Cuarenta realizadores del mundo islámico. (Forty filmmakers from the Islamic world)
Revista Nosferatu 1995
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- Art Director
- Writer
- Set Decorator
Chadi Abdel Salam was born on 9 March 1930 in Alexandria, Egypt. He was an art director and writer, known for The Mummy (1969), El Fetewa (1957) and Zaman el ajab (1952). He died on 9 October 1986 in Cairo, Egypt.- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Salah Abouseif was born on 10 May 1915 in Cairo, Egypt. He was a director and writer, known for El Fetewa (1957), The Monster (1954) and Mughamarat Antar wa Abla (1948). He died on 23 June 1996 in Cairo, Egypt.- Director
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- Editor
Turkish film director, screenwriter, academician. Who directed movies from 1948 to 1990. In 1949, he debuted as a film director with Vurun Kahpeye ("Strike the Whore") an adaptation of Halide Edip Adivar's book of the same title. He became one of the pioneers of the period in the "Director Generation". His 1970s trilogy comprising The Bride, The Wedding and The Sacrifice, is considered his masterpiece. Afterwards, he withdrew from movie making instead directing adaptations for TV.
Akad was born on September 2, 1916. Following his secondary education at French Jeanne d'Arc School and Galatasaray High School, he studied finance at Istanbul Economy and Commerce Higher School. Beside his occupation as financial advisor at Sema Film company, he wrote articles on theatre and cinema. After directing more than 100 movies, Akad taught twenty years at the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts.
He died on 19 November 2011 at the age of 95 in Istanbul.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Borhane Alaouié was born on 1 April 1941 in Arwoun, Lebanon. He is a director and writer, known for Khalass (2007), The Massacre of Kafr Kassem (1975) and Beirut the Encounter (1981).- Director
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- Producer
Merzak Allouache was born on 6 October 1944 in Algiers, Alger, France [now Algeria]. He is a director and writer, known for El taaib (2012), Bab El Oued City (1994) and The Rooftops (2013).- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Ahmed Badrakhan was born on 18 September 1909 in Egypt. He was a director and writer, known for Lailat gharam (1951), Shi min la shi (1939) and Nashid al-Amal (1937). He died on 26 August 1969 in Egypt.- Director
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- Producer
Henry Barakat was born on 11 June 1914 in Cairo, Egypt. He was a director and writer, known for El bab el maftuh (1963), Hasan wa Naimah (1959) and Leilet al quabd al Fatma (1984). He died on 27 May 1997 in Cairo, Egypt.- Director
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- Producer
Ridha Behi was born on 7 August 1947 in Kairouan, French Protectorate of Tunisia [now Tunisia]. He is a director and writer, known for La boîte magique (2002), The Island of Forgiveness (2022) and Always Brando (2011).- Director
- Writer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Abdellatif Ben Ammar was born on 25 April 1943 in Tunis, French Protectorate of Tunisia [now Tunisia]. He was a director and writer, known for Aziza (1980), The Chant of Noria (2002) and A Simple Story (1970). He died on 6 February 2023 in Tunis, Tunisia.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Souheil Ben-Barka was born on 25 December 1942 in Tombouctou, Mali. He is a director and producer, known for Amok (1983), Les mille et une mains (1973) and Blood Wedding (1977).- Writer
- Director
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Bahram Beizai started skipping school from around the age of 17 in order to go to movies which were becoming popular in Iran at a rapid pace. This only fed his hunger to learn more about cinema and the visual arts. By 1961 he had already spent a lot of time studying-and researching- ancient persian and pre-Islamic culture and literature. This led him to studying Eastern Theatre and traditional Iranian theatre & arts which would help him formulate a new non-western identity for Iranian theatre. By 1961 he had already published numerous articles in various Arts and Literary Journals. In 1962 he made his first short film (4 minutes) in 8mm format. In the next two years he wrote several plays and published "Theatre in Japan". In 1971 he made his first feature film Ragbar ( Downpour ) which to this day remains one of the best Iranian films ever made.- Director
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- Actor
Férid Boughedir was born in 1944 in Hammam-Lif, French Protectorate of Tunisia [now Tunisia]. He is a director and writer, known for Halfaouine: Boy of the Terraces (1990), Sweet Smell of Spring (2016) and A Summer in La Goulette (1996).- Director
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- Producer
Youssef Chahine (born in Alexandria, Egypt, 1926) started studying in a friars' school, and then turned to Victoria College until the High School Certificate. After one year in the University of Alexandria, he moved to the U.S. and spent two years at the Pasadena Play House, taking courses on film and dramatic arts. After coming back to Egypt, cinematographer Alevise Orfanelli helped him into the film business. His film debut was Baba Amin (1950): one year later, with Son of the Nile (1951) he was first invited to the Cannes Film festival. In 1970, he was awarded a Golden Tanit at the Carthage Festival. With Le moineau (1973), he directed the first Egypt-Algeria co-production. He won a Silver Bear in Berlin for Alexandria... Why? (1979), the first installment in what proved to be an autobiographic trilogy, completed with Hadduta Masriya (1982)(An Egyptian Story (1982)) and Alexandria: Again and Forever (1989).
In 1992, Jacques Lassalle proposed him to stage a piece of his choice for Comédie Française: Chahine chose to adapt Albert Camus' "Caligula," which proved hugely successful. The same year he started writing Al-mohager (1994), a story inspired by the Biblical character of Joseph, son of Jacob. This had long been a dream-project, and he finally got to shoot it in 1994. In 1997, 46 years and 5 invitations later, he was again selected Hors Competition in Cannes with Destiny (1997).- Director
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- Actor
Muhsin Ertugrul also known as Ertugrul Muhsin Bey, was a Turkish actor and director.
Muhsin Ertugrul, who had important contributions to both Turkish theatre and Turkish cinema, was born in Istanbul on 28 February 1892. His first performance in theatre was in 1909 with the role of "Bob" in Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. He ran the Darülbedayi Theatre in Istanbul from its opening in 1914.
He married in 1929 Neyyire Neyir (née Münire Eyüp), one of the first ever Turkish actresses, who debuted in the 1923 movie Atesten Gömlek, directed by himself. The marriage lasted until Neyyire's death in 1943. Ertugrul then married Handan Uran (born 1927) in 1950. A stage actress, she starred in her only movie, the 1953 Halici Kiz, once again directed by Ertugrul himself. She survived her husband's death in 1979.
During his stay in Izmir following the honorary doctor ceremony, Ertugrul died of a heart attack at the age of 87 on 29 April 1979. He was buried in Zincirlikuyu Cemetery in Istanbul.
Muhsin Ertugrul was bestowed the title Honorary Doctor by Ege University on 23 April 1979 in recognition for his contribution to the theatre and cinema of Turkey.
Three theaters in Turkey are named in his honor: the Harbiye Muhsin Ertugrul Stage and Bahcesehir Muhsin Ertugrul Theatre in Istanbul and the Muhsin Ertugrul Stage in Ankara.- Actor
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Jillali Ferhati is known for The Beach of Lost Children (1991), Mémoire en détention (2004) and At Dawn (2010).- Director
- Editor
- Writer
Serif Gören was born on 14 October 1944 in Ksanthi, Greece. He is a director and editor, known for The Road (1982), Endise (1974) and Derman (1983).- Actor
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- Director
Güney and his work were almost entirely unknown outside of his homeland Turkey until his 1981 escape from imprisonment in Turkey and his "discovery" the following year at the Cannes Film Festival for his autobiographical screenplay for The Road (1982), the festival's grand prize winner. Born in 1937 in a village near the southern city of Adana, Güney studied law and economics at the universities in Ankara and Istanbul, but by the age of 21 he found himself actively involved in filmmaking. As Yesilcam, the Turkish studio system, grew in strength, a handful of directors, including Atif Yilmaz, began to use the cinema as a means of addressing the problems of the people. Only state-sanctioned melodramas, war films and play adaptations had previously played in Turkish theaters, but these new filmmakers began to fill the screens with more artistic, personal and relevant pictures of Turkish & Kurdish life. The most popular name to emerge from the Young Turkish Cinema was that of Yilmaz Güney. Güney was a gruff-looking young actor who earned the moniker "Cirkin Kral," or "the Ugly King." After apprenticing as a screenwriter for and assistant to Atif Yilmaz, Güney soon began appearing in as many as 20 films a year and became Turkey's most popular actor. More than a screen idol, Güney was a Kurdish who believed in the Kurdish people and their way of life, as well as being personally committed to social change. Although the early 1960s brought some political reform to Turkey, Güney was imprisoned in 1961 for 18 months for publishing a "communist" novel. The country's political situation and Güney's relationship with the authorities only became more tense in the ensuing years. Not content with his star status atop the Turkish film industry, Güney began directing his own pictures in 1965 and, by 1968, had formed his own production company, Güney Filmcilik. Over the next few years, the titles of his films mirrored the feelings of the Kurdish people: Hope (1970); Agit (1972); _Acý (1971)_; Umutsuzlar (1971). After 1972, however, Güney would spend most of his life in prison. Arrested for harboring anarchist students, Güney was jailed during preproduction on Zavallilar (1975) (completed in 1975), and before completing Endise (1974), which was finished in 1974 by Güney's assistant, Serif Gören. This was a cherished role that Gören would repeat over the next dozen years, directing several scripts that Güney wrote laboriously while behind bars. Released from prison in 1974 as part of a general amnesty, Güney was re-arrested that same year for shooting a judge. During this stretch of incarceration, his most successful screenplays were The Herd (1978) and Düsman (1980), both directed by Zeki Ökten. After escaping from prison in 1981 and fleeing to France, Güney was greeted at the Cannes Film Festival with a Palme d'Or for The Road (1982), again directed by Gören. It was not until 1983 that Güney resumed directing, telling a brutal tale of imprisoned children in his final film, The Wall (1983), made in France with the cooperation of the French government. At that point, Güney's name was unspeakable in his homeland; eleven of the films he directed or appeared in were confiscated and reportedly burned to ashes; even so much as writing about Güney was forbidden. Despite the great international success of Yol and Duvar, Güney was ultimately a Kurdish director for the Kurdish people; his final separation from his home audience must have been even more painful to endure than his years of imprisonment.- Director
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Ömer Kavur was born on 18 June 1944 in Ankara, Turkey. He was a director and producer, known for Akrebin Yolculugu (1997), Karsilasma (2003) and Motherland Hotel (1987). He was married to Hümeyra. He died on 12 May 2005 in Istanbul, Turkey.- Director
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- Actor
The director Mohamed Khan was born on October 26th 1942. He completed his high school in Egypt, then traveled to England where he earned his diploma in 1962. He directed several movies in 8mm. He went back to Egypt in 1963 & worked as script writer in a Cairo production company. Worked in Lebanon for few years as an assistant director, then went to live in England from 1970 till 1978 & there wrote his book "Introduction to the Egyptian Cinema" in English. He lives in Egypt now & has one daughter (Nadin) & one son (Hassan). He's one of the best known directors in the Egyptian Cinema.- Director
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- Producer
Nacer Khemir was born in 1950 in Korba, Tunisia. He is a director and writer, known for Wanderers of the Desert (1984), The Dove's Lost Necklace (1991) and Bab'Aziz: The Prince That Contemplated His Soul (2005).- Director
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Michel Khleifi was born on 3 November 1950 in Nazareth, Israel. He is a director and writer, known for Wedding in Galilee (1987), Hikayatul jawahiri thalath (1995) and Nashid el-Hajar (1991).- 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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- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Erden Kiral was born on 10 April 1942 in Gölcük, Turkey. He was a director and writer, known for On Fertile Lands (1980), The Blue Exile (1993) and Hakkari'de Bir Mevsim (1983). He was married to Tezer Özlü. He died on 17 July 2022 in Antalya, Turkey.- Director
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Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina was born on 26 February 1934 in M'sila, Algeria. He is a director and writer, known for Rih al awras (1966), Chronicle of the Years of Fire (1975) and Sandstorm (1982).- Director
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- Cinematographer
Ahmed El Maanouni is a screenwriter, film director, cinematographer, actor and producer born in Casablanca. His films include one of the most emblematic title of Moroccan cinema Alyam Alyam (1978), first Moroccan film to be selected in Cannes Film Festival and winner of the Grand Prize at the Mannheim film festival. He caught international attention when his film Trances (Al Hal) was honored and presented by Martin Scorsese at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival to inaugurate the World Cinema Foundation. His film Burned Hearts (Les Coeurs Brûlés) (2007) won the Grand Prize at the National Film festival. His documentary films consistently interrogate colonial history and its impact on Moroccan memory. In 2007 he has been honored with the title of Officier of the Ordre des Arts et Lettres in France.- Director
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Dariush Mehrjui was born to a middle-class family in Tehran. He showed interest in painting miniatures, music, and playing santoor and piano. He spent a lot of time going to the movies, particularly American films which were un-dubbed and inter-spliced with explanatory title cards that explained the plot throughout the films. At this time Mehrjui started to learn English so as to better enjoy the films. The film that had the strongest impact on him as a child was Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves. At the age of 12, Mehrjui built a 35 mm projector, rented two-reel films and began selling tickets to his neighborhood friends. In 1959, Mehrjui moved to the United States to study at University of California, Los Angeles' (UCLA) Department of Cinema. One of his teachers there was Jean Renoir, whom Mehrjui credited for teaching him how to work with actors. Mehrjui was dissatisfied with the film program due to its emphasis on the technical aspects of film and the quality of most of the teachers. He switched his major to philosophy and graduated from UCLA in 1964. Mehrjui started his own literary magazine in 1964, Pars Review. The magazine's intention was to bring contemporary Persian literature to western readers. During this time he wrote his first script with the intention of filming it in Iran. He moved back to Tehran in 1965. Back in Tehran, Mehrjui found employment as a journalist and screenwriter. From 1966 to 1968 he was a teacher at Tehran's Center for Foreign Language Studies, where he taught classes in literature and English language. He also gave lectures on films and literature at the Center for Audiovisual Studies through the University of Tehran.
Dariush Mehrjui made his debut in 1966 with Diamond 33, a big budget parody of the James Bond film series. The film was not financially successful. But his second feature film, Gaav, brought him national and international recognition. The film Gaav, a symbolic drama, is about a simple villager and his nearly mythical attachment to his cow. The film is adapted from a short story by renowned Iranian literary figure Gholamhossein Sa'edi. Sa'edi was a friend of Mehrjui and suggested the idea to him when Mehrjui was looking for a suitable second film, and they collaborated on the script. Through Sa'edi, Mehrjui met the actors Ezzatolah Entezami and Ali Nassirian, who were performing in one of Sa'edi's plays. Mehrjui would work with Entezami and Nassirian throughout his career. The film's score was composed by musician Hormoz Farhat. The film was completed in 1969. In the film, Entezami stars as Masht Hassan, a peasant in an isolated village in southern Iran. Hassan has a close relationship with his cow, which is his only possession (Mehrjui has said that Entezami even resembled a cow in the film). When other people from Hassan's village discover that the cow has been mysteriously killed, they decide to bury the cow and tell Hassan that it has run away. While in mourning for the cow, Hassan goes to the barn where it was kept and begins to assume the cow's identity. When his friends attempt to take him to a hospital, Hassan commits suicide. Gaav was banned for over a year by the Ministry of Culture and Arts, despite being one of the first two film in Iran to receive government funding. This was most likely due to Sa'edi being a controversial figure in Iran. His work was highly critical of the Pahlavi government, and he had been arrested sixteen times. When it was finally released in 1970, it was highly praised and won an award at the Ministry of Culture's film festival, but it was still denied an export permit. In 1971, the film was smuggled out of Iran and submitted to the Venice Film Festival where, without programming or subtitles, it became the largest event of that year's festival. It won the International Critics Award at Venice, and later that year, Entezami won the Best Actor Award at the Chicago International Film Festival. Along with Masoud Kimiai's Qeysar and Nasser Taqvai's Calm in Front of Others, the film Gaav initiated the Iranian New Wave movement and is considered a turning point in the history of Iranian cinema. The public received it with great enthusiasm, despite the fact that it had ignored all the traditional elements of box office attraction. It was screened internationally and received high praise from many film critics. Several of Iran's prominent actors (Entezami, Nassirian, Jamshid Mashayekhi, and Jafar Vali) played roles in the film. While waiting for Gaav to be released and gaining international recognition, Mehrjui was busy directing two more films. In 1970 he shot Agha-ye Hallou (Mr. Naive), a comedy which starred and was written by Ali Nassirian. The film also starred Fakhri Khorvash and Entezami. In the film, Nassirian plays a simple, naive villager who goes to Tehran to find a wife. While in the big city he is treated roughly and constantly fooled by local hustlers and con artists. When he goes into a dress shop to purchase a wedding gown, he meets a beautiful young woman (Fakhri Khorvash) and proposes to her. The young woman turns out to be a prostitute who rejects him and takes his money, spending him back to his village empty handed but more world-wise. Agha-ye Hallou was screened at the Sepas Film Festival in Tehran in 1971 where it won awards for Best Film and Best Director. Later that year it was screened at the 7th Moscow International Film Festival. It was a commercial success in Iran. After finishing Agha-ye Hallou in 1970, Mehrjui traveled to Berkeley, California and began writing an adaptation of Georg Büchner's Woyzeck for a modern-day Iranian setting. He went back to Iran later in 1970 to shoot Postchi (The Postman), which starred Nassirian, Entezami and Jaleh Sam. In the film, Nassirian plays Taghi, a miserable civil servant whose life spirals into chaos. He spends his days as an unhappy mail carrier and has two night jobs in order to pay his debts. His misery has caused impotence and he is experimented upon by an amateur herbalist who is one of his employers. His only naive hope is that he will win the national lottery. When he discovers that his wife is the mistress of his town's wealthiest landowner, Taghi escapes to the local forest where he experiences a brief moment of peace and harmony. His wife comes looking for him, and in a fit of rage Taghi murders her and is eventually caught for his crime. Postchi faced the same censorship issues as Gaav, but was eventually released in 1972. It was screened in Iran at the 1st Tehran International Film Festival and at the Sepas Film festival. Internationally it was screened at the Venice Film Festival, where it received a special mention, the 22nd Berlin International Film Festival, where it received the Interfilm Award, and the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, where it was screened as part of the Directors' Fortnight. In 1973 Mehrjui began directing what was to be his most acclaimed film, The Cycle Mehrjui got the idea for the film when a friend suggest that he investigate the black market and illicit blood traffic in Iran. Horrified with what he found, Mehrjui took the idea to Gholamhossein Sa'edi, who had written a play on the subject, "Aashghaal-duni". The play became the basis for the script, which then had to be approved by the Ministry of Culture before production could begin. With pressure from the Iranian medical community, approval was delayed for a year until Mehrjui began shooting the film in 1974. The film stars Saeed Kangarani, Esmail Mohammadi, Ezzatollah Entezami, Ali Nassirian and Fourouzan. In the film, Kangarani plays Ali, a teenager who has brought his dying father (Mohammadi) to Tehran in order to find medical treatment. They are too poor to afford any help from the local hospital, but Dr. Sameri (Entezami) offers them money in exchange for giving illegal and unsafe blood donations at a local blood bank. Ali begins giving blood and eventually works for Dr. Sameri in luring blood donors, despite spreading diseases in the process. Ali meets another doctor (Nassirian) who is attempting to establish a legitimate blood bank, and helps Dr. Sameri in sabotaging his plans. Ali also meets and becomes the lover of a young nurse, played by Fourouzan. As Ali becomes more and more involved in the illegal blood trafficking, his father's health worsens until he finally dies and Ali must decide what path his life will take. The films title, Dayereh mina, refers to a line from a poem by Hafiz Shirazi: "Because of the cycle of the universe, my heart is bleeding." The film was co-sponsored by the Ministry of Culture but encountered opposition from the Iranian medical establishment and was banned for three years. It was finally released in 1977, with help from pressure from the Carter administration to increase human rights and intellectual freedoms in Iran. Because of a crowded film marketplace, the film premiered in Paris, and then was released internationally where it received rave reviews and was compared to Luis Buñuel's Los Olvidados and Pier Paolo Pasolini's Accattone. The film won the Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique Prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 1978. During this time, Iran was going through great political changes. The events leading up to the Iranian Revolution of 1979 were causing a gradual loosening of strict censorship laws, which Mehrjui and other artists had great hopes for. While waiting for The Cycle to be released, Mehrjui worked on several documentaries. Alamut, a documentary on the Isamailis, was commissioned by Iranian National Television in 1974. He was also commissioned by the Iranian Blood Transfusion Center to create three short documentaries about safe and healthy blood donations. The films were used by the World Health Organization in several countries for years. In 1978, the Iranian Ministry of Health commissioned Mehrjui to make the documentary Peyvast kolieh, about kidney transplants.
After the Islamic revolution Mehrjui directed Hayat-e Poshti Madrese-ye Adl-e Afagh (The School We Went to) in 1980. The film stars Ezzatollah Entezami and Ali Nassirian and is from a story by Fereydoon Doostdar. The film was sponsored by the Iranian Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, whose filmmaking department was co-founded by Abbas Kiarostami. The film, seen as an allegory for the recent revolution, is about a group of high school students who join forces and rebel against their authoritative and abusive school principal. Film critic Hagir Daryoush criticized both the film and Mehrjui as propaganda and a work of the new regime more than Mehrjui himself. In 1981, Mehrjui and his family traveled to Paris and remained there for several years, along with several other Iranian refugees in France. During this time he made a feature-length semi-documentary about the poet Arthur Rimbaud for French TV, Voyage au Pays de Rimbaud in 1983. It was shown at the 1983 Venice Film Festival and at the 1983 London Film Festival. In 1985, Mehrjui and his family returned to Iran and Mehrjui resumed his film career under the new regime. In Hamoun (1990), a portrait of an intellectual whose life is falling apart, Mehrjui sought to depict his generation's post-revolutionary turn from politics to mysticism. Hamoon was voted the best Iranian film ever by readers and contributors to the Iranian journal Film Monthly. In 1995, Mehrjui made Pari, an unauthorized loose film adaptation of J. D. Salinger's book Franny and Zooey. Though the film could be distributed legally in Iran since the country has no official copyright relations with the United States, Salinger had his lawyers block a planned screening of the film at Lincoln Center in 1998. Mehrjui called Salinger's action "bewildering," explaining that he saw his film as "a kind of cultural exchange." His follow-up film, 1997's Leila, is a melodrama about an urban, upper-middle-class couple who learn that the wife is unable to bear children. Modern Iranian cinema begins with Dariush Mehrjui. Mehrjui introduced realism, symbolism, and the sensibilities of art cinema. His films have some resemblance with those of Rosselini, De Sica and Satyajit Ray, but he also added something distinctively Iranian, in the process starting one of the greatest modern film waves. The one constant in Mehrjui's work has been his attention to the discontents of contemporary, primarily urban, Iran. His film The Pear Tree (1999) has been hailed as the apotheosis of the director's examination of the Iranian bourgeoisie. Since his film The Cow in 1969, Mehrjui, along with Nasser Taqvai and Masoud Kimiai, has been instrumental in paving the way for the Iranian cinematic renaissance, so called the "Iranian New Wave."- Writer
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Amir Naderi is one of the most influential figures of 20th century Persian cinema. He developed his knowledge of cinema by watching films at the theater where he worked as a boy, reading film criticism, and making relationships with leading film critics. He began his career with still photography for some notable Iranian features. In the 1970s, Mr. Naderi turned to directing, and made some of the most important features of the New Iranian Cinema. In 1971, his directorial debut, GOODBYE, FRIEND, was released in Iran. Amir Naderi first came into the international spotlight with films that are now known as cinema classics, THE RUNNER (1985), and WATER, WIND, DUST (1989). THE RUNNER is considered by many critics to be one of the most influential films of the past quarter century. After expatriating to New York in the early '90s, Amir Naderi continued to produce new work. He was named a Rockefeller Film and Video Fellow in 1997, and has served as an artist in residence and instructor at Columbia University, the University of Las Vegas, and New York's School of Visual Arts. His US films have premiered at the Film Society of Lincoln Center/ MoMA's New Directors/ New Films series, the Venice, Cannes, Tribeca, and Sundance Film Festivals. His film SOUND BARRIER (2005) had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival and won the prestigious Roberto Rossellini Prize at the Rome Film Festival. His last feature film VEGAS: BASED ON A TRUE STORY (2008) was in competition at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the CinemAvvenire Best Film in Competition Prize and the SIGNIS Award. The film was also shown at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, the Pusan International Film Festival and CineVegas in Las Vegas. His last three films MARATHON, SOUND BARRIER, and VEGAS were all shown at the FILMeX Film Festival in Tokyo.- Director
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Ali Özgentürk was born on 4 November 1945 in Adana, Turkey. He is a director and writer, known for Hazal (1979), At (1982) and Çiplak (1991).- Director
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She was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. Her first job was hosting a pop music program on the national Lebanese radio station called "Marsipulami got blue eyes." Then she became a television newsreader. Once civil war broke out in Lebanon, Saab started working on documentary films. That led to a job as second unit director for "Circle of Deceit" directed by Volker Schlondorff in 1981, which happened to be about the Lebanese civil war. She continued to report and document on the war, but moved to Paris, France after having lost so much due to the war.
2005 - She splits her time between Paris and Cairo.- Taufiq Salleh is known for Cody Rock and the Quest for Macguvitonium (2010), Kelab JMJ (2019) and InstaGeram (2017).
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Sohrab Shaheed Salles was born in Tehran in 1944 to a middle-class family and lived in Tehran. Shahid Saless was a storyteller as a child, with a passion for visualizing his narrations. During his teenage years, he showed an imaginative talent, writing and acting in plays with friends. In 1963, Shahid Saless left Iran for Vienna, where he attended a film school and an acting school at the same time, but his studies were discontinued there in 1967 due to a sudden diagnosis of tuberculosis. In the midst of treatment, he left for Paris to continue his film studies at the prestigious Independent Conservatory of French Cinema, and shortly thereafter, in 1968, he returned to Iran. Upon his return to Tehran, Shahid Saless began work with the Iranian Ministry of Culture as a documentary filmmaker, where he produced multiple short films and documentaries, partly on the topic of traditional dance amongst different Iranian ethnic groups.
In the course of his stay in Iran (1968-74), he produced two major feature films, Yek ettefaq-e sada (A simple event, 1973) and Tabiat-e bijan (Still life, 1974), both of which won major international awards for their social realist depiction of life in Iran and for their innovative cinematographic and experimental style. In Yek ettefaq-e sade Shahid Saless entered the film scene with a distinctive style, reporting on the daily life of a ten-year-old villager, showing his struggles to meet ends through smuggling fish. In Tabiat-e bijan the life of a meagerly paid railroad guard worker who is forced to retire for a younger guard is portrayed. In the course of this film, the distressful life of working class is depicted in a critical light. Shahid Saless also made several short films for the Ministry of Culture and Arts. He made many commissioned films on the local folkloric dances of various ethnic groups. He also started making short documentaries depicting the unnerving condition of life among the working class. Unsurprisingly, the political subversive message of these films was disliked by the government, and Shahid Saless was forced to leave the country.
Settled in Germany in 1974, Shahid Saless started producing documentaries for the German media. The movies he made gained him further international recognition, and he continued making documentary and feature films for major German television programs. At this time, Ramin Molai (1939-2009) worked as a cameraman for many of his German movies produced in Berlin. In Germany, his television productions always had a distinguishing artistic quality. He made his last movie, Rosen für Afrika, in 1991 for German television. In 1992, he left Germany for the United States to join his family. He died from a chronic illness related to his liver from which he suffered throughout his life.
Shahid Saless is known to be a pioneer of the new wave of Iranian cinema. In his own words, his cinema intends to document the "antagonism between man and society" (Shahid Saless). In the course of his oeuvre, he viewed the role of cinema as "to make conscious of indignity and inhumanity of life".- Director
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Mohamed Shukri Jameel is known for Clash of Loyalties (1983), Al-asuar (1979) and The Thirsties (1972).- Director
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Khaled Al-Siddiq is the pioneer of the Kuwaiti cinema, and the director of the first Kuwaiti feature film Cruel Sea (Bas ya Bahar), which was released in 1972 and nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 45th Academy Awards. has made important cinematic achievements in the history of cinema in Kuwait. He released several critically acclaimed features throughout his career, including The Wedding of Zein (Urs Al-Zayn) in 1976, adapted from the novel by Tayeb Salih, and Shaheen in 1986, based on the novel by Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio, a joint production between Kuwait, India, and Italy.
Al-Siddiq received many awards and honors, especially for his movie Cruel Sea (Bas ya Bahar), including the first prize at the Youth Film Festival in Damascus (1972), the Honor Award at the First Tehran International Film Festival, the International Film Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival, and the second prize at the Ohio International Festival, in addition to several prizes from festivals and film forums in Chicago, Spain, Carthage and others. His movie The Wedding of Zein (Urs Al-Zayn) won seven International awards.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Moumen Smihi was born on 25 August 1945 in Tangiers, Morocco. He is a director and writer, known for 44 ou les récits de la nuit (1981), A Muslim Childhood (2005) and La dame du Caire (1992).- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Actor
Atef El-Tayeb was born on 26 December 1947. He was a director and assistant director, known for Leila Sakhina (1995), Gallipoli (1981) and El-Zammar (1985). He died on 23 June 1995.- Director
- Writer
- Cinematographer
Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi is known for À la recherche du mari de ma femme (1992), Badis (1989) and Fatema, La Sultane Inoubliable (2022).- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Atif Yilmaz Batibeki was a renowned Turkish film director, screenwriter, and film producer. After finishing high school in Mersin, he attended the Law School of Istanbul University. Because of his interest in arts, he dropped out of Law School and entered the Painting Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul. After graduating from the Academy, he did some painting works in workshops. His education in painting helped him when he was directing his movies, as he once remarked. In the beginning, he worked as a film critic, made paintings and wrote film scripts to earn a living. After co-directing two movies as an assistant director to Semih Evin in 1950, his directing career began with the film Kanli Feryat (The Bloody Cry). In 1960, he established his film company "Yerli Film" with the actor Orhan Günsiray.
The most important movies in his filmography were: Hickirik (The Sob), Alageyik (The Fallow Deer), Suclu (The Guilty One), Seni Kaybedersem (If I Lose You), Yaban Gülü (The Wild Rose), Kesanli Ali Destani (Kesanli Ali's Epic), Tacsiz Kral (The Crownless King), Topragin Kani (Blood of the Earth), Olum Tarlasi (Death Field), Utanc (The Shame), Zavallilar (The Poor People), Selvi Boylum, Al Yazmalim (My Girl with the Red Scarf), Baskin (The Raid), Adak (The Sacrifice), Bir Yudum Sevgi (A Sip of Love), Adi Vasfiye (Her Name is Vasfiye), Berdel, Düs Gezginleri (Walking After Midnight), Eylül Firtinasi (After the Fall) and Mine.
He made movies that were both fluent and had mainly social messages. Most of the themes of his movies were taboo when they were produced. Particularly "Mine" and "Her Name is Vasfiye" were both revolutionary at the time of their release with themes regarding sexuality and the reaction of society.
He never gave up making movies throughout his life and even in the time when the industry stopped filmmaking due to economic reasons.
Atif Yilmaz played an important role in the professional career of notable Turkish film directors like Halit Refig, Yilmaz Güney, Serif Gören, Zeki Ökten and Ali Özgentürk.
During the Antalya Film Festival in September 2005, he was admitted to hospital with gastro-intestinal complaints. He died on 5 May 2006 in Istanbul.- Writer
- Editor
- Director
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.- Composer
- Writer
- Director
Zülfü Livaneli was born on 20 June 1946 in Ilgin, Konya, Turkey. He is a composer and writer, known for Sis (1989), Iron Earth, Copper Sky (1987) and Mutluluk (2007).