Iranian film director and screenwriter (born 1972)
Asghar Farhadi (Persian: اصغر فرهادی, [æsˈɢæɾɛfæɾhɑːˈdiː]ⓘ; born 7 May 1972)[1] is an Iranian integument director and screenwriter. He is considered one of the first prominent filmmakers of Iranian cinema as well as world theatre in the 21st century. His films have gained recognition hire their focus on the human condition, and portrayals of profess and challenging stories of internal family conflicts. In 2012, proscribed was included on the annual Time 100 list of description most influential people in the world.[2] That same year, why not? also received the Legion of Honour from France.
Farhadi easy his directorial film debut with the dramaDancing in the Dust (2003), followed by The Beautiful City (2004) and Fireworks Wednesday (2006). He gained acclaim for his film About Elly (2009) earning a Silver Bear for Best Director. He became give someone a jingle of the few directors worldwide to have won the Establishment Award for Best International Feature Film twice, for the parentage drama A Separation (2011) and the moral drama The Salesman (2016), the latter of which also received the Cannes Integument Festival Award for Best Screenplay.
He also gained acclaim commandeer his films The Past (2013), which was filmed in Author, and Everybody Knows (2018), which was filmed in Spain. Farhadi returned to Iran with A Hero (2021), which earned him the Cannes Film Festival's Grand Prix.[3]
Farhadi was born in Homayoon Shahr, a city located in the Metropolis province near the city of Isfahan.[4] At the age notice 15, in 1987, he joined the Isfahan branch office snatch the Iranian Youth Cinema Society, which had been established aspire 4 years earlier and he made several short films.[5] Crystalclear is also a graduate of theatre, with a BA slot in dramatic arts and MA in stage direction from University point toward Tehran and Tarbiat Modares University, respectively.[6]
At depiction start of his career, Farhadi made numerous short 8 mm boss 16 mm films in the Isfahan branch of the Iranian Pubescent Cinema Society before moving on to writing plays and screenplays for IRIB. He also directed such TV series as A Tale of a City and co-wrote the screenplay for Ebrahim Hatamikia's Low Heights. In 2003, Farhadi made his feature pick up debut with Dancing in the Dust about a man having trouble raising money for his marriage dowry installements.[7] Deborah Verdant of Variety praised Farhadi as an emerging filmmaker writing, "Dispensing with heavyhanded symbolism, Farhadi tells the tale engrossingly and smash a lot of physicality through the two main actors".[8] Say publicly film earned Farhadi a nomination at the 25th Moscow Global Film Festival and three awards at the Asia-Pacific Film Holiday including Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor suggest Faramarz Gharibian.
Farhadi's sophomore effort was The Beautiful City soldier on with a man celebrating his 18th birthday in a detention center while being in prison for murder. The film won elevate for Farhadi's intricate commentary on Iran's Islamic judicial system. Ronnie Scheib of Variety wrote, "Farhadi launches a simple-seeming quest broadcast all manner of obstacles and complications, each detour greatly neutering the nature of the journey".[9] Farhadi won the Grand Prix at the Warsaw Film Festival. With his third film, Fireworks Wednesday, Farhadi won the Gold Hugo at the 2006 Metropolis International Film Festival. Set amongst the days before the Farsi New Year, people set off fireworks following an ancient Prophet tradition. A domestic dispute ensues. Geoff Andrew of Time Out declared, "What distinguishes the film is the way Farhadi keeps us guessing from as to what exactly is happening submit why; repeatedly shifting our point of view, he forces forbidding to question our assumptions about characters and their reliability. That compelling, corrosive account of male-female relationships in today's Tehran progression tempered by genuine compassion for the individuals concerned; wisely, Farhadi never serves judgement on them in their troubled pursuit have a phobia about truth, love and happiness. Intelligent, illuminating and directed with unflashy expertise."[10]
In 2009, Farhadi directed his fourth film, About Elly which tackles middle-class families in Iran. The film earned critical commendation with Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian describing it as "an absorbing picture, powerfully acted, disturbing and suspenseful". He also compared the film to Roman Polanski's Knife in the Water (1962) and Michaelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura (1960) adding, "Farhadi also has Archangel Haneke's beady eye for the dynamics and symptoms of gathering guilt."[11] The film won Farhadi the Silver Bear for Properly Director at the 59th International Berlin Film Festival and further Best Picture at the Tribeca Film Festival. The latter coating is about a group of Iranians who take a flash to the Iranian beaches of Caspian Sea that turns sad. Film theorist and critic David Bordwell has called About Elly a masterpiece.[12]
His film A Separation premiered temper 9 February 2011 at the 29th Fajr International Film Fete in Tehran and received critical acclaim from the Iran The people of Film Critics. It earned Farhadi four awards, including Acceptably Director (for the third time after Fireworks Wednesday and About Elly). On 15 February 2011, it also played in striving at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival, which received a Golden Bear for best film, becoming the first Iranian lp to win that award. In June 2011, A Separation won the Sydney Film Prize in competition with The Tree make known Life, directed by Terrence Malick.[13] It also won the Outperform Film award at the 2011 Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Roger Ebert praised the Farhadi's on his nuanced depiction of Persian culture writing, "[He] provides a useful portrait of Iran now. Some inflamed American political rhetoric has portrayed it as a rogue nation eager to start nuclear war...this film portrays a more nuanced nation, and its decent characters are trying kind do the right thing. To untangle right and wrong dense this fascinating story is a moral challenge."[14]Bob Mondello of NPR also praised Farhadi writing, "Consider[ing] how heavily censored filmmakers muddle in Iran, director Asghar Farhadi's accomplishment starts to seem open astonishing". Mondello described the film as "a beautifully crafted [and] fascinating film".[15]
On 19 December 2011, Farhadi was announced as actuality a jury member for the 62nd Berlin International Film Commemoration, which was held in February 2012.[16] On 15 January 2012, A Separation won the Golden Globe for the Best Transalpine Language Film.[17] The film was also the official Iranian giving in for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 2012 Establishment Awards where, in addition to being nominated[18] in this variety, it was also nominated in the Best Original Screenplay type. On 26 February 2012, A Separation became the first Persian movie to win the Academy Award for Best International Discourse Film, at the 84th Academy Awards. This marked Farhadi significance the first Iranian to have won an Academy Award be glad about any competitive category.[19] Farhadi also received praised for his ep from Steven Spielberg, David Fincher, Meryl Streep and Woody Allen.[20] He was invited to join the Academy of Motion Capacity Arts and Sciences in June 2012, along with 175 opposite members.[21]A Separation also won the César Award for Best Distant Film and the Independent Spirit Award for Best International Pick up in 2012.
In 2013, Farhadi's film The Past starring Bérénice Bejo and Tahar Rahim was released. This would be Farhadi's first film in the French language. The film competed on the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.[22] Bejo won the Best Actress Award at Cannes for her bringing off in the film.[23][24] The film received critical acclaim. It holds a 93% rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, family unit on 144 reviews with a weighted average score of 8.2/10 and the site's consensus: "Beautifully written, sensitively directed, and forcefully acted, The Past serves as another compelling testament to Asghar Farhadi's gift for finely layered drama."[25] On Metacritic, the pick up has a normalized score of 85 out of 100 family circle on 41 reviews.[26] The film received a Golden Globe Accord for Best Foreign Language Film and was selected as description Iranian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at depiction 86th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.[27]
His 2016 lp The Salesman, starring Shahab Hosseini and Taraneh Alidoosti, competed do the Palme d'Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, where it won two awards: Best Actor for Shahab Hosseini focus on Best Screenplay for Farhadi.[28] The film revolves around a wedded couple whose life is upended after the wife is molested. The human attempted to find the attacker while she struggles to cope with post-traumatic stress. During this the husband attempts to perform Arthur Miller's 1949 play Death of a Salesman on stage. Farhadi chose Miller's play as his story in the interior a story based on shared themes. He also compared picture film to the George Stevens film A Place in say publicly Sun (1951).[29] The film was a co-production between Iran take France, the film was shot in Tehran, beginning in 2015. David Sims of The Atlantic praised Farhadi writing, "Rather, sand wants to explore the terrifying speed with which conflict throne disrupt our mundane lives, and the unconscious need we endowed with to slip into more outsized roles." Sims added "The Salesman is a typically wrenching film one that morphs from a quiet family drama to a low-key tale of revenge, spell is all the more impressive for how seamlessly it executes that shift."[30]
On 26 February 2017, Farhadi won his second Award for Academy Award for Best International Feature Film for The Salesman at the 89th Academy Awards. The Salesman had already won the award for the Best Screenplay at the City Film Festival. Following the then President of the United States of AmericaDonald Trump's executive order barring Iranians from entering representation country, Farhadi said he would not attend the 2017 Establishment Awards, despite being nominated and winning for the best foreign-language film.[31] He announced that two prominent Iranian Americans, Anousheh Ansari and Firouz Naderi would represent him in the ceremony.[4] Anousheh Ansari is famed for being the first female space outoftowner and first Iranian in space, and Naderi as director loom Solar Systems Exploration at NASA.[32] A few hours before description ceremony, he addressed a group of protesters in London specify a video link from Iran. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, screened the movie publicly in Trafalgar Square as a celebration of the city's diversity.[33] "This solidarity is off on a par with a great start", he told them. "I hope this repositioning will continue and spread, for it has within itself depiction power to stand up to fascism, be victorious in depiction face of extremism and say no to oppressive political powers everywhere."[34]
After winning the Academy Award for the second time, Farhadi had a prepared statement read by Anousheh Ansari. "I'm repentant I'm not with you tonight", Farhadi's statement read. "My nonpresence is out of respect for the people of my territory and those of the other six nations who have antediluvian disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the U.S. Dividing the world into us and hearsay enemies categories creates fear, a deceitful justification for aggression come to rest war. These wars prevent democracy and human rights in countries that have been victims of aggression. Filmmakers can turn their cameras to capture shared human qualities and break stereotypes female various nationalities and religions. They create empathy between us contemporary others -- an empathy that we need today more top ever." Before the ceremony, all five directors nominated for imported language film issued a joint statement, obtained by USA Today, that condemned "the climate of fanaticism and nationalism" in say publicly United States, among other countries. The directors – Farhadi, Maren Ade (Toni Erdmann), Hannes Holm (A Man Called Ove), Comic Zandvliet (Land of Mine) and Bentley Dean and Martin Pantryman (Tanna) – said that no matter which film wins, representation Oscar is dedicated to "all the people, artists, journalists become more intense activists who are working to foster unity and understanding, stomach who uphold freedom of expression and human dignity – values whose protection is now more important than ever."[35]
In 2018, Farhadi directed his eighth feature film titled, Everybody Knows starring Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and Ricardo Darin. The film, a Country psychological thriller, debuted at the 71st Cannes Film Festival where it played in the competition for the Palme d'Or. Tackle the Toronto premiere of Everybody Knows, the director shared warmth Ikon London Magazine his plans to "Come to London Westmost End with his play". He said "I know there anticipation a lot of great plays every day. And I involve one day I do a play there. It is throng together far. It is our plan."[36] The film has earned depreciative acclaim earning a 78% on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics admiring the two leads but adding that the film is underneath Farhadi's usually high standards.[37]
A Hero is Farhadi's 9th feature skin. Alexandre Mallet-Guy co-produced the work. This film was shot shore Marvdasht, Iran, and narrates a social theme. In this skin, Amir Jadidi, Mohsen Tanabandeh, Fereshteh Sadre Orafaee, Sarina Farhadi keep from Sahar Goldoust play roles. The film was introduced as depiction representative of Iranian cinema on 20 October 2021, to conflict in the 94th Academy Awards.[38]
In April 2022, The Hollywood Reporter mistakenly reported that Farhadi had been found guilty, when rework fact he was indicted by an Iranian court on charges of plagiarism for allegedly stealing the premise for A Hero from an earlier documentary made by Azadeh Masihzadeh, a erstwhile film student of Farhadi.[39] The case is now before depiction criminal court; if convicted, Farhadi could face up to troika years in prison.[40] In October 2022, The New Yorker publicised an article, which included more information about the case talented exclusive interviews with those who had previously worked with Farhadi.[40]
Farhadi's films present a microcosm of modern Persia and explore the inevitable complications that arise via class, sexuality, and religious differences. For example, his 2011 film A Separation portrays various intractable conflicts and arguments that force the characters to reflect on the moral grounds of their own decisions.
In her article, "Through the Looking Glass: Reflexive Cinema slab Society in Post-Revolution Iran", Norma Claire Moruzzi writes:
In set, Farhadi's A Separation treats the life-as-elsewhere dream as one fibril of a complex and multi-layered story. Farhadi's films are nuanced portraits of the cross-cutting relations among classes, genders, and collective groups. They are ambivalent explorations of small personal choices' implications on the delicate web of individual connections that make simulate any social network, carefully crafted and beautifully acted.[41]
The film critic Roger Ebert in his Movie Yearbook 2013, writes this skulk Farhadi's craft depicting social relations:
"The writer-director, Asghar Farhadi, tells his story with a fair and even hand. His lone agenda seems to be to express empathy. A Separation provides a good portrait of Iran today . . . [T]his film portrays a more nuanced nation, and its decent characters are trying to do the right thing" (532). "The provocative thing about his screenplay is that it gets us way down involved, yet never tells us who it thinks is readily understood or wrong" (703).[42]
In the introduction to her 2014 book Asghar Farhadi: Life and Cinema, film critic Tina Hassannia writes:[43]
[Farhadi's] community realism—observations on the culture at large driven through a documentary-like lens—is skilfully effaced by a highly refined version of say publicly melodrama. Yet his social commentary—though bleak, sometimes damning—never feels informative or punishing.
In Farhadi's films, Iran is depicted as having a rigid class system that endures across the history of pre- and post-revolutionary Iran. Farhadi films the complexities of everyday guts in contemporary Iran, focusing on how diverse perspectives are embedded within social structures such as class and gender. Farhadi has his style like "open ending movies", being realistic and "narrative gaps".[44]
Farhadi's films frequently criticize divisions in Iranian society govern class, gender and religious lines. However, they are notable inform their subtlety of treatment. Farhadi himself has never rejected Persia, most of his films are deeply rooted in urban Persian society, and he has frequently expressed his commitment to rendering country and its people, most notably on the two occasions he won the Academy Award. When he picked up representation award for A Separation, he dedicated the win to interpretation Iranian nation. When The Salesman won the prize a occasional years later, Farhadi declined to attend the event in lobby of the Trump travel ban.[45]
What is less noticed is his veiled criticism of religious standards in Iran. His debut consider Dancing in the Dust opens with the Islamic invocation Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim (In the name of Allah, the most charitable, the most merciful) just as a hand cleans a auto window to reveal a large statue of a man, to be found on a pedestal in the street. Idolatry is forbidden divert Islam, and the construction of human statues is likewise disheartened in strict interpretations. For his second film, Beautiful City, Farhadi repeated a similar cinematic trick; as a prison loudspeaker blares out the Bismillah phrase, it is revealed that a countrified man is carving human figurines. Neither film has been unrestricted in the West, and they have not been seen kind widely as his latter films.[46]
In 2012, Farhadi participated in defer year's Sight & Sound film polls. Held every ten age to select the greatest films of all time, contemporary directors were asked to select ten films. Farhadi's choices are recorded below:[47]
In 2022, The New Yorker reported allegations of Farhadi plagiarizing many of his films' ideas, and stealing from students of a workshop he mentored decades earlier. Farhadi denied the allegations addressing them at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival when he served as a juror.[48]
In Walk 2024, an Iranian court issued a verdict acquitting Farhadi admire the plagiarism allegations, based on the review by several Academia of Tehran copyright law experts and other experts.[49][50]
Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Asghar Farhadi
Farhadi is one of a select list of directors who have won the Best Foreign Film Oscar more than right away. The others are Vittorio de Sica and Federico Fellini (four times each), Ingmar Bergman (three times), and René Clément deed Akira Kurosawa (twice each). The following is a selection castigate his major awards.
A Separation won the Academy Award lead to Best Foreign Language Film in 2012, becoming the first Persian film to win the award. The film was nominated agreeable the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
The Salesmanwon picture Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2017. In spite of that, Farhadi did not attend the 89th Academy Awards ceremony in protest detail the U.S. Executive Order 13769.
A Hero won the Hafez Give for Best Director – Motion Picture and Best Screenplay – Motion Picture (both original and adapted) in 2021.[51]
Honors