4th Edition

4th Edition2024-08-27T14:24:15+00:00

Official Selection | Features

Official Selection | Shorts

Festival Poster

4th Edition

The 4th Persian Film Festival opened with the highly anticipated Australian premiere of Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s award-winning feature The President. The festival hosted eight national and international guests, including Alireza Amini and Bita Beigi from Iran, Saeed Sourati and Nora Niasari from Australia, and Alexandria Bombach from the USA. The festival guests engaged audiences in Q&A sessions after their screenings.

Poster of the 4th Persian Film Festival

Designed by Amin Palangi

 

Festival Guests

Martin McGrath

Martin is one of Australia’s most experienced Directors of Photography with over 30 movies to his credit. His first feature, Proof (Dir: Jocelyn Moorhouse) won the AFI award for best film, repeating that success three years later with the release of the iconic Muriel’s Wedding (Dir: PJ Hogan), one of Australia’s most loved movies. The ground-breaking miniseries Blue Murder was released the following year. Many AFI/AACTA and ACS awards and nominations have followed in their wake: Children of the Revolution, On the Beach, The Sound of One hand Clapping, Blackrock, The Broken Shore, Swimming Upstream, Operation Buffalo. Martin shot Rachel Griffiths’ feature debut Ride Like a Girl which was Australia’s highest grossing locally produced film of 2019. Martin’s most recent television credits include Jungle Entertainment’s Wakefield (Dir: Jocelyn Moorhouse and Kim Mourdant) and Porchlight Film’s Operation Buffalo (Dir: Peter Duncan), both commissioned by the ABC, along with Banished for BBC2 and Difficult People for Hulu. His documentary credits include the recent Revelation (Dir: Niall Fulton- ABC) and Blind Ambition (Dir: Robert Coe and Warwick Ross). Martin has just completed NBC’s Young Rock (Dir: Nanatchka Khan and Jefferey Walker) based on the early life of Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock.

Anna Cater

Anna Cater has produced and directed documentaries for Australian and international broadcasters for the past 30 years. Her recent credits include the feature documentaries Richard Leplastrier – Framing the View (ABC) and The Bowraville Murders (SBS). Other documentaries include Dick Smith’s Population Puzzle (ABC); Frank Hurley – the Man Who Made History (BBC, ABC); Outsourced! (PBS, SBS); Honeybee Blues (SBS, Nat Geo); and the feature film Rites of Passage (ABC). Anna began her career as a print journalist and has written for newspapers and magazines around the world. She worked for the ABC’s Background Briefing investigative radio program before becoming head of research and a producer at Four Corners. She began her film production company after graduating from AFTRS with an MA in Documentary in 1997.

Remy Hii

Remy Hii began his career on stage at the age of 19 with the Queensland Theatre Company in the award winning play The Estimator. Television roles soon followed, and three years of full time study with the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney, Australia where he graduated in 2011. Weeks after graduating, Hii was cast in Alex Proyas' film 'Paradise Lost' as a fallen Angel alongside Bradley Cooper's Lucifer. The production however was shutdown citing budgetary reasons. Immediately following, Hii appeared playing the true story of Van Tuong Nguyen, an Australian sentenced to death for drug trafficking in Singapore. For his role as Van in Better Man, Remy was nominated for the AACTA Award for Best Lead Actor in a Television Drama, and won the Graham Kennedy Award For Most Outstanding Newcomer. Hii was introduced to international audiences as Prince Jingim, heir to the Kublai Khan's Mongolian Empire in the Netflix/Weinstein Original production Marco Polo. Remy underwent rigorous physical training for the role including martial arts, archery, horse riding, and performed his own stunts on the show. Hii returned to the stage in the Sydney Theatre Company production of The Golden Age in 2016.

Samantha Lang

Samantha Lang is a filmmaker. She is produces, directs, and writes. Working in Australia, Europe and the US over the last 20 years, her films have screened at major international festivals including Sundance, Toronto, Locarno, and have received international recognition at the highest level, her film ‘The Well’ competing at the Cannes Film Festival for the prestigious Palme D’Or. In Australia, Samantha’s films have been awarded many times including - at the Australian Film Institute Awards and the Sydney Film Festival. In 2015 – her film ‘Carlotta’ was nominated for five AACTA awards and won three. As well as being a creative practitioner, currently working with Garth Davis, Emile Sherman and Iain Canning in their joint venture I AM THAT - she has mentored, supervised and lectured postgraduate film students in her capacity as Head of Directing at AFTRS (2010-2016), as well as mentored emerging practitioners at SNSW, HIVE at AIFF, and SA. Presently she is a DCA candidate at the University of Technology, Sydney. Her areas of interest include eco feminine cinema and cultural narratives in the Anthropocene. Her company Handmaid Media is committed to producing films that unearth stories from diverse perspectives. With an eye and ear for emerging and established talent, Samantha is committed to finding authentic voices with an edgy aesthetic. A social, ethical, ecological consciousness pervades all the Handmaid Media projects. In 2015 Samantha was elected as President of the Australian Director’s Guild with a mandate to create greater diversity across gender, race and class in the sector. As part of this remit she remains on the taskforce at Screen Australia that rolled out the Gender Matters Initiative in 2016. Recently she has presented papers on gender equity in South Korea and China. Samantha’s current projects include Brown Lake - an eco-thriller, a feature adaptation of cross-cultural comedy ‘Kill The Messenger’ by playwright & comedian, Nakkiah Lui. Asian Australian YA feature ‘Laurinda’ by screenwriter & actress, Michelle Law, and TV drama series of ‘Night Games’ (with producer Aquarius Films). She directed her first VR film ‘Prehistoric VR’ in 2017 and is in development with her next VR anthology ‘Anthropocene Project’ . Her most recent film in 2019 was a documentary on contemporary public artists ‘It all Started with a Stale Sandwich’

MahVeen Shahraki

MahVeen is an award winning producer. Originally from Iran, MahVeen soon found her home within the Australian film industry with her strong eye for identifying compelling stories and marketplace, linking gifted individuals to launch original work. MahVeen has produced and delivered outstanding national content with international impact including; Ellie & Abbie (and Ellie’s Dead Aunt) which featured as a program highlight in Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) and the New Zealand International Film Festival. Ellie and Abbie is the first Australian film to open the 2020 Mardi Gras Film Festival in its 27-year history and went on to win the coveted Audience Award, as well as the 2021 AACTA Award for Best Independent Film. As Executive Producer, MahVeen has delivered the international title The Translator with multiple global partners and locations, which has been selected for TIFF industry selects. The Translator had its world premiere in Tallinn in November 2020. MahVeen was selected as a 2020 'One To Watch’ Producer by Screen Producers Australia for her creative passion, commercial knowledge and ability to deliver quality international products. She is currently producing her next feature film "The Rooster" starring Hugo Weaving and Pheonix Raea which is scheduled to premiere at Melbourne International Film Festival 2023.

Nicole Chamoun

Nicole Chamoun is best known for her compelling depiction of Iraqi refugee Zahra Al Bayati in SBS's critically acclaimed Safe Harbour, for which she was nominated both for a Logie for Most Outstanding Supporting Actress and an AACTA Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Television Drama; as well as the series lead role of Amirah Al-Amir in On The Ropes, directed by Shannon Murphy, for Lingo Pictures and SBS; and for which Nicole was nominated for the Logie award for Most Outstanding Actress. Nicole's other leading TV roles include Laila in Romper Stomper for Stan network, Afina in the ABC's The Dr Blake Mysteries, Selma in City Homicide for the Seven Network, the comedy series Ronny Chieng International Student and in Esben Storm's Kick for SBS, playing a lead role, Layla. On stage Nicole has appeared as Jomana in Tales Of A City To The Sea for La Mama Theatre which was nominated for a Green Room Award. And along with feature film credits Last Dance and Who Wants to be a Terrorist, Nicole has also appeared in numerous short films including Concern for Welfare which was funded by Create NSW and SBS Australia through the Generator Emerging Filmmakers Fund for SBS Viceland. Nicole will next be seen in the upcoming feature film, Miss Fisher and The Crypt of Tears, directed by Tony Tilse and in the role of Jacinta in the mini-series The Gloaming for ABC Studios.

Reza Radjoo

Reza studied cinema at the Soureh College in Iran with a focus on editing and later studied screenwriting and storytelling. He has been nominated for the Best Screenplay Award at several festivals, including the Short Film Festival (Nahal) and (Tehran Short Film).

Mohammad Reza Khavari

Mohammad Reza Khavari was Born in 1992. He is an Iranian screenwriter, editor, director, and producer. At the age of 19, he started film making by making no-budget films. Participating in The Oscar Winner Iranian Director; Asghar Farhadi's directing master class, motivated him to make her first short film "SABA". Official Selections in several film festivals including OSCAR and BAFTA Qualifying Film Festivals, winning two international awards for the best film, a nomination for the best actor award in 14th Grand Off Independent Film Festival, selecting as one the best films of the Sedicicorto Film Festival by the Italian magazine "La Settima Arte", are some of the honors of Mohammad Reza Khavari's first short film in the last two years.

Ali Daraee

Born in 1991 in Iran, Ali studied at The Tehran University majoring in acting and participated in filmmaking courses at IYCS (Iran Young Cinema Society). Graveyard is his first short film.

Atefeh Salehi

Born in 1989 in Sirjan, Iran. Atefeh Salehi holds a BA in Fashion design from Yazd Islamic Azad University and a MA in Dramatic Literature from The Science and Research Branch (SRB) of the Islamic Azad University of Tehran. She was interested in writing since she was a child and wrote her first stories at the age of eight. After completing her bachelor's degree and choosing the subject of costume design in Iran’s cinema for her dissertation, she pursued filmmaking and screenwriting seriously. She has made 3 short films and 1 documentary film. She has written more than ten short screenplays. She has also designed costumes for some short films. She is married and has a son.

Emad Arad

Emad Arad is known for Barter (2021) and The Doll (2021).

Special Event

Love Marriage in Kabul: Fundraiser

The festival hosted a special fundraiser screening of Amin Palangi’s award winning Love Marriage in Kabul and donated the proceeding to Mahboba’s Promise Charity.