Gong Li is a Chinese actress. Regarded as one of the best actresses in China today, she is known for her versatility and naturalistic performance. She starred in three of the four Chinese-language films that have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.
Shohreh Aghdashloo is an Iranian and American actress. She has received various accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award and a Satellite Award, in addition to a nomination for an Academy Award.
Bai Ling is a Chinese-American actress and musician. She is best known for her work in the films The Crow, Nixon, Red Corner, Crank: High Voltage, Dumplings, Wild Wild West, Anna and the King, Southland Tales, and Maximum Impact, as well as TV shows Entourage and Lost. Notably, she won the Best Supporting Actress awards at the 2004 Hong Kong Film Awards and the 2004 Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan for her role in Dumplings.
Khaled Hosseini is an Afghan-American novelist, UNHCR goodwill ambassador, and former physician. His debut novel The Kite Runner (2003) was a critical and commercial success; the book and his subsequent novels have all been at least partially set in Afghanistan and have featured an Afghan as the protagonist.
The Kite Runner is the first novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. Published in 2003 by Riverhead Books, it tells the story of Amir, a young boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul. The story is set against a backdrop of tumultuous events, from the fall of Afghanistan's monarchy through the Soviet invasion, the exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the United States, and the rise of the Taliban regime.
Leila Hatami is an Iranian actress. Born to filmmaker Ali Hatami and actress Zari Khoshkam, she began her career with acting in the films of her father. She rose to international fame for her role as Simin in Asghar Farhadi's Academy Award-winning film A Separation (2011), for which she received the Silver Bear for Best Actress.
Barbara Sukowa is a German actress of screen and stage and singer. She has received three German Film Awards for Best Actress, three Bavarian Film Awards, Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress, Venice Film Festival Award, as well as nominations for European Film Awards, César Awards and Grammy Awards.
Asghar Farhadi is an Iranian film director and screenwriter. He has received critical acclaim for his international films which focus on the human condition and portray intimate and challenging stories of internal family conflicts. His films include the dramas About Elly (2009), A Separation (2011), The Past (2013), The Salesman (2016), Everybody Knows (2018), and A Hero (2021).
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a 2007 novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini, following the huge success of his bestselling 2003 debut The Kite Runner. Mariam, an illegitimate teenager from Herat, is forced to marry a shoemaker from Kabul after a family tragedy. Laila, born a generation later, lives a relatively privileged life, but her life intersects with Mariam's when a similar tragedy forces her to accept a marriage proposal from Mariam's husband.
Seyyed Shahabedin Hosseini Tonekaboni is an Iranian actor, producer, director and screenwriter. 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.
About Elly is a 2009 Iranian drama film. The fourth film by filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, the film examines middle class relationships in Iran.
Niloofar Beyzaie is an Iranian dramaturge, playwright and theatre director who lives in exile in Germany.
A Separation is a 2011 Iranian drama film written and directed by Asghar Farhadi, starring Leila Hatami, Peyman Moaadi, Shahab Hosseini, Sareh Bayat, and Sarina Farhadi. It focuses on an Iranian middle-class couple who separate, the disappointment and desperation suffered by their daughter due to the egotistical disputes and separation of her parents, and the conflicts that arise when the husband hires a lower-class caregiver for his elderly father, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease.
Carey Elizabeth Perloff is an American theater director, playwright, author, and educator. She was the artistic director of American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) in San Francisco from 1992 to June 2018.
And the Mountains Echoed is the third novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. Published in 2013 by Riverhead Books, it deviates from Hosseini's style in his first two works through his choice to avoid focusing on any one character. Rather, the book is written similarly to a collection of short stories, with each of the nine chapters being told from the perspective of a different character. The book's foundation is built on the relationship between ten-year-old Abdullah and his three-year-old sister Pari and their father's decision to sell her to a childless couple in Kabul, an event that ties the various narratives together.
Amina Maher is an Iranian artist and filmmaker, whose works train her unblinking gaze on the breakdown of family structure, shame culture, and patriarchal myths. Her creative works criticize traditions, media, culture, and norms. Her films have been part of Cannes Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, San Sebastián International Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival - Dok Station Lab, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival - CPH:DOX, FID Lab Marseille Festival of Documentary Film and Feminale - The International Dortmund | Cologne Women's Film Festival among many others.
The Salesman is a 2016 Iranian-French drama film written and directed by Asghar Farhadi and starring Taraneh Alidoosti and Shahab Hosseini. It is about a married couple who perform Arthur Miller's 1949 play Death of a Salesman on stage. When the wife is assaulted, her husband attempts to determine the identity of the attacker, while she struggles to cope with post-trauma stress. Farhadi chose Miller's play as his story within a story based on shared themes. A co-production between Iran and France, the film was shot in Tehran, beginning in 2015.
Amir Jadidi is an Iranian actor and tennis player. He is well known in Iran for his starring roles in Crazy Rook (2015), A Dragon Arrives! (2016), The Lost Strait (2018), Cold Sweat (2018) and Day Zero (2020), whereas he is best known internationally for his role as Rahim in A Hero (2021), which won the Grand Prix at the 74th Cannes Film Festival. Jadidi received a Palm Springs International Film Festival award for his performance in A Hero.
Hootan Shakiba is an Iranian actor. He is best known for his role as Habib in Bachelors (2016–2019) which earned him a Hafez Award. Shakiba won the Crystal Simorgh for Best Actor for portraying Abdolhamid Rigi in When the Moon Was Full (2019).
Kimiya Hosseini is an Iranian actress.
