are produced in exile. The best example of this is in Turkey, where Kurds were not permitted to speak their native language until 1991, which made the development of their films more difficult.
Shaghayegh Farahani is an Iranian actress. She is the daughter of actor Behzad Farahani, and sister of actress Golshifteh Farahani.
Rahavard Farahani, known professionally as Golshifteh Farahani, is an Iranian and French actress. She is known for her performances in M for Mother (2006), Body of Lies (2008), About Elly (2009), The Patience Stone (2012), Paterson (2016), Girls of the Sun (2018), Extraction (2020) and its sequel Extraction 2 (2023), and Invasion (2021–present). She was nominated for the Most Promising Actress Award for The Patience Stone at the 2014 César Awards.
Arnaud Desplechin is a French film director and screenwriter. In 2016, he won the César Award for Best Director for My Golden Days (2015).
Zahra Amir Ebrahimi, known professionally as Zar Amir Ebrahimi, is an Iranian-French actress, producer and director. She rose to international prominence for her performance as journalist Arezoo Rahimi in the crime thriller Holy Spider (2022), for which she won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress and Robert Award for Best Actress.
Body of Lies is a 2008 American spy action thriller film directed and produced by Ridley Scott, written by William Monahan, and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe and Golshifteh Farahani in the lead roles. Set in the Middle East, it follows the attempts of the CIA and the GID of Jordan to catch "al-Saleem", a terrorist. Frustrated by their target's elusiveness, differences in their approaches strain relations between a CIA operative, his superior, and the head of Jordanian Intelligence. The supporting cast features Mark Strong and Oscar Isaac.
Shirin is a 2008 Iranian drama film directed by Abbas Kiarostami. The film is considered by some critics as a notable twist in the artistic career of Kiarostami.
Bab'Aziz: Le prince qui contemplait son âme, often abbreviated to Bab'Aziz, is a 2005 film by Tunisian writer and director Nacer Khemir. It stars Parviz Shahinkhou, Maryam Hamid, Hossein Panahi, Nessim Khaloul, Mohamed Graïaa, Maryam Mohaid and Golshifteh Farahani. It was filmed in Iran and Tunisia.
Andi Almqvist is a Swedish singer, musician and composer known for his dark, cinematic sound and haunting lyrics about life, death, alienation and dysfunctional love.
Mehmet Aktaş is a Kurdish filmmaker, producer, author, and journalist. He is born in Turkey but lives in Germany. He is the founder and chief executive of the film production and distribution company, Mîtosfilm, in Berlin.
Two Friends is a 2015 French romantic dramedy film directed by Louis Garrel in his feature debut, and co-written by Garrel and Christophe Honoré. The film is loosely based on the play The Moods of Marianne by Alfred de Musset. It was selected to screen in the Critics' Week section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.
Eva Husson is a French film director and screenwriter. She began her career as an actress before directing short films and music videos. In 2015, she directed her first feature film Bang Gang, which competed at the Toronto International Film Festival. She then directed the Palme d'Or-nominated film Girls of the Sun (2018), starring Golshifteh Farahani and Emmanuelle Bercot.
Paterson is a 2016 drama film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. The film stars Adam Driver as a bus driver and poet named Paterson, and Golshifteh Farahani as his wife, who dreams of being a country music star and opening a cupcake business.
Arab Blues is a 2019 French-Tunisian comedy film directed by Manele Labidi Labbé in her feature debut. It was screened in the Venice Days section at the 2019 Venice Film Festival and then in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. The film is about a Tunisian psychoanalyst Selma who, after having been educated in Paris, moves back to Tunisia to open a psychoanalytic practice.
My Father's Dragon is a 2022 animated fantasy adventure comedy film directed by Nora Twomey with a screenplay by Meg LeFauve who co-wrote the story with John Morgan. It is based on the 1948 children's novel of the same name by Ruth Stiles Gannett. The film is also dedicated to Morgan who had since died. It stars the voices of Jacob Tremblay, Gaten Matarazzo, Golshifteh Farahani, Dianne Wiest, Rita Moreno, Chris O'Dowd, Judy Greer, Alan Cumming, Yara Shahidi, Jackie Earle Haley, Whoopi Goldberg, and Ian McShane.
Brother and Sister is a 2022 French drama film directed by Arnaud Desplechin, starring Marion Cotillard and Melvil Poupaud as estranged siblings who are forced to reunite after two decades following the death of their parents. The film made its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival where it competed for the Palme d'Or, and was released in theaters in France on the same day as its Cannes premiere, on 20 May 2022.
