Birthday:
04-30-1951
(73 years)
Birthplace:
Tehran, Iran
Biography
Mahmoud Kalari (Persian: محمود کلاری; born in Tehran) is an Iranian cinematographer, screenwriter, film director, and photographer who has worked with number of renowned Iranian directors such as Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, Asghar Farhadi, and Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
After completing photography courses in the United States, he held his first photo exhibition titled "Visit with People Around Us" at Tehran University in 1976. A few years later he was employed by the Paris-based Sigma Photo News Agency and worked for them for four years. In 1980, he was ranked one of the '15 Best Photographers of the Year' by Time Magazine, and his photos could be seen in French, German, and American magazines. Kalari moved back to Iran and from 1982 to 1984 worked as the supervisor of the Tehran National TV Photography Unit.
Kalari started his film career in 1984 as the cinematographer of Jadehay sard[1] (1985) (Frosty Roads) for which he won the Best Cinematography award at Tehran's Fajr International Film Festival. He has shot more than 65 films since then, including some of the most critically acclaimed and talked about movies in Iran and internationally. Among those are: Sorb[2] (1988) (winner of the best cinematography), Reyhaneh[3] (1995) (screened at San Sebastián International Film Festival), Time of Love (1990) (filmed in Turkey and screened at the Cannes Film Festival), From Karkheh to Rein (1990) (filmed in Germany and screened at the Hamburg and Mannheim Film Festivals), Sara (1992) (screened at the San Sebastián, New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago Film Festivals), Salaam Cinema (1995) (screened at the Montréal, Toronto, Los Angeles, New York, and Cannes Film Festivals), Gabbeh (1996) (screened at Cannes, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles and 21 other International Film Festivals around the world, winner of Best Cinematography at Fajr International Film Festival and winner of Fujifilm Motion Picture Award), Leila (1997) (screened at 7 international film festivals and the winner of the best cinematography at Fajr Film Festival), Derakhte Golabi[4] (1998) (winner of Silver Hugo at Chicago Film Festival and chosen as the Best Motion Picture Photography by the international jury of the Fajr Film Festival), The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) for which Kalari received nominations for Best Cinematography in the Main Competition of Plus CAMEIMAGE International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography, and Offside (2006) (screened at the Berlin, New York, and AFI Film Festivals).
Kalari's directorial debut was Abe-O Aftaab (1997) on which he was also the writer and cinematographer. It was screened at the Montreal and Chicago Film Festivals and won the Best Film award at Argentina's Mardel Plata Film Festival.
After completing photography courses in the United States, he held his first photo exhibition titled "Visit with People Around Us" at Tehran University in 1976. A few years later he was employed by the Paris-based Sigma Photo News Agency and worked for them for four years. In 1980, he was ranked one of the '15 Best Photographers of the Year' by Time Magazine, and his photos could be seen in French, German, and American magazines. Kalari moved back to Iran and from 1982 to 1984 worked as the supervisor of the Tehran National TV Photography Unit.
Kalari started his film career in 1984 as the cinematographer of Jadehay sard[1] (1985) (Frosty Roads) for which he won the Best Cinematography award at Tehran's Fajr International Film Festival. He has shot more than 65 films since then, including some of the most critically acclaimed and talked about movies in Iran and internationally. Among those are: Sorb[2] (1988) (winner of the best cinematography), Reyhaneh[3] (1995) (screened at San Sebastián International Film Festival), Time of Love (1990) (filmed in Turkey and screened at the Cannes Film Festival), From Karkheh to Rein (1990) (filmed in Germany and screened at the Hamburg and Mannheim Film Festivals), Sara (1992) (screened at the San Sebastián, New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago Film Festivals), Salaam Cinema (1995) (screened at the Montréal, Toronto, Los Angeles, New York, and Cannes Film Festivals), Gabbeh (1996) (screened at Cannes, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles and 21 other International Film Festivals around the world, winner of Best Cinematography at Fajr International Film Festival and winner of Fujifilm Motion Picture Award), Leila (1997) (screened at 7 international film festivals and the winner of the best cinematography at Fajr Film Festival), Derakhte Golabi[4] (1998) (winner of Silver Hugo at Chicago Film Festival and chosen as the Best Motion Picture Photography by the international jury of the Fajr Film Festival), The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) for which Kalari received nominations for Best Cinematography in the Main Competition of Plus CAMEIMAGE International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography, and Offside (2006) (screened at the Berlin, New York, and AFI Film Festivals).
Kalari's directorial debut was Abe-O Aftaab (1997) on which he was also the writer and cinematographer. It was screened at the Montreal and Chicago Film Festivals and won the Best Film award at Argentina's Mardel Plata Film Festival.
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Their works
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Cahiers du Film
Act like as himself
event2016
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Documentary about Film magazine. Film (Persian: فیلم) is an Iranian film review magazine published for more than 40 years (founded in 1982).
Mehrjui: The Forty-Year Report
Act like Self
event2016
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Mehrjui: The Forty-Year Report dives into the artistic world of Iranian director Dariush Mehrjui. The film offers critical interpretations of his works from cinema experts, enriched with personal anecdotes from his peers.
Being Farmanara
Act like himself
event2006
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This documentary looks at different aspects of the life of Bahman Farmanara, the well known Iranian film director and producer.
Odyssey of Solitude
Act like Father
event2022
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Ahmad is a psychiatrist, believing in the treatment of the soul with the medicine in a positivistic and laboratorial way. But when his wife goes missing, he gets involved in his own delusions. Trying hard to find a trace of her, he goes to all of his friends. He desperately tries to act as a very democratic person, giving priority to his wife’s joy and pleasures. He is even willing to show that he would be happy if his wife marries one of his friends since he thinks the other one would be able to make her happier. But it seems that she’s notified that the matter of her happiness is absolutely not dependent on a “man”. Thus he sees that all his scientific beliefs are collapsed…
Men at Work
Act like Mohsen
event2006 star_border 6.3
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A political allegory on four middle-class guys who pile into their car for a ski weekend. A brief stop at a picturesque vista leads to their chance discovery of a prominent rock formation it seems would be oh so easy to tip over, but...
Cinema Iran
Act like Self
event2005 star_border 5.5
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Tracing the history and influence of Iranian cinema and its filmmakers.
Abadan
Cinematography
event2004
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An old Iranian man disappears while searching for a friend who's been dead ten years, so his agitated daughter enlists her estranged husband to look for him; the husband puts his foot down at first but soon finds himself cruising the streets of Tehran with his best friend, searching for the old rascal and cursing all the way.
The Past
Director of Photography
event2013 star_border 7.2
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After four years apart, Ahmad returns to his wife Marie in Paris in order to progress their divorce. During his brief stay, he cannot help noticing the strained relationship between Marie and her daughter Lucie. As he attempts to improve matters between mother and daughter Ahmad unwittingly lifts the lid on a long buried secret...
Tickets
Director of Photography
event2005 star_border 6.4
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A train travels across Italy toward Rome. On board is a professor who daydreams a conversation with a love that never was, a family of Albanian refugees who switch trains and steal a ticket, three brash Scottish soccer fans en route to a match, and a complaining widow traveling to a memorial service for her late husband who's accompanied by a community-service volunteer who's assisting her. Interactions among these Europeans turn on class and nationalism, courtesy and rudeness, and opportunities for kindness.
Time of Love
Director of Photography
event1991 star_border 4.8
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Three episodes, all with relatively similar plots about a love triangle between a woman and two men.
A Separation
Director of Photography
event2011 star_border 7.9
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A married couple are faced with a difficult decision - to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer's disease.
The Hidden Half
Director of Photography
event2001 star_border 5
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An official is sent from his home in Tehran to hear the final appeal of a woman sentenced to death, a political prisoner. The official's wife of nearly 20 years, Fereshteh Samimi, writes him a letter to read when he reaches the hotel - the story of her student days during the revolution of 1978. We see the story in flashbacks as he reads: she leaves her province on scholarship, joins a Communist youth group, avoids arrest, and comes under the sway of a suave older man, Roozbeh Javid, a literary-magazine editor. As she tells her husband about the hidden half of her life, Fereshteh asks that he listen to the woman facing execution, a woman and therefore one of Iran's hidden half.
Summertime
Director
event2024
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7-year-old Atta is taken to a fortune teller to identify the thief of her aunt's gold during a ceremony. Atta, who has no idea of the outcome of what she utters in that situation, to get out of that situation, tells everything from her aunt's definitions about Dawood, her other cousin.
The Pear Tree
Director of Photography
event1998 star_border 6.6
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A man contemplates life and compares it to a pear tree in his yard which stops producing fruit.
Boutique
Director of Photography
event2003 star_border 7
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A clothing store worker (Jahan) meets a poor girl named Eti. Jahan tries to help the girl and solve her problems, but…
I Am Forough
Director of Photography
event2022
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Forough Farrokhzad, one of Iran's greatest modern poets, provoked uproar by daring to write of female sensuality in the face of society's traditional values. Her awakening found expression in poetry, theatre, and cinema, enabling art, as she saw it, to be a 'window through which we see ourselves sing, shout and cry'.
Pig
Director of Photography
event2018 star_border 5.9
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A serial killer is going around killing Iran's most beloved filmmakers. Hasan, a blacklisted filmmaker himself, is depressed and wonders: why isn't he being targeted?
Fish & Cat
Director of Photography
event2013 star_border 6.4
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A group of students travel to a remote region to participate in a kite-flying event. Next to their camp by the lakeside, they find a restaurant with cooks that treat the students with suspicion. Bizarre events lead to a complicated situation, from which the students cannot escape.
Shirin
Director of Photography
event2008 star_border 6.1
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A hundred and fourteen famous Iranian theater and cinema actresses and a French star: mute spectators at a theatrical representation of Khosrow and Shirin, a Persian poem from the twelfth century, put on stage by Kiarostami. The development of the text -- long a favorite in Persia and the Middle East -- remains invisible to the viewer of the film, the whole story is told by the faces of the women watching the show.
The Wind Will Carry Us
Director of Photography
event1999 star_border 7.1
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Irreverent city engineer Behzad comes to a rural Kurdish village in Iran to keep vigil for a dying relative. In the meanwhile the film follows his efforts to fit in with the local community and how he changes his own attitudes as a result.
A Moment of Innocence
Director of Photography
event1996 star_border 7.6
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A semi-autobiographical account of Makhmalbaf's experience as a teenager when, as a 17-year-old, he stabbed a policeman at a protest rally. Two decades later, he tracks down the policeman he injured in an attempt to make amends.
Gabbeh
Director of Photography
event1996 star_border 6.6
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An elderly couple go about their routine of cleaning their gabbeh, while bickering gently with each other. Magically, a young woman appears, helping the two clean the rug. This young woman belongs to the clan whose history is depicted in the design of the gabbeh, and the rug recounts the story of the courtship of the young woman by a stranger from the clan.
Salaam Cinema
Director of Photography
event1995 star_border 6.4
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Makhmalbaf puts an advertisement in the papers calling for an open casting for his next movie. However when hundreds of people show up, he decides to make a movie about the casting and the screen tests of the would-be actors.
The Sergeant
Director of Photography
event1992 star_border 4
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Ravaged physically and psychologically by the war, sergeant Rostam Darre Kalaye is retired to go back to his family in the northern part of Iran. During his long absence, his wife Golbakht and their son had to work in sergeant brother's auto service. Initially delighted by return of her husband, Soon Golbakht finds her husband a stranger.
Bodyguard
Original Music Composer
event2016 star_border 5.1
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A government bodyguard protects a politician from a suicide bomber, and then begins to question his dedication to his job.
Sara
Director of Photography
event1993 star_border 5.6
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Sara is the perfect young housewife. When husband Hessam requires an expensive emergency operation abroad, it is she who works for the funds. For the next three years she labors secretly to pay the shady loan shark and save Hessam - until the truth is revealed and with it, the reality of her marriage.
The Fish Fall in Love
Director of Photography
event2007 star_border 6
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After 22 years, Aziz decides to return to his hometown, to sell some family possessions, including the house where he was born. But for his astonishment, the place is now a small restaurant, run by four women, one of them a girl whom he once dated. Attieh, the girl, tries to convince him not to sell the place by, instead of telling him a story a day as Sheherazade, cooking him a delicious dish every day.
Cloud and the Rising Sun
Director
event1997
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For his directorial and writing debut, cinematographer Mahmoud Kalari turns to his most familiar subject: filmmaking. A small crew from Tehran is filming in the countryside. Just when they are ready to shoot the final scene, the weather refuses to cooperate. As if that’s not enough of a problem, the lead actor suddenly abandons the shoot to attend to a family emergency. How far will the filmmakers go to accomplish their mission? Having worked on dozens of productions as a cinematographer, Kalari reflects on the absurd and comical situations that befall filmmakers in this charming picture (on which he also served as cinematographer).
Leila
Director of Photography
event1999 star_border 7.3
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This film tells the story of a semi modern Iranian couple, who are trying to fight the old beliefs and old generation. This is a failing battle because the man is not strong enough.
The Lead
Director of Photography
event1989 star_border 5.8
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Tehran, 1948. A young Jewish couple, Danial and his wife Munes, decide to immigrate to the recently founded state of Israel. But their application is rejected on the ground of the documents against Danial's uncle, Yaghub, how is suspected of betrayal. A Zionist agent, named Yezghel, finds out Yaghub's home and stabs him. One of Yaghub's neighbours who witnesses the crime is blamed for murder. Fearing for their lives, Munes and Danial escape to the north of Iran in order to leave the country. The Neighbour's brother, Nuri, a journalist, sets off on their heels to bring them to the court to give testimony on his brother's innocence.
Friday's Soldiers
Director of Photography
event2004 star_border 2.3
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The story of four soldiers who on a Friday go to the city with their commander. But this Friday is different and brings many troubles for them which changes them forever.
The Trade
Director of Photography
event1996 star_border 10
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A man who is a news reporter is going to Germany from America to meet his son who is living there. There he tells his son that he is divorced now. The father is pick pocket by two guys.
Bab'Aziz
Director of Photography
event2006 star_border 7.2
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The story of a blind dervish named Bab'Aziz and his spirited granddaughter, Ishtar. Together they wander the desert in search of a great reunion of dervishes that takes place just once every thirty years. With faith as their only guide, the two journey for days through the expansive, barren landscape.
The Stone Lion
Director of Photography
event1987 star_border 7
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When a British officer is found dead on a pipeline, tensions rise between a local tribe and authorities.
Mother
Director of Photography
event1990 star_border 7.6
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The film progresses along two distinct but interwoven series of events. The first series involves young members of a family who have gathered round their old mother and revive their common childhood memories. the second line focuses on the old woman's preparations for her last journey and her joyous cooperation in arranging for the ceremonies that are to be observed after her death.
Ferrari
Director of Photography
event2017 star_border 3
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An 18 years old girl comes to Tehran to take a picture with an 8 Billion Tomans Ferrari, but that will put her in some more troubles.
Columbus
Director of Photography
event2018 star_border 4.5
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A rich family are deciding to immigrate to the USA but the son of the family Manuchehr is plotting to take the money for himself instead and ruins their plan for migration.
Persian Carpet
Director of Photography
event2007 star_border 5
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Persian Carpet is an omnibus film produced by Iran's National Carpet Center and Farabi Cinema Foundation where 15 renowned Iranian directors contributed films on the subject of Persian carpet. Carpets are the reflection of the cultural and historical identity of Iran.
Mainline
Director of Photography
event2011 star_border 6.6
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The uneasy relationship between a mother and daughter is made all the more turbulent by drug abuse in this downbeat drama from Iranian filmmakers Rakhshan Bani-Etemad and Mohsen Abdolvahab
Two and a Half Men
Cinematography
event1991 star_border 3.8
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Khosrow and Alireza have a simple single life in Tehran. Someday, the carriage of the one year-old Parisa, which was abandoned at the downhill of a park, happens to stop in front of their house after passing a few blocks. They suppose that she is a foundling so they decide to take care of her. Eventually, the child's mother, Mehri, finds her daughter in their home...
Sperm Whale: Roya's Selection
Cinematography
event2017 star_border 3.8
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Arjang, A 50-year old man, has loved Roya from his childhood years but he has failed to marry her due to some reasons. Roya migrates to the united states with her family due to some social restrictions of 1980s. Arjang who has never forgotten Roya, meets her different times later but each time he fails to marry her again. He has 50 now and is a wealthy man, so he insists Roya to stay in Iran and marry him.
Tales of an Island
Cinematography
event2000 star_border 4.2
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An anthology directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Testing Democracy) and Dariush Mehrjui (Dear Cousin is Lost)
Killer Spider
Director of Photography
event2020 star_border 5.2
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Saeed is a forty-year-old mason, severe and fanatical in his religious beliefs. One day his wife is accosted by a driver who assumes she is a prostitute. Seething with rage, Saeed seeks revenge. In so doing he gets into various bruising encounters, and each time comes out the worse. He then goes on to see women, and especially prostitutes, as the root of all evil and decides to rid society of sin by eliminating whores. The prostitutes he eliminates are, however, merely destitute women forced to sell their bodies in order to feed their children.
Blood Orange
Cinematography
event2010 star_border 8.5
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An engineer starts to have feelings for a girl named Terme which come to his office for decorating till a young photographer come to Terme's life.
Hot Chocolate
Director of Photography
event2009
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The film tells the story of a coffee shop that has regular customers and this coffee shop is run by a young man. With the arrival of a young woman in this cozy and quiet coffee shop, ...
Forties
Cinematography
event2010 star_border 4.5
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Negar is a married woman who works at a musical company. When she is given an assignment to collaborate with an Iranian expat Orchestra leader, she...
Havana File
Cinematography
event2006 star_border 2
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A scientist has to face many hurdles to be able to continue his work.
Red
Cinematography
event1998 star_border 6.8
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Hasti, a widowed nurse who has a daughter, marries a paranoid wealthy man.
Siavash
Cinematography
event1999 star_border 2
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On the eve of his first show, rock musician Siavash (Ali Ghorbanzadeh) makes a pilgrimage to the grave of his late father, killed during the Iran-Iraq War. But soon thereafter, a friend reveals that Siavash's father is still alive, a POW being held in Tehran. With the help of his girlfriend (Hedyeh Tehrani), Siavash struggles to make sense of the news. Saman Moghadam wrote and directed this portrait of young Iranians in the aftermath of war.
A House Built on Water
Cinematography
event2002 star_border 7.5
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Director Bahman Farmanara's second film following a 20-year exile from his native Iran depicts the spiritual crisis of a middle-aged man. In the film's dreamlike opening scene, Dr. Reza Sepidbakht (Reza Kianian), a well-off Tehran gynecologist, thinks he runs over an angel while driving home at night with a call girl. The next morning at the hospital where he works, he is shown a comatose boy who is famous for having memorized the entire Koran. These two events cause him to rethink his cynical outlook on life and his relationships with his elderly father, wayward son, and the women he has mistreated since becoming estranged from his wife. When the boy awakens from his coma, Dr. Sepidbakht begins to look to him for answers.
Water and Fire
Cinematography
event2001 star_border 1.5
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Ali Mashreghi is a writer whose wife has been murdered after the night of his bitter fight with his wife. He is arrested and there is only one woman who can help him in the court of law.
Offside
Director of Photography
event2006 star_border 6.9
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During the 2006 World Cup qualifying match between Iran and Bahrain, numerous young women are caught and rounded up for dressing as men so they could gain access to the game. Guarded by several soldiers in a holding pen, the women attempt to keep updated on the score.
The Wolf's Trail
Director of Photography
event1993 star_border 4.8
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Reza and Sadegh-Khan are old friends who are engaged in shady deeds. The next day after his wedding, Reza is arrested hauling the dead body of one of his friends. He is sentenced to jail. Years later, freed from the prison, he is now settled in a little town. A letter arrives from Sadegh to invite him back to the capital city in order to attend his son's wedding.
Look Into My Eyes
Thanks
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In this black-and-white minimalist short film, a man encounters his lost love in a metaphysical realm. Through symbolic elements like a dove, a fountain, and an angel sculpture, the film explores themes of love and loss. Their poetic conversation blurs the lines between reality and the transcendent. Inspired by ‘Hiroshima mon amour,’ the film invites viewers to interpret the enduring nature of love and the acceptance of loss.
Major
Director of Photography
event2021
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The arrival of a German tracking dog at the customs pier, which is by no means negotiable, has disrupted the order of the city. Major tells the story of a man in Bushehr who feels responsible for his son for the first time in several years.
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