Omid Djalili is an Iranian-British actor, comedian, and writer.
Hazel Thereasa O'Connor is a British singer-songwriter and actress. She became famous in the early 1980s with hit singles "Eighth Day", "D-Days" and "Will You?" She also starred in the 1980 film Breaking Glass.
The cinema of Iran, or of Persia, refers to the film industry in Iran. In particular, Iranian art films have garnered international recognition. Iranian films are usually written and spoken in the Persian language.
Brother is a 1997 Russian neo-noir crime drama film written and directed by Aleksei Balabanov. The film stars Sergei Bodrov Jr. as Danila Bagrov, a young ex-conscript who becomes embroiled with the Saint Petersburg mob through his criminal older brother. It appeared in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.
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.
Ebrahim Hatamikia is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, cinematographer and actor. Hatamikia is known for films depicting the Iran–Iraq War's impact on Iran. His films are considered some of the best ever made in the Iranian war cinema and most notable for their attention to social changes brought about by the war. Also, he is best-known for his explorations of the trauma by the war; both on returning soldiers and those who await them, unable to mourn effectively without knowing the fate of their loved ones.
Interloper Films is a production company based in Pasadena, California. Interloper was founded in 1994 by siblings Ondi Timoner and her brother David Timoner. Interloper produces documentaries, music videos, and short form media. Two Interloper documentaries, We Live in Public (2009) and DIG! (2004), have won Sundance grand jury awards. The latter film was co-released by Palm Pictures and was acquired into the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. It showed at Cannes and many other prestigious festivals. We Live in Public is currently touring the festival circuit and will be appearing at many conferences including SXSW, the Cannes Film Festival and will have a New York premiere at the New Directors/New Films Festival, sponsored by the Lincoln Center and MOMA.
Mona Zandi is an Iranian film director. She is best known as a director and editor of short films, documentaries, and feature films. Her film work belongs to the cinema of post-revolutionary Iran, which focuses on contemporary social issues within Persian culture. Mona Zandi worked with Iranian film director and pioneer Rakhshan Bani-E'temad.
Navid Akhavan is an Iranian-German actor and film director. He is also known as Navid Navid.
Nazanin Boniadi is a British actress and activist. Born in Tehran and raised in London, she attended university in the United States, where she landed her first major acting role as Leyla Mir in the medical drama General Hospital (2007–2009) and its spin-off General Hospital: Night Shift (2007). Since then, Boniadi has played Nora in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2011), Fara Sherazi in the spy thriller series Homeland (2013–2014), Esther in the historical drama film Ben-Hur (2016), Clare Quayle in the sci-fi thriller series Counterpart (2017–2018), Zahra Kashani in the action thriller film Hotel Mumbai (2018), and Bronwyn in the first season of the fantasy series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022).
William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet is a 2009 American documentary film about a ballet by Margo Sappington called "Common People", which was set to the music of William Shatner and Ben Folds from their album Has Been. "Common People" was one of the Has Been tracks, and was a cover of a Pulp song from their 1995 Different Class album.
Aryana Farshad is a writer, director, and film producer born in Tehran, Iran.
Neda Agha-Soltan was an Iranian student of philosophy, who was participating in the 2009 presidential election protests with her music teacher, and was walking back to her car when she was fatally shot in the upper chest.
Sepideh Farsi is an Iranian film director.
Lillian Glass is an American interpersonal communication and body language expert, media commentator, a litigation consultant, and author of self-help books. She is also an award winning film director and producer.
Keirda Bahruth is an American filmmaker based in Los Angeles, CA. She began her career working on Music Videos and Commercials before a move to New York teamed her up with legendary Saturday Night Live director James Signorelli, famous for his commercial parody sketches. As Signorelli's assistant, she began shooting behind-the-scenes footage of life at SNL for the show's 25th Anniversary Special, which gave her complete access to the inner workings of the show. After three full seasons at SNL, Bahruth returned to Los Angeles in 2001 and joined the nascent world of reality television. She has worked as a director and producer on shows for the Discovery Channel, E!, Fox, NBC/Universal, The WB and BET.
Forbidden Voices is a documentary film by director Barbara Miller about the fight for human rights and freedom of speech of three female bloggers: Yoani Sánchez from Cuba, Zeng Jinyan from China and Farnaz Seifi from Iran.
Sonita Alizadeh is an Afghan rapper and activist who has been vocal against forced marriages. Alizadeh first gained attention when she released "Brides for Sale," a video in which she raps about daughters being sold into marriage by their families. With the help of Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami, an Iranian documentary filmmaker who over three years documented her story in the film Sonita, Alizadeh filmed the video to escape a marriage her parents were planning for her, even though it is illegal for women to sing solo in Iran, where she was living at the time. After releasing the video on YouTube, Alizadeh was contacted by the Strongheart Group, which offered her a student visa and financial help to come and study in the United States, where she then relocated and has resided since. In 2015, she was listed as one of BBC's 100 Women.
Kerstin Emhoff is an American film producer and the co-founder and CEO of the commercial production company Prettybird and creative studio Ventureland. She is a member of the Directors Guild of America, Producers Guild of America, and Television Academy.
