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
Esmaeel Monsef
Esmaeel Monsef, born in Iran in 1976, is a graduate of the Behandish Cinema School of Tehran. A founding member of the Association of Independent Iranian Filmmakers, he has edited over 40 shorts, documentaries and features and received numerous festival awards for his first short film, 'OYAN'.
Hiwa Aminnejad
Hiwa Aminnejad was born to a Kurdish middle class family in Baneh, Iranian Kurdistan, in 1973. He qualified in film direction from the Iranian Young Cinema Society in Tabriz. Being both Kurdish and Iranian he is fascinated by the everyday life of Iranian Kurds as they confront the contradictions of tradition, the effects of war and the peculiarities of their situation as an ethnic group spread over several countries. He is part of a group of Iranian directors contributing to the development of a cinema inspired by Kurdish traditions, landscapes and subjects.
Farshid Akhlaghipour
Farshid is an independent Iranian/Australian filmmaker, an alumnus of Victorian College of Arts (VCA). He was born in Tehran, Iran. He started his career as a short film director with making narrative and experimental shorts. He directed 15 short films and documentaries and participated in a variety of film festivals around the world. In 2018 he has been awarded the Special Mention Award in the prestigious Camerimage Film Festival for Pain is Mine short film. He is known for making films tackling ‘difficult’ subjects but all with a strongly inquiring and empathetic dimension. While such subjects may be difficult, they present a sought-after alternative to the standard fare of conventional film making. Farshid’s first feature film From Music into Silence has been screened in Australian cinemas in 2019 and shown in festivals all around the world. This film was well-received by prominent film critics such as David Stratton.
Mania Akbari
Mania Akbari is an Iranian filmmaker, artist, writer, and curator whose works explore women's rights, marriage, sexual identity, disease and body image. Her style, in contrast to the long tradition of melodrama in Iranian cinema, is rooted in the visual arts and autobiography.
Bahman Kiarostami
Bahman Kiarostami (born 1978, Tehran) made his first film ‘Morteza Momayez: Father of Iranian Contemporary Graphic Design’ in 1996. His films have been shown at numerous international film festivals and the focus of his documentaries have been primarily on art and music, but also cover the visible yet obscured and unnoticed details which define post revolutionary Iran. He was recently the winner of Best Documentary at the London Iranian Film Festival (2011) and his documentary ‘Shiraz’as part of ‘Taste of Iran series’ was voted as Best Documentary of the year by the viewers of BBC World news. Bahman was also the recipient of Best Director Award at Middle East Film Festival (2003).
Seifollah Samadian
Born in Tehran in 1954, Seifollah Samadian is an accomplished Iranian artist, photographer and cinematographer. Highly-regarded internationally as an art director with experience working with directors like Martin Scorsese and Abbas Kiarostami, Samadian came to the forefront of critical attention in a wave of Iranian photography that gained momentum in Iranian the arts scene in the years following the 1988 end of the Iran-Iraq war. Samadian later became Professor of Photojournalism at the University of Tehran and is today Publisher and Editor-in-chief of the Iranian cultural magazine Tassvir (Photography).
Anahita Ghazvinizadeh
Anahita Ghazvinizadeh (b1989, Tehran, Iran) is a filmmaker and writer. She got her BFA in cinema from Tehran University of Art and her MFA in studio arts from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Anahita has studied with Abbas Kiarostami and is influenced by his cinematic style. Being inspired by the rich culture of children’s cinema in Iran, she started to work on a trilogy of short films with children as the main characters. When the Kid was a Kid (2011) and Needle (2013) are the first two finished pieces of series. Anahita is also the co-writer of the acclaimed feature film, Mourning (2011). Childhood and parenthood, family theater, and exploring notions of growth and gender identity are the main themes of her work.
Ali Asgari
Ali Asgari was born in Tehran, Iran. He studied cinema in Italy. He is an alumnus of Berlinale Talent Campus 2013. Two of his short films More Than Two Hours (2013) and The Silence (2016, co-directed by Farnoosh Samadi) were in competition at Festival De Cannes where they competed for the Short Film Palme d’Or. His short film The Baby premiered in competition of Venice Film Festival in 2014. His short films were screened in more than 600 film festi- vals around the world including Sundance, BFI London and Melbourne and won more than 150 international awards. Disappear- ance is his first feature film. The script was developed at Cannes Festival’s Cinefonda- tion La residence.
Mohsen Amiryousefi
Born in 1972 in Abadan, Mohsen Amiryousefi is a graduate of “Mathematics” from Isfahan University. He started making short and documentary films since 1997 and Stone Hands (2000) was a great success at home and abroad. His first feature film, Bitter Dream (2004) was selected for Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight and then screened at 50 more film festivals around the world and collected 10 international prizes. His second feature film, Fire-Maker (2007-2010) received Innovation Award of Montreal Film Festival. In 2012, he’s completed two documentaries, My Home and one episode of Kahrizak, Four Views. Mohsen is now involved in production of his third feature film in Tehran.
Mohsen Abdulvahab
Mohsen Abdolvahab was born in 1957 in Tehran. Abdolvahab is a graduate in Editing from the IRIB University. He began his cinematic career in 1980, editing over 30 documentary and feature films and producing 23 short documentaries and award-winning feature film documentaries. Previous film collaborations with Rakhshan Bani-Etemad include, Nargess and Gilaneh. He also won the Best film Prize at 1st Persian Film Festival in 2012.
Mahmoud Ghafari
Born in 1976 in Tehran, Mahmoud Ghaffari entered the landscape of Iranian cinema with a dozen award-winning shorts, some of which received prizes from his home country. Very active on the Iranian television scene, in 2006 he produced two series, THE GREY GAME and THE ADMIRERS OF LOVE. He collaborated with filmmakers Bahman Ghobadi and Asghar Fahradi, among others, before directing his first feature film, IT'S A DREAM.
Behnam Behzadi
Behnam Behzadi was born in 1972 in Boroujen, Iran and obtained a diploma in cinema from the faculty of “Seda & Cima” in Tehran in1995. He began his artistic activities in the theatre and photography whilst directing shorts in 8mm & 16mm formats as well as video.Over the past few years he’s written scripts, worked in editing and collaborated with various scriptwriters including Bahman Ghobadi with whom he was co-script writer for the film ‘Nive mang/Half Moon’. Behnam Behzadi has also worked in marketing and advertising and was for some time artistic director of the campaign against cruelty to children.
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.