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Asghar Farhadi ( ; born 7 May 1972) Soureh Movie Database is an Iranian film director and screenwriter. 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. 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.
Farhadi made his directorial film debut with the drama Dancing 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 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 latter of which also received the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Screenplay.
He also earned acclaim for his films The Past (2013), which was filmed in France, 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.
Farhadi's sophomore 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 Sharia. 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. 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."
In 2009, Farhadi directed his fourth film, About Elly which tackles Middle class 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 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." 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 who take a trip to the Iranian beaches of Caspian Sea that turns tragic. Film theory and critic David Bordwell has called About Elly a masterpiece.
On 19 December 2011, Farhadi was announced as being a jury member for the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival, which was held in February 2012. On 15 January 2012, A Separation won the Golden Globe for the Best Foreign Language Film. The film was also the official Iranian submission for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 2012 Academy Awards where, in addition to being nominated in this category, it was also nominated in the Best Original Screenplay category. On 26 February 2012, A Separation became the first Iranian movie to win the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, at the 84th Academy Awards. This marked Farhadi as the first Iranian to have won an Academy Award in any competitive category. Farhadi also received praised for his film from Steven Spielberg, David Fincher, Meryl Streep and Woody Allen. He was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2012, along with 175 other members. A Separation also won the César Award for Best Foreign Film and the Independent Spirit Award for Best International Film 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 for the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Bejo won the Best Actress Award at Cannes for her performance in the film. The film received critical acclaim. It holds a 93% rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 144 reviews with a weighted average score of 8.2/10 and the site's consensus: "Beautifully written, sensitively directed, and powerfully acted, The Past serves as another compelling testament to Asghar Farhadi's gift for finely layered drama." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 85 out of 100 based on 41 reviews. The film received a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was selected as the Iranian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.
His 2016 film The Salesman, starring Shahab Hosseini and Taraneh Alidoosti, competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, where it won two awards: Best Actor for Shahab Hosseini and Best Screenplay for Farhadi. The film revolves around a married couple whose life is upended after the wife is assaulted. The husband 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 within a story based on shared themes. He also compared the film to the George Stevens film A Place in the Sun (1951). The film was a co-production between Iran and France, the film was shot in Tehran, beginning in 2015. David Sims of The Atlantic praised Farhadi writing, "Rather, he wants to explore the terrifying speed with which conflict can disrupt our mundane lives, and the unconscious need we possess 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, and is all the more impressive for how seamlessly it executes that shift." On 26 February 2017, Farhadi won his second Oscar films 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 Cannes Film Festival. Following the then President of the United States of America Donald Trump's executive order barring Iranians from entering the country, Farhadi said he would not attend the 2017 Academy Awards, despite being nominated and winning for the best foreign-language film. He announced that two prominent Iranian Americans, Anousheh Ansari and Firouz Naderi would represent him in the ceremony. Anousheh Ansari is famed for being the first female space tourist and first Iranian in space, and Naderi as director of Solar Systems Exploration at NASA. A few hours before the ceremony, he addressed a group of protesters in London via 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. "This solidarity is off to a great start", he told them. "I hope this movement will continue and spread, for it has within itself the power to stand up to fascism, be victorious in the face of extremism and say no to oppressive political powers everywhere."
After winning the Academy Award for the second time, Farhadi had a prepared statement read by Anousheh Ansari. "I'm sorry I'm not with you tonight", Farhadi's statement read. "My absence is out of respect for the people of my country and those of the other six nations who have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the U.S. Dividing the world into us and our enemies categories creates fear, a deceitful justification for aggression and 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 of various nationalities and religions. They create empathy between us and others -- an empathy that we need today more than ever." Before the ceremony, all five directors nominated for foreign language film issued a joint statement, obtained by USA Today, that condemned "the climate of fanaticism and nationalism" in the United States, among other countries. The directors – Farhadi, Maren Ade ( Toni Erdmann), Hannes Holm ( A Man Called Ove), Martin Zandvliet ( Land of Mine) and Bentley Dean and Martin Butler ( Tanna) – said that no matter which film wins, the Oscar is dedicated to "all the people, artists, journalists and activists who are working to foster unity and understanding, and who uphold freedom of expression and human dignity – values whose protection is now more important than ever."
The film has earned critical acclaim earning a 78% on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics praising the two leads but adding that the film is below Farhadi's usually high standards.
A Hero is Farhadi's 9th feature film. Alexandre Mallet-Guy co-produced the work. This film was shot in Marvdasht, Iran, and narrates a social theme. In this film, Amir Jadidi, Mohsen Tanabandeh, Fereshteh Sadre Orafaee, Sarina Farhadi and Sahar Goldoust play roles. The film was introduced as the representative of Iranian cinema on 20 October 2021, to compete in the 94th Academy Awards.
In April 2022, The Hollywood Reporter mistakenly reported that Farhadi had been found guilty, when in 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 former film student of Farhadi. In October 2022, The New Yorker published an article, which included more information about the case and exclusive interviews with those who had previously worked with Farhadi. The case came before the criminal court; if he had been convicted, Farhadi could have faced up to three years in prison. In March 2024, an Iranian court issued a verdict acquitting Farhadi of the plagiarism allegations, based on the review by several University of Tehran copyright law experts and other experts.
On 3 February 2026, Farhadi was among several figures in the Iranian film industry who signed a statement supporting the 2025–2026 Iranian protests and condemning the government'
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In her article, "Through the Looking Glass: Reflexive Cinema and Society in Post-Revolution Iran", Norma Claire Moruzzi writes:
The film critic Roger Ebert in his Movie Yearbook 2013, writes this about Farhadi's craft depicting social relations:
In the introduction to her 2014 book Asghar Farhadi: Life and Cinema, film critic Tina Hassannia writes:
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 life 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".
What is less noticed is his veiled criticism of religious standards in Iran. His debut feature Dancing in the Dust opens with the Islamic invocation Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim ( In the name of Allah, the most benevolent, the most merciful) just as a hand cleans a car window to reveal a large statue of a man, situated on a pedestal in the street. Idolatry is forbidden in Islam, and the construction of human statues is likewise discouraged in strict interpretations. For his second film, Beautiful City, Farhadi repeated a similar cinematic trick; as a prison loudspeaker blares out the Basmala phrase, it is revealed that a young man is carving human figurines. Neither film has been released in the West, and they have not been seen as widely as his latter films. Asghar Farhadi: Life and Cinema by Tina Hassannia, Critical Press, 2014
In March 2024, an Iranian court issued a verdict acquitting Farhadi of the plagiarism allegations, based on the review by several University of Tehran copyright law experts and other experts.
| Doctors | IRIB TV3 | |||
| Farrokh & Faraj Residential Complex | IRIB TV2 | |||
| A Tale of a City | IRIB TV5 | |||
Honors
| 2003 | Dancing in the Dust | N/A | N/A |
| 2004 | The Beautiful City | 92% (12 reviews) | 69% (8 reviews) |
| 2006 | Fireworks Wednesday | 100% (45 reviews) | 84% (18 reviews) |
| 2009 | About Elly | 99% (72 reviews) | 87% (29 reviews) |
| 2011 | A Separation | 99% (177 reviews) | 95% (41 reviews) |
| 2013 | The Past | 92% (156 reviews) | 85% (41 reviews) |
| 2016 | The Salesman | 96% (196 reviews) | 85% (36 reviews) |
| 2018 | Everybody Knows | 78% (180 reviews) | 68% (38 reviews) |
| 2021 | A Hero | 97% (187 reviews) | 82% (39 reviews) |
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