Asghar Farhadi

He is considered one of the most prominent filmmakers of Iranian cinema as well as world cinema in the 21st century.

His films have gained recognition for their focus on the human condition, and portrayals of intimate and challenging stories of internal family conflicts.

The film earned Farhadi a nomination at the 25th Moscow International Film Festival and three awards at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival including Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Faramarz Gharibian.

The film won Farhadi the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 59th International Berlin Film Festival and also Best Picture at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The latter film is about a group of Iranians who take a trip to the Iranian beaches of Caspian Sea that turns tragic.

Film theorist and critic David Bordwell has called About Elly a masterpiece.

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 Michael Haneke's beady eye for the dynamics and symptoms of group guilt."

Asghar Farhadi (, ; born 7 May 1972) is an Iranian film director and screenwriter.

At the age of 15, in 1987, he joined the Isfahan branch office of the Iranian Youth Cinema Society, which had been established for 4 years earlier and he made several short films.

He is also a graduate of theatre, with a BA in dramatic arts and MA in stage direction from University of Tehran and Tarbiat Modares University, respectively.

At the start of his career, Farhadi made numerous short 8 mm and 16 mm films in the Isfahan branch of the Iranian Young 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.

Farhadi made his directorial film debut with the drama Dancing in the Dust (2003) followed by The Beautiful City (2004) and Fireworks Wednesday (2006).

In 2003, Farhadi made his feature film debut with Dancing in the Dust about a man having trouble raising money for his marriage dowry installements.

Deborah Young of Variety praised Farhadi as an emerging filmmaker writing, "Dispensing with heavyhanded symbolism, Farhadi tells the tale engrossingly and with a lot of physicality through the two main actors".

With his third film, Fireworks Wednesday, Farhadi won the Gold Hugo at the 2006 Chicago International Film Festival.

Set amongst the days before the Persian New Year, people set off fireworks following an ancient Zoroastrian 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 and why; repeatedly shifting our point of view, he forces us to question our assumptions about characters and their reliability. This compelling, corrosive account of male-female relationships in today’s Tehran is tempered by genuine compassion for the individuals concerned; wisely, Farhadi never serves judgement on them in their troubled pursuit of truth, love and happiness. Intelligent, illuminating and directed with unflashy expertise."

He gained acclaim for his film About Elly (2009) earning a Silver Bear for Best Director.

In 2009, Farhadi directed his fourth film, About Elly which tackles middle class families in Iran.

The film earned critical acclaim with Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian describing it as "an absorbing picture, powerfully acted, disturbing and suspenseful".

He rose to greater prominence becoming one of the few directors worldwide to have won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film twice, for the family drama A Separation (2011) and the moral drama The Salesman (2016).

The later of which also received the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Screenplay.

His film A Separation premiered on 9 February 2011 at the 29th Fajr International Film Festival in Tehran and received critical acclaim from the Iran Society of Film Critics.

It earned Farhadi four awards, including Best Director (for the third time after Fireworks Wednesday and About Elly).

On 15 February 2011, it also played in competition at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival, which received a Golden Bear for best film, becoming the first Iranian film to win that award.

In June 2011, A Separation won the Sydney Film Prize in competition with The Tree of Life, directed by Terrence Malick.

It also won the Best Film award at the 2011 Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

Roger Ebert praised the Farhadi's on his nuanced depiction of Iranian culture writing, "[He] provides a useful portrait of Iran today. 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 to do the right thing. To untangle right and wrong in this fascinating story is a moral challenge."

Bob Mondello of NPR also praised Farhadi writing, "Consider[ing] how heavily censored filmmakers are in Iran, director Asghar Farhadi's accomplishment starts to seem downright astonishing".

In 2012, he was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.

That same year, he also received the Legion of Honour from France.

He also gained acclaim for his films The Past (2013) which was filmed in France and Everybody Knows (2018) which was filmed in Spain.

He returned to Iran with A Hero (2021), which earned Farhadi the Cannes Film Festival's Grand Prix.

Farhadi was born in Homayoon Shahr, a city located in the Isfahan Province near the city of Isfahan.

Farhadi's sophmore effort was The Beautiful City about a man celebrating his 18th birthday in a detention center while being in prison for murder.

The film won praise for Farhadi's intricate commentary on Iran’s Islamic judicial system.

Ronnie Scheib of Variety wrote, "Farhadi launches a simple-seeming quest through all manner of obstacles and complications, each detour greatly altering the nature of the journey".

Farhadi won the Grand Prix at the Warsaw Film Festival.