Abbas Kiarostami was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, poet, photographer, and film producer. An active filmmaker from 1970, Kiarostami had been involved in the production of over forty films, including shorts and documentaries. Kiarostami attained critical acclaim for directing the Koker trilogy (1987–1994), Close-Up (1990), The Wind Will Carry Us (1999), and Taste of Cherry (1997), which was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival that year. In later works, Certified Copy (2010) and Like Someone in Love (2012), he filmed for the first time outside Iran: in Italy and Japan, respectively. His films Where Is the Friend's Home? (1987), Close-Up, and The Wind Will Carry Us were ranked among the 100 best foreign films in a 2018 critics' poll by BBC Culture. Close-Up was also ranked one of the 50 greatest movies of all time in the famous decennial Sight & Sound poll conducted in 2012.
Betty Mahmoody is an American author and public speaker best known for her book, Not Without My Daughter, which was subsequently made into a film of the same name. She is the President and co-founder of One World: For Children, an organization that promotes understanding between cultures and strives to offer security and protection to children of bi-cultural marriages.
Not Without My Daughter is a 1991 American theatrical release drama film based on the 1987 book of the same name. It depicts the escape of American citizen Betty Mahmoody and her daughter, Mahtob, from her abusive ex-husband in Iran. Filming was done in 1990 in the United States, Turkey and Israel, and the main characters Betty Mahmoody and Sayyed Bozorg "Moody" Mahmoody are played by Sally Field and Alfred Molina, respectively. Sheila Rosenthal and Roshan Seth star as Mahtob Mahmoody and Houssein the smuggler, respectively.
Shirin Neshat is an Iranian photographer and visual artist who lives in New York City, known primarily for her work in film, video and photography. Her artwork centers on the contrasts between Islam and the West, femininity and masculinity, public life and private life, antiquity and modernity, and bridging the spaces between these subjects.
Pejman Akbarzadeh is a Persian-Dutch pianist, journalist, music historian and documentary maker.
Hamid Dabashi is an Iranian-American professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York City.
Anti-Iranian sentiment or Iranophobia, also called anti-Persian sentiment or Persophobia, refers to feelings and expressions of hostility, hatred, discrimination, or prejudice towards Iran, the Iranian government, or Iranian people on the basis of an irrational disdain for their national and cultural affiliation. The opposite phenomenon, in which one holds notable feelings of love or interest towards Iranian people for the same reasons, is known as Iranophilia or Persophilia.
The Tampere Film Festival is a short film festival held every March, mostly at the Finnkino Plevna movie theatre, in Tampere, Finland. It is accredited by the film producers' society FIAPF, and together with the short film festivals in Oberhausen and Clermont-Ferrand, it is among the most important European short film festivals.
Alexis Kouros is an Iranian-Finnish writer, documentary-maker, director, and producer.
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.
Maheen Zia is a Pakistani film director and film editor.
Pourān Derakh'shandeh is an Iranian film director, producer, screen writer, and researcher.
Rakhshān Banietemad is an Iranian film director and screenwriter. Her title as the "First Lady of Iranian Cinema" references her prominence as a filmmaker and connotes her social role of merging politics and family in her work. Her signature style focuses on a character representing a part of society to explore while remaining objectively neutral. The first period of Banietemad's cinematic activity originates from dark humor whilst in the second period of her work the dark humor gives way to more serious, deeper and broader issues that are addressed and are influenced in films. Banietemad has a more balanced view of life.
Aryana Farshad is a writer, director, and film producer born in Tehran, Iran.
Mehdī Nāderī is an Iranian film director. He started directing theater in 1988. He has directed documentaries and fiction films. He is also a producer, scriptwriter, advisor and editor.
Not Without My Daughter is a 1987 biographical book by Betty Mahmoody detailing the escape of Betty and her daughter, Mahtob, from Betty's abusive husband in Iran.
Sayyed Bozorg "Moody" Mahmoody was an Iranian professor, engineer, and anesthesiologist, best-known for taking his American ex-wife Betty and their daughter Mahtob to his native country and keeping them hostage there for a period of eighteen months during the mid-1980s.
Mahtob Maryam Mahmoody is an American author who wrote the autobiographical memoir My Name is Mahtob, which depicts her perspective of her family's story when she and her mother, Betty Mahmoody, were held captive by her father, Sayyed Bozorg Mahmoody, in his country of birth, Iran, for a period of 18 months during the mid 1980s. Her mother wrote her version of their story in her 1987 biography Not Without My Daughter, which was adapted into a 1991 feature film of the same name in which Mahtob was portrayed by Sheila Rosenthal and her parents were portrayed by Sally Field and Alfred Molina.
Ilppo Anssi Pohjola is an independent filmmaker, producer and artist based in Helsinki, Finland. His international breakthrough was Daddy and the Muscle Academy (1991), a documentary about Tom of Finland. Pohjola has produced the cinematic installations and films by Eija-Liisa Ahtila since 1993.
Anna Broinowski is a Walkley Award-winning documentary filmmaker and author.
