Bahman Ghobadi

Bahman Ghobadi
Bahman Ghobadi at a press conference at the San Sebastián Film Festival 2006
Born	February 1, 1969 (1969-02-01) Baneh, Iran
Occupation	Film Director

Bahman Ghobadi (Persian: بهمن قبادی, Kurdish: به‌همه‌ن قوبادی) is an Iranian film director of Kurdish ethnicity. He was born on February 1, 1969 in Baneh, Kurdistan Province. Ghobadi belongs to the so called "new wave" of Iranian cinema.

Biography

He was born in Baneh, a northwestern Kurdistan Province of Iran. His family moved to Sanandaj in 1981. Ghobadi received a Bachelor of Arts in film directing from Iran Broadcasting College. After a brief career in industrial photography, Ghobadi began making short 8 mm films. His documentary Life In Fog won numerous awards. Bahman Ghobadi was assistant director on Abbas Kiarostami's The Wind Will Carry Us.^{[citation needed]}

Bahman Ghobadi founded Mij Film in 2000, a company with the aim of production of films in Iran about its different ethnic groups. His first feature film was A Time for Drunken Horses (2000), the first Kurdish film produced in Iran. The film won the Caméra d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. His second feature was Marooned in Iraq (2002), which brought him the Gold Plaque from the Chicago International Film Festival. His third feature, Turtles Can Fly, followed in 2004, winning the Glass Bear and Peace Film Award at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Golden Shell at the San Sebastian International Film Festival.^{[citation needed]}

In 2006, Ghobadi's Half Moon won the Golden Shell at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. Iran's renowned actors Golshifteh Farahani, Hassan Poorshirazi and Hedyeh Tehrani acted in this movie. The music of the movie was made by Iran's musician Hossein Alizadeh. The film, which was a collaborative project by Iran, France, Austria and Iraq, was shot fully in Iranian Kurdistan. However, it narrates the story of a group of Iranian Kurdish musicians who would like to travel to Iraqi Kurdistan and organize a concert there.^{[citation needed]}

In 2006, Index on Censorship gave Ghobadi an Index Film Award for making a significant contribution to freedom of expression through his film Turtles Can Fly.

In May 2009, his film No One Knows About Persian Cats won an Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize Ex-aequo when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. This film chronicles the hardships facing young Iranian musicians seeking to evade censorship. This struggle was familiar to Ghobadi, who said, "Since I was 18 years old, I've been making films. I was nervous 90% of the time about censorship. When I was writing a script, my mind was not free. Every day I had to go to the Ministry of Culture. For 10 hours, I was waiting at the Ministry of Culture. I was not thinking about the storyboard of the film. All of my time, I was like a soldier in the Ministry of Culture. I'm sick, I'm angry about that."

Young composer and producer Mahdyar Aghajani captivates Ghobadi with his unique approach to music: "Mahdyar breaks everything and puts it back together in an experimental way. I tried to make music with the 'best composer' in Iran... But Mahdyar is so tajrobi [experimental]." The music video sequences of No One Knows About Persian Cats were edited by Fred Khoshtinat, who directed and edited Hichkas' "Ye Mosht Sarbaz" (Bunch of Soldiers) video. Ghobadi said, "Fred helped me a lot with his good ideas and with his editing. He's so fresh."

Filmography

Ghobadi at the presentation of his film Nobody Knows About Persian Cats in San Sebastián 2009

Film	Date
Golbaji	1990	short film
A Glance	1990	short film
Again Rain with Melody	1995	short film
Party	1996	short film
Like Mother	1996	short film
God's Fish	1996	short film
Notebook's Quote	1996	short film
Ding	1996	short film
Life in Fog	1997	short film
The Pigeon of Nader Flew	1997	short film
Telephone Booth	1997	short film
A Time for Drunken Horses	2000
Marooned in Iraq	2002
War is Over	2003	short film
Daf	2003	short film
Turtles Can Fly	2004
Half Moon	2006
No One Knows About Persian Cats	2009
Rhinos Season	2012

Notes and references

• Profiling Bahman Qobadi

External links

• Bahman Ghobadi at the Internet Movie Database
• Mij Film
• Index Film Award
• Profiling Bahman Qobadi