Golshifteh Farahani was born in the Iranian capital of Tehran to a family of artists, showing remarkable musical talent from the age of five and taking piano and voice classes. Later she sought to capitalize on her skills, beginning with her studies at the Vienna Conservatory. A short while after she was discovered by one of the giants of Iranian cinema, Dariush Mehrjui, who offered her the leading role in Derakhte Golabi (The Pear Tree), where she played the young and mysterious M. The collaboration with Mehrjui proved quite valuable for her career, especially after Derakhte Golabi received the coveted Crystal Simorgh Award at the Fajr Festival and Farahani received the Best Actress award. Several other projects followed, such as Iranian production Tear of the Cold (2004), where the actress played a seductive and clever shepherdess; the adventure drama Bab’Aziz: The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul (2006) and her first great American production where she starred as Leonardo DiCaprio’s love interest, Body of Lies, a political thriller directed by Ridley Scott. Throughout the years Farahani has shown a propensity for collaborating with famed directors, including not only Mehrjui and Scott, but also Bahman Ghobadi and Rasool Mollagholi Poor. Her last participation in an Iranian film was in 2009 in About Elly, directed by Asghar Farhadi and winner of the Best Film award at the Tribeca Film Festival and the Silver Lion at the Berlin Festival. In 2012 she works with director Atiq Rahimi in Syngué Sabour, Pierre de Patience, an adaptation of his novel of the same name and which received an overwhelming majority of positive reviews after its premiere. Besides being an artist, Golshifteh Farahani is also involved in environmental activities and became the ambassador for Iran’s fight against tuberculosis. After being forced to abandon her home country, Farahani returned to her musical career, collaborating with another exiled Iranian musician, Mohsen Namjoo, in the album Oy, which debuted on October 2009. Golshifteh Farahani now lives in Paris, which has allowed her to meet directors such as Roland Joffé, Hiner Saleem and Marjane Satrapi. She was also a member of the Jury at the Locarno International Film Festival’s 63rd edition.
Golshifteh Farahani
Actress