The members of the selection committee for the film section of the First National Mother Film and Photo Festival have been announced.
According to the public relations office of the Mother Film and Photo Festival, Parivash Nazariyeh, Mahaya Petrossian, Marjan Ashrafizadeh, Ali Alaei, and Mehdi Yarmohammadi have been appointed as members of the festival’s film selection committee.
Parivash Nazariyeh
Parivash Nazariyeh was born in 1969 in Gachsaran and completed her studies in Theatre at the University of Art.
She entered the professional world of cinema in 1990; however, her strict and selective approach to art and filmmaking led her to wait five years before accepting her next acting role.
In 1995, Nazariyeh rose to prominence with her performance in Father, directed by Majid Majidi, establishing herself as one of the distinguished faces of Iranian cinema.
She has always been highly selective in choosing her roles and film projects, a quality that has contributed significantly to her reputation as a distinguished actress.
Her theatre activities include acting in the stage production Gypsy and directing the puppet theatre production Forbidden Fruit.
One of her notable characteristics as a female artist is her commitment to filmmaking, which she has pursued alongside acting, particularly in the field of documentary cinema.
She also continues to work seriously in artistic photography.
Among the films in which she has appeared are Father, Prostration on Water, Duel, The Reward of Silence, and Purgatory, Limbo, Paradise, among others.
Her documentary works include The Gypsies, Me and My Doll, Mug Whistle, Hawraman, and Closer Than Breath.
Mahaya Petrossian
Mahaya Petrossian was born in 1969 in Tehran.
She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Theatre Acting from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran.
At the Ninth Fajr Film Festival, she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Last Act, and at the Tenth Fajr Film Festival she received special recognition for What Else Is New?
At the Nineteenth Fajr Film Festival, she won the Crystal Simorgh for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Seven Curtains.
She was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress for The Unforgiven.
Petrossian was nominated for an award at the Free Cinema Celebration for her performance in the short film Three Kilometers Ahead, directed by Shahram Shah Hosseini.
In 2009, she co-directed the short film A Beautiful Snowy Day with Amir Toudeh-Rousta, while also writing the screenplay and starring in the film.
The film won an award at the Hamadan Children’s Film Festival, excelled in the international section of the Tehran International Short Film Festival, and went on to receive the Best Short Film Award at the Zanzibar Film Festival.
It also won the Special Jury Prize at both the Zoom Festival and the Cannes Poland Festival.
Last year, she also served as a juror at a cultural and artistic festival dedicated to patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
Marjan Ashrafizadeh
Marjan Ashrafizadeh was born in 1981 in Tehran.
She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Film Directing and a Master’s degree in Dramatic Literature from the Faculty of Cinema and Theatre at the University of Art.
She has directed more than twenty short films and documentaries, many of which have received awards at domestic and international festivals.
She has also directed several notable television and video films, including Wet Letters, a film that was highly praised at the First Tehran Video Film Festival.
Her extensive artistic résumé includes serving as a juror at numerous festivals, including the Kish Film Festival, Razavi Film Festival, 100 Film Festival, Cinema Verité Festival, Yas Film Festival, City Film Festival, and many others.Ashrafizadeh is also the founder of Qalam Workshop, a screenwriting initiative through which several screenplays have been developed and later produced by well-known directors and producers such as Mohammad Hossein Haghighi, Farzad Motamen, Abbas Rafiee, and Morteza Razagh Karimi.
Ali Alaei
Ali Alaei, born in 1968, is a journalist and film critic.
He began his writing career in cinema journalism in 1992 with the weekly magazine Cinema and subsequently contributed to numerous other publications.
He served four terms as a member of the Central Council of the Iranian Film Critics and Writers Association and spent one three-year term as the chairman of the association’s Central Council.
Alaei studied Nuclear Physics, Electrical Engineering, and later earned a Master’s degree in Anthropology.
He has served as a juror at two editions of the Cinema Verité International Documentary Film Festival and at the Regional Young Cinema Festival.
He has also participated in numerous thematic festivals as a representative of the Critics Association and as an expert in film criticism and analysis.
Alaei compiled and published the book National Cinema in Eight Perspectives and has several other cinema-related books awaiting publication.
He has also experienced acting in cinema through films such as Boutique and No Money, as well as several short films.
In addition, he has worked as a producer’s consultant on a number of feature films.
Mehdi Yarmohammadi
Mehdi Yarmohammadi was born in 1978 and graduated with a degree in Physics.
He is a filmmaker, producer, and distributor of short and documentary films, the founder and secretary of the Independent Sun Short Film Festival, the founder and director of the Independent Short Film Support Platform, and a member of the Iranian Documentary Filmmakers Association within the House of Cinema.
His professional achievements include receiving certificates of appreciation from the United Nations and the International Red Cross, participating in numerous national and international festivals, and winning multiple awards throughout his artistic career.
The First Mother Film and Photo Festival, under the direction of Fatemeh Goudarzi, will be held in Tehran in August of this year.
