Matarsak (The Scarecrow) is a 1985 Iranian film, directed by Hassan Mohammadzadeh and written by Mehdi Ma'danian. The film was the first to win the Best Film prize at the Fajr Film Festival, which commenced after the Iranian Revolution. The performances of Mohammad Reza Morseli in a juvenile role and Jeyran Sharif in a supporting role received acclaim and awards. [1]
Esai Manuel Morales Jr. is an American actor. He has had notable roles in the films Bad Boys with Sean Penn and La Bamba with Lou Diamond Phillips (1987). His television roles include the PBS 2002 drama series American Family, the Showtime series Resurrection Blvd. (2000–2002), portraying Lt. Tony Rodriguez on NYPD Blue (2001–2004), Joseph Adama in the science fiction series Caprica (2009–2010), Camino del Rio in the Netflix original series Ozark (2017) and as the DC Comics villain Deathstroke / Slade Wilson in the superhero series Titans (2018).
Shohreh Aghdashloo is an Iranian and American actress. Following numerous starring roles on the stage, she made her film debut in Chess of the Wind (1976). Her next two films The Report (1977) and Sooteh Delan (1977) garnered critical acclaim and established Aghdashloo as one of Iran's leading ladies, although the films were banned in Iran itself.
The Cinema of Iran, also known as the Cinema of Persia, refers to the cinema and film industries in Iran which produce a variety of commercial films annually. Iranian art films have garnered international fame and now enjoy a global following. Iranian films are usually written and spoken in the Persian language. Iranian cinema has had many ups and downs.
Jafar Panâhi is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, and film editor, commonly associated with the Iranian New Wave film movement. After several years of making short films and working as an assistant director for fellow Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, Panahi achieved international recognition with his feature film debut, The White Balloon (1995). The film won the Caméra d'Or at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, the first major award an Iranian film won at Cannes.
Aahoo Jahansouzshahi, known professionally as Sarah Shahi, is an American actress and former model. She played Carmen on The L Word in 2005, Kate Reed in the USA Network legal drama Fairly Legal (2011–2012), and Sameen Shaw on the CBS crime drama Person of Interest (2012–2016). She has also appeared in the main role Det. Dani Reese in Life, and in a supporting role in Alias. In 2018, she starred in the series Reverie. In 2019, she appeared in a recurring role in City on a Hill on Showtime and appeared in seven episodes of the series The Rookie as romantic interest Jessica Russo.
300 is a 2006 American epic historical action film based on the 1998 comic series of the same name by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley. Both are fictionalized retellings of the Battle of Thermopylae in the Persian Wars. The film was co-written and directed by Zack Snyder, while Miller served as executive producer and consultant. It was filmed mostly with a superimposition chroma key technique to replicate the imagery of the original comic book.
Leila Hatami is an Iranian actress. One of the preeminent actresses in Iran, she has received numerous accolades, including three Crystal Simorgh and the Berlin International Film Festival Silver Bear for Best Actress. The Government of France has awarded her the Legion of Honour in 2012.
Parviz Parastui is an Iranian actor. He has received various accolades, including four Crystal Simorgh for Best Actor–making him the only actor to have four wins in that category–four Hafez Awards, two Iran Cinema Celebration Awards and an Iran's Film Critics and Writers Association Awards.
Rahavard Farahani, known professionally as Golshifteh Farahani, is an Iranian 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), and Extraction (2020). She was nominated for the Most Promising Actress Award for The Patience Stone at the 2014 César Awards.
Taraneh Alidoosti is an Iranian actress. She is best known internationally for her role in The Salesman (2016), which won the Best Foreign Language Film Award at the 89th Academy Awards. She has received various accolades, including a Crystal Simorgh, an Iran Cinema Celebration Award and an Iran's Film Critics and Writers Association Award. She is also known for starring in The Beautiful City (2003), Fireworks Wednesday (2006), About Elly (2009), Shahrzad (2015–2018).
Fatemeh Motamed-Arya. She is a multi-award-winning Iranian actress. She first got involved in theater during her teen years, and received her degree in theater from Tehran Art Institute. She is one of the most significant actresses of post-revolutionary Iranian cinema and has been called "one of the most important actresses and filmmakers of Iran." She has been nominated nine times for the best actress award at the Fajr International Film Festival and won the Crystal Simorgh four times.
Hamed Behdad is an Iranian actor and singer. He has received various accolades, including a Crystal Simorgh, a Hafez Award, an Iran Cinema Celebration Award and two Iran's Film Critics and Writers Association Award. He has won the Golden Goblet Award for Best Actor at the 2019 Shanghai International Film Festival for his role in Castle of Dreams (2019).
Zahra Amir Ebrahimi known professionally as Zar Amir Ebrahimi, is an Iranian actress. She is known for her role in television series Nargess (2006). For her performance in the thriller Holy Spider (2022), she won the Best Actress award at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.
Seyyed Shahabedin Hosseini Tonekaboni is an Iranian actor, producer and director. He is known for his collaborations with Iranian Academy Award-winning director Asghar Farhadi in About Elly (2009), A Separation (2011), and The Salesman (2016). His accolades include a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor, a Silver Bear for Best Actor and a Crystal Simorgh for Best Actor.
Nazanin Boniadi is a British actress and activist. Born in Iran and raised in London, she went to 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, she is best known for playing Nora in the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2011), Fara Sherazi in the Showtime spy thriller series Homeland (2013–2014), Esther in the historical drama film Ben-Hur (2016), Clare Quayle in the Starz sci-fi thriller series Counterpart (2017–2018), Zahra Kashani in the action thriller film Hotel Mumbai (2018), and Bronwyn in the Prime Video fantasy series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022–present).
Reza Naji is an Iranian actor and an iconic figure of Iranian cinema.
Rakhshān Banietemad is an internationally and critically acclaimed Iranian film director and screenwriter who is widely considered a premier female director and her films have been praised at international festivals as well as being popular with Iranian critics and audiences. Her title as "First Lady of Iranian Cinema" is not only a reference to her prominence as a filmmaker, but also connotes her social role of merging politics and family in her work. Her signature style is that she focuses on a character that is the representation of a part of the society in order to explore it while staying objectively neutral. The first period of Banietemad's cinematic activity originates from a kind of dark humor, but in the second period of her work, dark humor gives way to serious and influential films, and deeper and broader issues are addressed. Banietemad has a more realistic view of life.
Nasim Pedrad is an Iranian American actress, writer, and comedian. She was a cast member in the NBC sketch variety series Saturday Night Live from 2009 to 2014. She later went on to star in the Fox sitcoms Mulaney (2014–2015) and New Girl (2015–2018), the Fox horror comedy series Scream Queens (2015), and the TBS science fiction comedy series People of Earth (2017). Pedrad also created, produces, and starred in the TBS sitcom Chad (2021).
Payman Maadi also known as Peyman Moadi is an American-born Iranian actor, screenwriter and director. He is best known for starring in the films A Separation (2011) and About Elly (2009) by Iranian Academy Award-winning director Asghar Farhadi and Last Knights (2015) and the independent drama film Camp X-Ray (2014). For his role in A Separation, he won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival (2011).
Argo is a 2012 American historical drama thriller film directed, produced and led by Ben Affleck. The screenplay, written by Chris Terrio, was adapted from the 1999 book of the same name by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency operative Tony Mendez, his memoir The Master of Disguise, and the Wired article by Joshuah Bearman, "The Great Escape: How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran". The film deals with the "Canadian Caper", in which Mendez led the rescue of six U.S. diplomats from Tehran, Iran, under the guise of filming a science fiction film during the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis.