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

Pat Fiske

Pat Fiske is an experienced director and producer. She is recognised as a prominent member of Australia's independent filmmaking community. In 2001 she was awarded the prestigious Stanley Hawes Award for her outstanding contribution to the documentary industry in Australia at AIDC. Pat was Co-Head of the Documentary Department at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School from 2002-2008 and worked as the Documentary Consultant at SBS Independent for eighteen months in 2000-2001. Some of the films she has directed and/or produced are the award-winning documentaries: Rocking the Foundations, a history of the NSW Builders Laborers Federation and the Green Bans; Woolloomooloo; For All the World to See, a portrait of Professor Fred Hollows; 'Doc', a portrait of Herbert Vere Evatt; Australia Daze; Following the Fenceline; Larrikin Lad - Warren Fahey; Leaping off the Edge; An Artist in Eden and Night Patrol. She has produced the two-part series Business Behind Bars; Selling Sickness; River of No Return; Scarlet Road and Love Marriage in Kabul. In 2012-13 she was Supervising Producer for the National Indigenous Documentary Fund 5-part series, Call to Country. Pat has two film companies – Bower Bird Films and Paradigm Pictures. At present she is in development on When Disaster Strikes, Trafficking Jam and When the Camera Stopped Rolling.

Peter Andrikidis

Peter Andrikidis is a Director known for his work on television series such as ‘Cop Shop’ ‘G.P.’, ‘Water Rats’, ‘Wildside’, ‘Grass Roots’ and ‘Farscape’ as well as telemovies such as ‘My Husband My Killer’, ‘Heroes Mountain’ and ‘Blackjack’. Peter directed all seasons of Multi Award Winning ‘East West 101’ as well as the first season of ‘Underbelly’. Peter’s first feature was ‘Kings of Mykonos’ followed bythe comedy ‘Alex and Eve’. Recent projects include ‘The New Legends of Monkey’, ‘Reckoning’ and ‘Eden’. He has won numerous awards for directing/producing and was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal for his services to Australian society and Australian film production. 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.

Romaine Moreton

Dr Romaine Moreton is Goenpul Yagera of Stradbroke Island and Bundjulung of northern New South Wales. She is an internationally recognised writer of poetry, prose and film. While a Research Fellow Filmmaker in Residence at Monash, she completed the powerful transmedia work One Billion Beats, that examined the historical representation of Aboriginal people in Australian cinema. Prior to that, she was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Newcastle and worked on a project about Indigenous Cultural Intellectual Property. With Dr Lou Bennett, Romaine has been working closely with AFTRS over the last two years on a first-of-its-kind Indigenous Curriculum for screen and broadcast, focussed through the lens of ethics and aesthetics. Dr Moreton is responsible for leading the design and implementation of the School’s First Nations and Outreach strategy, to ensure that AFTRS is continuing the work of the previous Head of Indigenous, Kyas Hepworth (née Sherriff), and meaningfully embedding First Nations culture in all that the School does, internally and externally, and that AFTRS takes a leadership position as a hub of excellence in learning that is safe, inclusive and accessible to people from all across Australia.

Rahel Romahn

Rahel Romahn is one of the finest actors of his generation. He has worked professionally in Film, Television and Theatre since the age of 13 and continuously grown the plethora of experience he has built in Australia. He was nominated for a AACTA and Logie awards for his complex portrayal of a troubled youth in ‘The Principal’. Since then Rahel has been involved in tv shows such as, the yet to be released Australian Gangster, Mr Inbetween, Janet King, Pulse, Secret City, Cleverman and Underbelly. His film credits include, Down Under, Alex and Eve, The Combination, Ali’s Wedding, Little Monsters and the yet to be released films, Here Out West, Streets of Colour and Moon Rock for Monday. He has also starred in 7 plays at the highly esteemed Sydney Theatre Company in the last 3 years. Rahel is fast becoming one of the most sought after young actors in Australia and will very surely soon be working internationally. He is represented by Shanahan Management.

Helena Sawires

Helana Sawires is an Egyptian-Australian actress, based in Sydney. Born into a large, creative family of artists and musicians, she has always lived under the influence of, and in the world of the performing arts and crafts. After graduating from Newtown High School of the Performing Arts in 2011, Helana travelled for a year through Africa and Europe where she gained much of her inspiration and insight into the human condition. In 2015, she trained under master acting coach Sam Schacht at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York. Soon after, she was cast as lead actress in Australian feature film Ali’s Wedding in the role of Dianne, directed by Jeffrey Walker. Her performance earned her nominations for Best Lead Actress at the AACTA Awards, Australian Film Critics Association Awards, and Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards. Months after filming, she returned to Melbourne to play another lead female role as Jomana in Samah Sabawi’s play Tales of a City By the Sea. The play toured nationally and to Malaysia, and was included in the Victorian school curriculum. It won two awards from Drama Victoria and was nominated for the Green Room award for Best Independent Theatre production. Helana’s most recent work is in highly acclaimed Australian Television series, STATELESS (2020), where she played the role of Rosna, a detainee Kurdish Freedom Fighter.

Mohammad Reza Aslani

Mohammad Reza Aslani (born December 9, 1943, in Rasht, Iran) is an Iranian filmmaker, art theorist, graphic designer and poet known mostly for his experimental films and documentaries. He is also the co-writer of Espacementalism (the Poem of Imagination/She'er-e-Hajm) manifesto and one of the main poets of the New Wave Poetry of Iran alongside Yadollah Royaee, Fereydoun Rahnema and Ahmadreza Ahmadi. Although he never signed the manifesto.

Mehrdad Oskouei

Mehrdad Oskouei is an Iranian filmmaker, producer, photographer and researcher born in Tehran in 1969 and later graduating in film direction from the University of Arts. His films have been screened at numerous festivals both at home and abroad to great critical acclaim, making him one of the major Iranian documentary makers. In 2010 Oskouei received the Dutch Prince Claus Award for his achievements. He is a founding member of the Institute of Anthropology and Culture and has sat on several international film festival juries as well as being a cultural ambassador for the United Nation's humanitarian committee UCHA. He also teaches at film schools around Iran and is active in the Tehran Arts and Culture Association.

Mahnaz Mohammadi

Well-known for her provocative documentaries on social issues as well as her tireless activism, Iranian director Mahnaz Mohammadi has made headlines in the likes of The Guardian, the Hollywood Reporter or Variety, and has been supported by Amnesty International and the French Directors Guild (Société des réalisateurs de films) among others. Mohammadi wrote and directed her first short documentary, Women without Shadows, in 2003. She instantly received praise at international film festivals for her depiction of homeless and abandoned women in a state-run shelter, and continued documenting everyday lives and struggles of people in her next couple of films. The award-winning feature documentary Travelogue was shot on a train going from Tehran to Ankara, where Mohammadi questioned passengers about the reasons why they decided to flee the country. The film premiered in 2010 at the “A Day in Tehran” event in Paris, with the director in attendance, which became one of the reasons for Iranian authorities to ban Mohammadi from leaving the country and from producing any more films. The avid women’s rights activist also contributed to Rakhshan Bani-Etemad’s documentary We Are Half the Iran’s Population, which portrayed the demands of Iranian women in the 2009 presidential election.

Siamak Etemadi

Siamak Etemadi was born in Tehran, Iran. In 1995 he moved to Athens, Greece, where he lives to this day. He studied cinema in the UK, and Greece. He has also followed seminars on acting, editing and photography. From 2004 to 2011 he worked extensively as assistant director (1st & 2nd) and production manager in various feature films, TV series, and series of documentaries. He also had occasional work experiences as actor, both in theatre and cinema. His last short film CAVO D’ ORO had its world premier in Locarno International Film Festival – Competition in 2012 and was nominated for the Best Short Film in the Greek Film Academy Awards.

Homayoun Ghanizadeh

Homayoun Ghanizadeh (Born, in 1980) is an Iranian avant-garde Film and Theatre director, scriptwriter, and actor. His first movie "A Hairy Tale" has received the special jury prize for the best script from the 35th Warsaw film festival and also has been rewarded with some other awards from international film festivals around the world. His film was successful to attract many critics' attention to the movie and its production technique. Homayoun has written and directed lots of theatres that have been performed and received several awards at international theatre festivals. His theatre projects have been performed in many other countries around the world such as England, Germany, Estonia, Poland, Russia, China, and India. He has been working with the Estonian theater company RAAAM for more than 10 years. "Antigone", "Mississippi Dies Seated", "Daedalus and Icarus", "Caligula", "Waiting for Godot", and "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" are some of his works.

Kamran Heidari

Kamran Heidari Was Born In Gachsaran, Near Shiraz In 1978 . He Is A Freelance Documentary Filmmaker And Photographer, With An Interest In Street Photography, Graffiti And Ethno-Music. His Work Focuses On Film And Photography About The People Of Shiraz (Fars Province) And The South Of Iran. ‘My Name Is Negahdar Jamali And I Make Westerns’ (2012), His First Feature medium Length Documentary Was Screened In Many Festivals Around The World, Among Which Busan International Film Festival And Rotterdam.

Karen Pearlman

Dr Karen Pearlman writes, directs and edits screen productions. She researches creative practice, cognition and feminist film histories. Karen Pearlman is a director, with Richard James Allen, of the critically acclaimed Physical TV Company. Their works have broadcast in Australia and around the world, screened at over 300 international film festivals, and received over 80 nominations or awards. Karen's 2019 film, I want to make a film about women won Best Documentary at the 2020 St Kilda Film Festival, qualifying it for an Academy Award nomination. She was awarded Best Director at the 2020 inaugural CinefestOz Short Film Awards and Best Direction of a Documentary Short Subject at the 2020 Australian Directors’ Guild (ADG) Awards. I want to make a film about women also received the Creative Achievement Award at the 2020 Brisbane International Film Festival Short Film Awards and a Special Mention at the 2020 Sydney Film Festival’s Dendy Awards for its ‘ambitious and masterful mix of forms'. 2016 film, Woman with an Editing Bench, won the ATOM Award for Best Short Fiction. It and Karen’s 2018 documentary, After the Facts, were both honoured with Australian Screen Editors' Guild (ASE) Awards for Best Editing. Karen is a senior lecturer in Screen Production and Practice at Macquarie University, the 2020 Australian Top Research Institution in Film. She and her colleague Dr Iqbal Barkat won the 2019 Australian Award for University Teaching. Before joining Macquarie, Karen held the post of Head of Screen Studies at AFTRS for 6 years. A leading theorist, speaker and writer on the art of film editing, she is the author of Cutting Rhythms, Intuitive Film Editing (now in its 2nd edition with Focal Press) and well-known around the world for her YouTube series The Science of Editing created with This Guy Edits.

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.