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
Noora Niasari
Noora Niasari is a Writer/Director based between Melbourne and Tehran. She holds a Bachelor in Architecture from the University of Technology, Sydney and a Masters in Film & TV from the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA). Nora started her career making documentaries in Lebanon including BEIRUT, UNDER THE BRIDGE awarded ‘Special Jury Prize’ and ‘Best Director Documentary’ at the 11th Beirut International Film Festival. In 2015 she was selected for the Abbas Kiarostami filmmaking workshop in Barcelona and her narrative short THE PHOENIX (SIMORGH) premiered at the 64th Melbourne International Film Festival in the Accelerator program for emerging directors. In 2017, her first long form documentary, CASA ANTÚNEZ (ANTÚNEZ HOUSE) competed in the Official Selection of the 2017 Sheffield Doc/Fest where she was nominated for the prestigious New Talent Award. WATERFALL is Nora’s latest narrative short, produced by Fete Films and funded by Screen Australia’s Hot Shots Program. SHAYDA is her debut feature film, premiering in the World Dramatic Competition of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.
Meghdad Asadi
Born 1982 in Shiraz, Iran and currently living in Rochester, NY, award winner director, animator and Student Academy Awards nominee, Meghdad Asadi Lari started his higher education in 2000 by studying Electrical Engineering in Shiraz University and continued to M.Sc. in Communications Engineering. During his graduate studies, he discovered his passion for graphic design and animation. Familiar with all aspects of aesthetics, his artistic and creative abilities have been recognized by professionals as fast and precise. Not long after completing his technical degrees did he decide to step into the art field as a creative professional. He started his MFA in Computer Animation and directed and produced several animations which played at festivals worldwide and gained several national and international awards. He finished his MFA degree in 2014 with faculty awards for his thesis film, Simorgh.
Amin Palangi
Amin Palangi is an award-winning filmmaker known for his intimate and captivating portrait of people in extreme circumstances. His debut documentary, LOVE MARRIAGE IN KABUL, won the Audience Award at Sydney Film Festival, Best Direction from the Australian Directors Guild and was released theatrically in Australia and broadcast internationally in over twenty-six countries. His credits also include several award-winning short films such as BREAK, CLOSE DISTANCE and his AFTRS graduating film VAFADAR (LOYAL), and web series including Screen Australia funded I LUV U BUT. As a cinematographer, Amin received a Cine Award for AFGHANISTAN BY CHOICE, directed by Sundance and Emmy Award winner Alexandria Bombach. Amin's feature film TENNESSINE released in cinemas in April 2024.
Mehdi Ganji
Born in Iran 1978. Mehdi Ganji is a 2002 filmmaking graduate from the Tehran University of Art. Having specialized in imagery, he started working as a cameraman and film editor in fiction films and in documentaries, working with various Iranian channels and International networks and television like Newsweek, Arte and etc. He is member of Iranian Documentary Film Society.
Ali Khameparast Fard
Born 1985 in Iran. He started Filmmaking from 2003. He made some short films. He made his first feature film in 2015.
Niki Karimi
Niki Karimi was born in Tehran on November 10, 1971. She started her career as an actress since 1989. In 1995 she was awarded the silver shell for best Actress in San Sebastian film festival and Nantes film festival award for Sara By Darioush Mehrjuii. She also won the best actress award for her performance in two women in Taormina film festival in Italy and in Cairo film festival in Egypt. Jury member in Thessaloniki film festival, In Dubai, Rennes, Middle East, Damascus and Locarno film festival, also a translator and a photographer. In 2001 she made a documentary about infertility. She premiered her first directing job with "To have or not to have", which won "The Rain" documentary award in Iran. One night, is her first feature film, Official selection in Cannes film festival (2005).
Hassan Fathi
Born in 1959 in Tehran, Hassan Fathi was the director of many popular TV series such as Horses Never Die, Mulla Sadra, The Tenth Night and Brighter than Darkness. Fathi went through a different experience in his debut feature, Marriage Iranian Style which was a successful romantic comedy. After his successful TV series, Zero Degree Turn, Fathi made his second feature film, The Postman Does not Ring the Doorbell Three Times in 2009.
Alireza Amini
Born in 1970 in Tehran, Amini is a graduate of stage directing. He has made more than 20 short and documentary films and he was assistant director to Bahman Ghobadi’s "A Time for the Drunken Horses." His debut feature film, “Letters of the Wind” (2002) and then his second feature film, “Tiny Snowflakes” (2003) were shown at many film festivals around the world (including Locarno, Busan, Thessaloniki) and brought him international recognition.
Parviz Shahbazi
Born in 1963 in Tehran, Parviz Shahbazi is a graduate of filmmaking from Tehran's Iran Broadcasting College. During the early 80’s he began writing short stories and directing short films. He edited several films and directed 12 short films before making his first feature film, Traveller from the South, in 1996.His debut feature film, as well as his second film, Whispers went to numerous festivals and brought him international recognition, collecting several prizes along the way in such events as Tokyo, San Jose and Annonay. In 2002, his third film, Deep Breath was shown at the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes Film Festival to great success. Among other accolades it won a FIPRESCI award at Pusan and the Jury special award at Turin as well as the Best Film award at the Belgrade Author Festival. Trapped is his fifth film which brought him the best director award from Fajr Festival, Tehran 2013.
Jamshid Mahmoudi
Jamshid Mahmoudi was born on March 29, 1983 in Parvan, Afghanistan. Hardly one-year-old his family sought refuge in Pakistan and then in Iran. He developed his passion for cinema from a very early age. Having obtained his high-school diploma he passed the entrance exam for Tehran’s University of Art but preferred working on projects with his film producer brother, Navid Mahmoudi. He was assistant director before directing his first TV film in 2008. In 2012, thanks to Navid’s support, he directed his first feature, ‘A few Cubic Metres of Love’, inspired by a true story that took place in Kabul.
Hossein Shahabi
Born in 1965 in Tabriz, Hossein Shahabi is a graduate of Music from Tehran University. He started his career in 2005, making a short film, Votive Offering. His other short films are Raining Tree (2007), Reflection (2009) and The Last Word (2010). Shahabi has also been involved in directing some tele-films for Iranian TV, The Photo (2005), The Shadows (2006), The Secret (2008), The Glass Night (2010) and For the Sake of Mehdi (2011). Bright Day (2013) is his first feature film which was well received by Iranian film critics and audiences of the 31st Fajr Film Festival in Tehran in February 2013.
Abolhassan Davoodi
Born in 1955 in Iran, Abolhassan Davoodi studied cinema in School of Cinema & Television and Sociology in Beheshti university. He wrote film criticism and reviews in Soroosh & Film magazines for 5 years before professionally starting his filmmaking career. He was the head of the guild of Iranian script writers (1991-1995), the Iranian Alliance of Motion Picture Guilds (Khaneh Cinema) (1999-2002), and the head of the board of directors of the Iranian independent film maker association. He was also on the board of directors of the Iranian alliance of Motion Picture Guilds.
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.