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
Ziba Karamali
Ziba is known for her role as the leading actress in Lottery (2018) a film that not only got attention of the film reviewers and juries but also holds the record of the most sales in the Fajr film festival (the most prestigious film festival in Iran) for all the time. Despite her good start in acting, she doesn't want to leave her main point of interest, to tell stories and influence. Filmmaking. Emad, a 2018 Soore University graduate, is also well known among Iranian short film makers because of his participation as cinematographer in several short projects. They met each other in a short project. They find that they have a lot of common social concerns, as well as common sense about their artistic visions. Those lead them to work together on the Bater as their first film. A film that, despite most of the well known Iranian shorts and features, not only talks about Iran but also about a subject that involves every society.
Farnoosh Abedi
Farnoosh Abedi was born in 1985 in Isfahan/Iran. He has made more than 20 short animated films and TV series, documentaries and one Feature Animated. His films were presented and screened in more than 500 domestic and international film festivals and received 220 awards.
Maryam Esmikhani
Maryam Esmikhani is known for All My Roots (2012).
Closing Night Film: Imagine
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Ali Behrad
Ali Behrad was born on January 22, 1987 in Tehran, Iran. Ali is a director and writer, known for Imagine (2022) and Herman (2019).
Maryam Zaree
Maryam Zaree was born in 1983 in Teheran/Iran. Fleeing political persecution, her mother brought Maryam with her to Germany when she was two. She grew up in Frankfurt am Main and studied acting in the renowned film school Konrad-Wolf in PotsdammBabelsberg. She has played lead roles in a dozen feature films, worked for theatre and Television and has been awarded for her performances. In 2018 she received a “Grimme Preis” for her performance in the TV show “4 Blocks.” Her first theatre play “Kluge Gefühle” received the Author’s Prize of the Heidelberg Stückemarkt and has been performed in multiple theaters. Born in Evin is her debut feature film.
Ehsan Mirhosseini
Ehsan Mirhosseini (born in August 20, 1985 in Ahvaz, Iran) is an Iranian screenwriter and film director. Raising up in a middle-class family, he started studying cinema at Iranian Youth Cinema Society in Tehran. While working as a film critic in Iranian Cinema magazines and newspapers Ehsan made his first short film titled Picking the Grape in 2007. Since then he has worked on many film projects as a screenwriter and assistant director. In 2015, Ehsan decided to focus more on screenwriting with Bardia Yadegari, they wrote 4 screenplays and directed a short film titled Unlimited Internet (2017) which was in the official selection of Tehran International Short Film Festival in 2017. Ehsan experienced his first film as an actor in The Golden Bear winner film of 2020 Berlin Film Festival “There Is No Evil” directed by Mohammad Rasoulof.
Bardia Yadegari
Bardia Yadegari (born in September 27, 1980, Kermanshah Iran) is an Iranian screenwriter and film director. He started to work in the Iranian film industry as an assistant sound recordist in 2001. Later he shifted his direction to writing and so far he has proven himself as a poet, screenwriter and director. While working as a researcher and screenwriter in different formats of filmmaking, Bardia published his first book in 2016. He has also written several articles for foreign journals like Guardian. Bardia’s poems never get the license to be published in Iran. During the past years Bardia has worked on several feature films, documentary and short films as a screenwriter and director with acclaimed Iranian filmmakers. In 2020, he acted and assisted in There Is No Evil by Mohammad Rasoulof which won The Golden Bear of the 70th Berlin Film Festival.
Zalava to Open 10th edition
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Persian Film Festival 2023
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Mojgan Ilanlou
Born in Tehran, Iran, Sepideh Farsi moved to Paris to study mathematics. After several years of photography, she began making short films and documentaries, amongst which HARAT and TEHRAN WITHOUT PERMISSION, which both premiered in Locarno. Her first two features DREAMS OF DUST and THE GAZE premiered in Rotterdam. She then directed THE HOUSE UNDER THE WATER, followed by CLOUDY GREECE and has just finished a new feature film: RED ROSE.
Jahangir Kosari
Jahangir Kosari was born in Tehran in 1950 and obtained a master’s in film direction from Tehran University’s School of Dramatic Art. After having worked in journalism, he went into both production management and film production, producing a wealth of critically acclaimed, successful movies.
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.