Top 20's Iranian writers and directors in Hollywood
This is the list of the top Iranian writers and directors in Hollywood. the list order, arranged by IMDB starmeter at July 2012.
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Asghar Farhadi is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is considered one of the most prominent filmmakers of Iranian cinema as well as world cinema in the 21st century. His films have gained recognition for their focus on the human condition, and portrayals of intimate and challenging stories of internal family conflicts. In 2012, he was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. That same year, he also received the Legion of Honour from France.
Farhadi was born in Isfahan, Iran. At the age of 15, in 1987, he joined the Isfahan branch office of the Iranian Youth Cinema Society, which had been established for 4 years earlier and he made several short films. He is also a graduate of theatre, with a BA in dramatic arts and MA in stage direction from University of Tehran and Tarbiat Modares University, respectively.
While completing his studies, he wrote a number of radio plays for Iran's national broadcasting service and directed several television programs. In 2001 Farhadi co-wrote the screenplay for the political satire Ertefa-e past (Low Heights, 2002), with famed war film director, Ebrahim Hatamikia.
Farhadi's first feature film, Dancing in the Dust (2003), tells the story of a young man who is forced to divorce his wife and go hunting snakes in the desert in order to repay his debts to his in-laws. His next film, The Beautiful City (2004), is about a young man who is sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit.
Farhadi's breakthrough came with his third film, About Elly (2009), which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. The film tells the story of a group of friends who go on a weekend trip to the Caspian Sea, and the secrets that are revealed over the course of the weekend.
Farhadi's next film, A Separation (2011), won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film tells the story of a middle-class Iranian couple who are going through a divorce, and the moral dilemmas they face as they try to decide what is best for their young daughter.
Farhadi's subsequent films, The Past (2013) and The Salesman (2016), were also critically acclaimed. The Salesman won a second Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Farhadi's latest film, A Hero (2021), was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. The film tells the story of a man who is released from prison and tries to win back his wife's trust.
Farhadi's films are known for their their complex and suspenseful plots, their realistic characters, and their exploration of moral dilemmas. His films often deal with themes of family, relationships, and social class.
Farhadi is a master of creating suspense, and his films are often compared to those of Alfred Hitchcock. He is also a skilled director of actors, and his films have featured some of the most celebrated Iranian actors, including Shahab Hosseini, Leila Hatami, and Taraneh Alidoosti.
In 2022, Farhadi was accused of plagiarism by a former student, who claimed that he had stolen the idea for his film A Hero from a documentary she had made. Farhadi denied the allegations, and a court in Iran eventually ruled in his favor. However, the allegations have tarnished Farhadi's reputation and raised questions about his creative process.
Asghar Farhadi is one of the most important filmmakers of our time. His films are both entertaining and thought-provoking, and they offer a unique insight into Iranian society and culture. He is a true auteur, and his work is sure to be studied and admired for many years to come.- Writer
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Abbas Kiarostami was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1940. He graduated from university with a degree in fine arts before starting work as a graphic designer. He then joined the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, where he started a film section, and this started his career as a filmmaker at the age of 30. Since then he has made many movies and has become one of the most important figures in contemporary Iranian film. He is also a major figure in the arts world, and has had numerous gallery exhibitions of his photography, short films and poetry. He is an iconic figure for what he has done, and he has achieved it all by believing in the arts and the creativity of his mind.- Director
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Nima Nourizadeh is an acclaimed British-Iranian filmmaker whose work spans across Film, TV, Commercials, Music Videos, and Art.
After graduating from Central St. Martins College of Art and Design with a degree in Fine Art Film & Video, Nima began his filmmaking career in London's alternative art scene where he and his friends created The Imaginary Tennis Club, an artistic collective dedicated to making provocative, multimedia work.
As a prominent director of award winning music videos and commercials, Nima stepped into the world of cinema with his debut feature film Project X, released by Warner Bros. with Todd Phillips & Joel Silver producing. The hit movie, chronicled the most epic house party of all time, and went on to gross over $100M worldwide.
Nima is the son of Dr. Alireza Nourizadeh, who is an Iranian scholar, journalist and a Political commentator.
Nima's brothers are music producers, 16B, & Nav.- Director
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Jafar Panahi (Born 11 July 1960) is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, and film editor, commonly identified with the Iranian New Wave film movement. After several years of making short films and working as an assistant director for fellow Iranian film-maker 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 won by an Iranian film at Cannes. Panahi was quickly recognized as one of the most influential film-makers in Iran. Although his films were often banned in his own country, he continued to receive international acclaim from film theorists and critics and won numerous awards, including the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival for The Mirror (1997), the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for The Circle (2000), and the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for Offside (2006). His films are known for their humanistic perspective on life in Iran, often focusing on the hardships of children, the impoverished, and women. Hamid Dabashi has written, "Panahi does not do as he is told - in fact he has made a successful career in not doing as he is told." After several years of conflict with the Iranian government over the content of his films (including several short-term arrests), Panahi was arrested in March 2010 along with his wife, daughter, and 15 friends and later charged with propaganda against the Iranian government. Despite support from filmmakers, film organizations, and human rights organizations from around the world, in December 2010 Panahi was sentenced to a six-year jail sentence and a 20-year ban on directing any movies, writing screenplays, giving any form of interview with Iranian or foreign media, or from leaving the country except for medical treatment or making the Hajj pilgrimage. While awaiting the result of an appeal he made This Is Not a Film (2011), a documentary feature in the form of a video diary in spite of the legal ramifications of his arrest. It was smuggled out of Iran in a flash drive hidden inside a cake and shown at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. In February 2013 the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival showed Closed Curtain (2013) by Panahi and Kambuzia Partovi in competition; Panahi won the Silver Bear for Best Script. Panahi's new film Taxi (2015) premiered in competition at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2015 and won Golden Bear, the prize awarded for the best film in the festival.- Writer
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Farhad Safinia was born in 1975 in Tehran, Iran. He is a writer and producer, known for Apocalypto (2006), The Professor and the Madman (2019) and Boss (2011). He has been married to Laura Regan since 2007.- Director
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Marjane Satrapi was born on 22 November 1969 in Rasht, Iran. She is a director and actress, known for Persepolis (2007), The Voices (2014) and Chicken with Plums (2011). She is married to Mattias Ripa. She was previously married to Reza.- Producer
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Ramin Bahrani was born on 20 March 1975 in North Carolina, USA. He is a producer and director, known for 99 Homes (2014), The White Tiger (2021) and Man Push Cart (2005).- Writer
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Mohsen Makhmalbaf is known as one of the most influential filmmakers and founders of the new wave of Iranian cinema in the world today.
Many of his films like Salam Cinema, A Moment Of Innocence, Gabbeh, Kandahar and The President have been widely well received across the globe and have brought him over 50 international awards from the prestigious film festivals like Cannes, Venice, Locarno... His film Kandahar has been chosen as one of the top 100 best movies of history of cinema by Times Magazine.
His fame as the most prominent filmmaker of Iran made him the subject of an identity theft by someone who wished to become a filmmaker. This incident turned to a famous film called Close up by Abbas Kiarostami.
Makhmalbaf has also taught his three children about the art of cinema. His older daughter Samira holds the record for the youngest filmmaker who have been selected for the official section of Cannes at the age of 17 with her first debut titled The Apple. Samira has also won the Grand Jury Prize of Cannes twice with her second and and third film titled The Blackboards and At Five In The Afternoon. Hana, Makhmalbaf's younger daughter, won the Crystal Bear of Berlin and the Grand Jury Prize of San Sebastian Film Festival with her first feature film.
At the age of 17 as a political activist Mohsen was shot by the police and spent 5 years in prison as a political prisoner. His fight and human right activities against dictatorship in Iran has continued till today. With his film Afghan Alphabet he managed to change a law in Iran which resulted in opening the door of schools and universities for education of over half million Afghan children refugee in his country. Makhmalbaf, the prestigious Manhae Peace Award winner, had also established his own NGO in Iran in which he executed 82 different human right projects for helping women and children of Afghanistan.
Since 2009, all 40 films of Makhmalbaf family alongside Mohsen's 30 published book are banned in his homeland. The Iranian government has also levied a ban on Makhmalbaf's name in the media. In 2013, the Iranian government also removed over 120 international awards of Makhmalbaf family from the museum of cinema in Iran.- Writer
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Majid Majidi was born on April 17, 1959 in Tehran, Iran to a middle class family. He started acting in amateur theater groups at the age of fourteen. After receiving his high school diploma, he started studying art at the Institute of Dramatic Art in Tehran. After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, his interest in cinema brought him to act in various films, notably Mohsen Makhmalbaf's Boycott (1986) where he played a frustrated communist and Ali Asghar Shadravan's The Execution (1986) where he played the role of real life character, Andarzgoo. Later, he started writing and directing short films. His feature film screenwriting and directing debut is marked by Baduk (1992), which was presented at the Quinzaine of Cannes and won awards at Tehran's Fajr Film Festival. Since then, he has written and directed many noteworthy films that won worldwide recognition, notably Children of Heaven (1997), winner of the Best Picture award at the Montreal International Film Festival and nominated for the Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards, The Color of Paradise (1999), which also won the Best Picture award from Montreal International Film Festival and set a new record of box office for an Asian film, and Baran (2001), which won several major awards worldwide, notably the Best Picture award at the 25th Montreal World Film Festival and received nomination for the European Film Academy Award. In 2001, during the Afghanistan anti-Taliban war, he produced Barefoot to Herat (2003), an emotional documentary about Afghanistan's refugee camps that won the Fipresci Award at Thessaloniki International Film Festival. Majjid Majid has also received the Douglas Sirk Award in 2001 and the Amici Vittorio de Sica Award in 2003. In 2005, he directed The Willow Tree (2005) about a blind man who falls in love with someone other than his wife when he gets the chance to see again, which won four awards at the 2005 Fajr Film Festival in Tehran. He is one of Iran's most influential directors and his films have a simple and poetic feel to them.- Director
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Bahman Ghobadi was born in 1969 in Baneh, in the province of Iranian Kurdistan, near the Iran-Iraq border. Shortly after graduating from the National Audiovisual School, he made his first short, immediately acclaimed by the local critics. One of these short films, "Life in Fog" (1999) is even considered as the most famous short ever made in Iran. This success allowed Bahman Ghobadi to make several feature films, the best known being his first, "A Time for Drunken Horses" (2000), the first Kurd film in the history of Iran. This film and all the the others made by Ghobadi were hits in the festival circuit, garnered dozens of awards but were little seen or not seen at all in his native country. His last movie to date, filmed without official permit, rapidly and feverishly, "No One Knows About Persian Cats" (2009) is a remarkable semi-documentary about underground indie music in Tehran.- Writer
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Rafi Pitts' films have attained acclaim and awards around the globe. Pitts' first feature, Season Five (1997), premiered in the Venice Film Festival. His second, Sanam (2000) was hailed by French critics and compared to The 400 Blows (1959). In 2003, Pitts presented his controversial feature documentary, Abel Ferrara: Not Guilty (2003) in the Official Selection of the Locarno Film Festival . It's Winter (2006) premiered in the Berlin Competition, and one year later, the Seattle International Film Festival honored Pitts with the Emerging Masters Award for his work. In 2010, Pitts' fifth feature The Hunter (2010) was also nominated for the Berlin Golden Bear as well as Best Actor for his performance in the leading role. In 2012 Ben Affleck invited Pitts to join him as an actor as well as his personal consultant on the feature film Argo (2012), which went on to win the Oscar for Best Motion Picture the following year. In 2016 Pitts premiered Soy Nero (2016) in the Berlin Film Festival and for the third time running he was nominated for the Golden Bear.
Born 1967 in Iran, Pitts spent his childhood in Tehran, where he lived in a basement flat underneath a post-production studio. During the war between Iran and Iraq, in 1981, he fled the country and moved to Britain. In 1991 Pitts graduated from Harrow College - Polytechnic of Central London with a BA (Hons) Degree in Film and Photography. His first short, In Exile (1991), was presented the same year at the London International Film Festival. In the 90's, Pitts moved to Paris and worked on films by Leos Carax, Jacques Doillon and Jean-Luc Godard.- Producer
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Dr. Sam Khoze, is an accomplished AI technologist and researcher, with extensive expertise in Multi-model AI systems, Generative AI, and Humanoid innovations. He holds a doctorate in medical science, a postgraduate degree from MIT, and a Master's in Artificial Intelligence from the University of York.
His journey began in film production and transitioned into AI and humanoid robotics, where he has made significant strides and gained recognition worldwide. Sam collaborated with prominent figures and organizations in the field such as Dr. Firouz Naderi, director of Solar System Exploration at NASA/JPL, Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro at Osaka University, and Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute (ATR). He developed and designed one of the most intelligent social robot series, which gained recognition at CES Las Vegas 2023. He also represented and managed some of the world's most advanced and intelligent robots, including Erica developed by Ishiguro Lab, Kyoto University, ATR, and Alter developed by Osaka University Ishiguro Lab and University of Tokyo artificial life researcher Takashi Ikegami. Dr. Khoze achieved the distinction of being the first to cast and train Hollywood's first fully autonomous artificially intelligent entity, in a Motion Picture, as featured by The New York Times.
As an AI advisor and director, Dr. Khoze offers his expertise to film studios, production companies, and Tech Companies, providing guidance and assistance in harnessing, deploying, and adopting AI technologies. Furthermore, Dr. Khoze is a passionate advocate for a human-centered collective intelligence approach, sharing his insights through lectures at universities, conferences, and technology events, inspiring society to embrace a human-centered collective intelligence approach.- Director
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Samira Makhmalbaf Filmmaker
Born on February 15,1980 in Tehran. At the age of eight, she played in "The Cyclist" directed by her father, Mohsen Makhmalbaf the celebrated Iranian filmmaker.
At the age of 17, she directed her first feature titled "The Apple" and She went on to become the youngest director in the world participating in the official section of the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. She was praised on different occasions by the legendary Jean-Luc Godard for her film. The Apple was invited to more than 100 international film festivals in a period of two years, while going to the screen in more than 30 countries.
In 1999, Samira made her second feature film titled "Blackboards" in Kurdistan of Iran, and for the second time was selected by the Cannes Film Festival to compete in the official section in 2000. She was granted the Special Jury Award. The Blackboards received many international awards including the "Federico Fellini Honor Award" from UNESCO and "Francois Truffaut Award" from Italy. The film was widely released across the world and more than two hundred thousand people watched the film in France alone.
Samira alongside other prominent director like Ken Loach, Shohei Imamura, Youssef Chahine, Sean Penn.... made one of the eleven episodes of the film "September 11". The film was premiered at Venice International Film Festival in 2002.
The third feature by Samira Makhmalbaf titled "At Five in the Afternoon", the first feature film shot in Afghanistan post Taliban. The film was selected for the competition section of Cannes Film Festival in 2003, receiving the Jury's Special Award for the second time. In 2004, she was selected as one of forty best directors of the world by Guardian newspaper.
Samira Makhmalbaf shot her fourth feature film in Afghanistan titled Two-Legged Horse in 2007, receiving the Grand Jury Awardof San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain.
Samira Makhmalbaf has also participated as jury member in reputable film festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Locarno, Moscow, Montreal...- Writer
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Of Iranian descent, he was born in Boulder, Colorado, and grew up in Madison, Wisconsin. He graduated from Madison West High School and was a city boys high school tennis champion. Nowrasteh attended New Mexico State University on an athletic scholarship and later transferred to the University of Southern California to attend the School of Cinematic Arts. He is married to wife Elizabeth G. Nowrasteh commonly referred to as "Betsy." Nowrasteh's oldest son, Alex Nowrasteh, is an immigration policy analyst working at the Cato Institute. Nowrasteh's younger son, Mark Nowrasteh, studied in the UCLA Playwriting program. Mark's first play The Emperor & The Apostle will have its theatrical debut in Austin, Texas in Fall, 2013. Mark has also been hired by Rise Entertainment to write his first screenplay for a motion picture, for delivery in early 2014.
Nowrasteh began his career writing on the CBS television series, The Equalizer. He went on to work on other series (Falconcrest, D.E.A.), and wrote the pilot for the USA Network show La Femme Nikita (1996). He also worked on independent films such as the American/Brazilian production The Interview (1997, writer/co-producer), which played at Sundance and on the Showtime network; and Norma Jean, Jack and Me (1998), a film that was not theatrically released but played the festival circuit and aired on HDNet. In 2001 he wrote and directed the highly-rated, award-winning Showtime presentation The Day Reagan Was Shot, which starred Richard Dreyfuss as Alexander Haig and was executive produced by Oliver Stone. The following year he wrote 10,000 Black Men Named George, the story of the Pullman strike of the 1930s, for Showtime.
For both of the above films Nowrasteh received the Pen USA West Literary Award for Best Teleplay-the only writer in the history of the Pen awards to win two years in a row in the same category. The Day Reagan Was Shot also received the Eddie Award and the Golden Satellite Award for Best Motion Picture for Television, 2001, as well as a SAG nomination for Best Actor (Richard Dreyfuss). Nowrasteh also wrote the "Manifest Destiny" episode of the highly regarded (16 Emmy nominations) Steven Spielberg and TNT miniseries presentation, Into the West. Following that Nowrasteh wrote and produced the controversial ABC miniseries The Path to 9/11. He then went on to co-write (with his wife, Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh), and direct the film The Stoning of Soraya M., released in 2009 by Lionsgate Films.
Nowrasteh was attacked by Conservatives for an alleged "liberal bias" in his Showtime film, The Day Reagan Was Shot. Former Reagan National Security Advisor, Richard Allen, led the charge with a piece in the Wall Street Journal (December 14, 2001), accusing Nowrasteh and Executive Producer Oliver Stone of "yet another dubious Oliver Stone production" and referring to it as "The Day They Shot the Truth." Mr. Allen based his piece on tapes he had kept from that day, releasing only six minutes to support his position. Nowrasteh responded in the Los Angeles Times (December 24, 2001) and a letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal (January 2, 2002), "the clear solution is to have Allen release the entire unedited tape and allow anyone to make the comparisons and draw whatever conclusions seem warranted." Nowrasteh concluded his Los Angeles Times piece by writing, "The Day Reagan Was Shot provides the first-ever dramatization of a constitutional crisis and government cover up (both amply supported by facts) and the threat they pose to a nation when a president becomes incapacitated. This is important and relevant and raises issues that should be discussed openly."
Nowrasteh was attacked by Liberals for an alleged "conservative bias" in his controversial ABC docudrama The Path to 9/11, which he wrote and co-produced. Nowrasteh describes himself as more libertarian than conservative or liberal.
The Stoning of Soraya M. was condemned and banned by the Iranian government but thousands of copies were bootlegged into the country and it became an underground hit in Iran - forcing the government to put a temporary moratorium on stoning as a punishment, most notably in the Sakineh Ashtiani case.
The Stoning of Soraya M. had its world premiere at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won Runner-up for the Audience Choice Award. It also won Second Runner-up for the Cadillac People's Choice Award, as well as the Audience Award for Best Feature at the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival. The film also won the Heartland Truly Moving Picture Award, and the 2009 Ghent Film Festival's Canvas Audience Award. At the 2009 Satellite Awards, it was named one of the year's Top Ten Films and nominated for Best Drama Film, while its star Shohreh Agdashloo won Best Actress in a Drama. In 2010, the film was hailed as one of Movieguide's Ten Best 2009 Movies for Mature Audiences and was the co-winner, with Invictus (film), of Movieguide's Faith and Freedom Award for Promoting Positive American Values for 2009. It also shared, with "Women in Shroud," the Cinema for Peace Award for Justice in conjunction with the Berlin Film Festival and won Outstanding Foreign Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards.
Nowrasteh is developing a film adaptation of The Last Campaign, Thurston Clarke's account of Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign.
Nowrasteh is working on an adaptation of Anne Rice's novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt that he will adapt (with wife Betsy) and direct. The project grew out of a rave review Ms. Rice wrote of the film, The Stoning of Soraya M., on her Facebook page. Through her agent her novel was sent to the Nowrasteh's and they agreed to pursue it, setting the project up with 1492 Pictures and CJ Entertainment.
His most notable other project is a film about Andrew Jackson entitled The Battle of New Orleans. He is partnered with producer/manager Alan Siegel and Gerard Butler has expressed interest in portraying Jackson who led a ragtag army in defeating the British at New Orleans on January 8, 1815.- Writer
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Daryush Shokof is an artist and film-maker who left Iran in the 1970s for the U.S. and under the name of AliReza Shokoufandeh. He studied mathematics and physics at E.N.M.U. and then went on to get a masters degree in management from U.D. in Texas. He became a full-time artist in Germany where he moved to from New York in early 1980s. He coined the term maximalism in the arts in 1990 in Cologne Germany, and together with many of the artists of the time they made many exhibitions under the maximalists at Gallery Schulze in Cologne in 1990, both in Europe and in the U.S. He first made a name for himself as a script-writer by copying works from two great directors of the time Federico Fellini, and Pier Paolo Pasolini, changing the names of the characters and some situations and presented them to his father as his own works, which made his father believe he was a genius. He was soon the talk of a bigger circle of friends and family and had to write at a level to match his great idols from the age of eleven years. None of his writings ever showed any promise until finally and at age 42 he wrote a story which attracted the attention of two of the legendary names of cinema. Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn both wanted to have the lead in Seven Servants. Quinn played the role along with David Warner, who played the role offered to Norman Mailer (who was so in admiration of the story that refused to play the role saying his acting was not up to the task). In the next 10 years he did more than 12 feature films and 10 short films with great originality both in writing and directing. He has made his movies through the help of private friends and contribution and cooperation from a great many professionals who believed and supported in his abilities as a film-maker. He has never had any of his movies released to the public and has never received any funding for any of his films from any official film industry companies, or from any country. He continues making films under amazing conditions, which in itself is truly a story to make a film about.- Additional Crew
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Reza Badiyi was born on 17 April 1929 in Arak, Iran. He was a director and producer, known for Carnival of Souls (1962), Stop Susan Williams (1979) and Get Smart (1965). He was married to Tania Harley, Barbara Turner and Gwendolyn M Dennis. He died on 20 August 2011 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Writer
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Hossein Amini was born in Iran, and when he was 11 years old, he and his family moved to England. Amini's first screenplay was for the 1994 TV movie The Dying of the Light, which was directed by Peter Kosminsky. The TV movie covered the murder of Sean Devereux, an aid worker who was murdered in Somalia in 1993 for criticizing arms sales. It was nominated "Best Single Drama" at the British Academy Television Awards. Amini also wrote an adapted screenplay of the 1895 novel Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. Producer Andrew Eaton commissioned the screenplay in 1995, and it was filmed by Michael Winterbottom as Jude, released in 1996. Amini also wrote a screenplay for another TV movie, Deep Secrets, which aired in 1996. Amini wrote the adapted screenplay for The Wings of the Dove, which was based on the 1902 eponymous novel by Henry James. The film, directed by Iain Softley, was released in 1997 and received critical claim. Amini was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing - Adapted Screenplay. In September 2013, Amini delivered a screenwriting lecture as part of the BAFTA and BFI Screenwriters' Lecture Series.- Writer
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Massy Tadjedin was born in Tehran, Iran. Massy is a writer and director, known for Last Night (2010), The Jacket (2005) and The Adults.- Writer
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Raised in Iran and Canada, Khonsari was first introduced to filmmaking through his grandfather's super 8mm films. He developed an appreciation for storytelling from his grandmother, who would recite stories (both fictional and historical) from memory. Khonsari fell in love with video games after playing Pitfall on Atari.
He graduated from the University of British Columbia, and also studied at the Vancouver Film School. His first short film was entitled "Arcade Angels", which focused on video game burnouts who robbed a video rental store and then opened an arcade. He wrote and produced The Contract, his first film with Billy Dee Williams. Khonsari broke out on to the gaming scene with Grand Theft Auto III and Max Payne.
He met his wife Vassiliki, while working on Pindemonium. They own and operate iNK Stories, a studio based out of New York and Toronto.- Director
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Tony Zarindast was born in 1934 in Tabriz, Iran. He was a director and writer, known for Cat in the Cage (1978), The Guns and the Fury (1981) and Hardcase and Fist (1989). He died on 29 November 2016 in Tehran, Iran.- Director
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Ali Samadi Ahadi is known for Salami Aleikum (2009), The Green Wave (2010) and Lost Children (2005).- Director
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Saman Salur is known for A Few Kilos of Dates for a Funeral (2006), Lonely Tunes of Tehran (2008) and From the Land of Silence (2004).