Kamran Shirdel ( کامران شیردل ) was born in Tehran 1939. He studied architecture and design in the University of Rome and film direction at Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (CSC), also in the eternal city. During his studies he had Roberto Rossellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Nanni Loy, Gillo Pontecorvo, Francesco Rosi, Vittorio De Seta, Michelangelo Antonioni and many others as teachers. His diploma film "Gli Specchi" (The Mirrors) won the diploma of honor in the World Cinema School Film Festi
...val in Tokyo (1965). In the same period he worked as assistant director to John Houston while he was shooting "The Bible" in Cinecitta and around Italy. He also worked as dubbing translator, editor and director in Italian dubbing studios. After his graduation in Rome, in 1965, Shirdel returned to Tehran where he started to direct documentaries for the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Art. In the three following years he directed his most known socio-political documentaries; six films which in a direct, sincere and brave approach reveal the darkest side of the Iranian economical boom then, analyzing with black satire, the true portrait of a society immersed in the petrodollars. These films can be placed in the genre of a deep social conscious reminiscent of the best Italian Neorealism school which had marked and influenced Shirdel during his life and studies in Italy. The furious language and style of these documentaries brought him the reprisal of the Shah's regime, forcing Shirdel to be expelled, exiled and be put on the black list, as he had dared to talk about the life of the less privileged and excluded people; workers, women, prostitutes; denouncing and criticizing the corruption inside the mechanism of power. "The Epic of The Gorgani Village Boy or The Night It Rained" received The Grand Prize at The Third Tehran International Film Festival (1974) to be banned again - soon after festival was over and foreign guests and press had left the country a week after - as his other films such as Nedamatgah (Women's Prison - 1965), Qaleh (Red Light District - 1966) , Tehran Is The Capital Of Iran (1966) among many others and were only released and screened after the revolution (1979-80). Shirdel's only (until today) completed long feature film "The Morning of The Fourth Day" (1972) - a remake of Jean Luc Godard's famous "A Bout de Souffle", won several prizes at Sepas National Film Festival but was a flop at box office making him bankrupt as producer. Kamran Shirdel is considered as a father figure of the New School of Iranian Cinema, opening the way to a certain kind of critical film-making rooted in social awareness and an assertive and potentially documented reflection about the reality and history. Many Iranian famed filmmakers from the new generation such as A. Kiarostami, A. Naderi, J. Panahi, R. Banietemad, M.R. Aslani, M. Sheikholeslami, Kh. Masoumi and Soudabeh Babagap, to name a few and others were either his direct pupils or worked with him during the starting years of their formation and film career. Shirdel's films are fairly pointed out as true references regarding social documentary and its cinematographic direction in Iran and as such were presented in countless international film festivals, film schools, homages and retrospectives dedicated to him and his cinema such as Moscow, Cracow, Paris, Leipzig, Florence, Calcutta, Berlin, Stuttgart, Locarno, Rome, Montreal, Toronto, Beirut, Reggio Calabria, Portugal / Evora Int'l Film Festival , London, UCLA, New York (Columbia University), Chicago, Pittsburgh Carnegie Art Foundation, Stanford University, Berkeley University, Tajikistan Didor Int'l Film Festival, Armenia Golden Apricot Int'l Film Festival, Belgrade Int'l Film Festival, FICC and Cineteca Sarda in Cagliari, Sardegna. Kamran Shirdel equally worked in many selection committees and also as jury member and President of the Jury in countless International festivals in Iran and abroad. He was awarded in many of these events and received "A Lifetime Achievement Award" in Beirut Docuday Film Festival, Fike (Evora- Portugal) , Aljazeera - Doha Int'l Film Festival, Belgrade Int'l Film Festival, Tajikistan-Dushanbe Didor Int'l Film Festival, Asiaticafilmmediale Festival of Rome, Tehran Nahal Film Festival, FICC /Cineteca Sarda Conference Award and many others. Shirdel is the founder and director of Filmgrafic Co. and of Kish Int'l Documentary Film Festival (KIDFF- Kish Island in The Persian Gulf), the only full independent documentary film festival in Iran. The activity of this successful cultural event was abruptly ceased when the the extreme right wing politicians took the power in Iran and assaulted the festival office in 2006. In 2010 Kamran Shirdel was nominated as "IL CAVALIERE" of culture and art by Italian president Giorgio Napolitano and received its diploma and medals in a ceremony in Farmanieh Palace (Italian Embassy in Tehran).Kamran Shirdel has been a Editor in some movies:
Chigh is about that A series of 49 documentary films by 31 filmmakers, Children of the Land of Iran provides a window into the traditions, rituals and people within the rich and diverse culture of Iran. Chigh is a fabric used by the Kurd nomads of Western Iran for covering tents, and woven from reeds and goat's fleece into beautifully textured patterns. This documentary is a visual reflection on the making of Chigh which resonates with a deep sense of history, tradition and spirituality. With a narrative of Gabriel and the six days of creation accompanying the visual story, the film portrays the deep significance Chigh has in the lives of the nomadic people and their way of life. In this film Kamran Shirdel collaborates with Morteza Poursamadi, Mohammad Reza Sarhangi, Mohammad Reza Aslani, Arash Shahriari, Farrokh Fadaee, Mehdi Darabi.
Kamran Shirdel has been a Director in some movies:
Tehran Is the Capital of Iran is about that In 'Tehran is the Capital of Iran', Kamran Shirdel provides a powerful account of the suffering of those left behind by the Shah's aggressive programmes of modernisation. Striking imagery of the slums in south Tehran is set against the voices of government officials, showing the discrepancy between the official accounts of the few and the actual lived experience of the many. The image of Iran presented in Shirdel's film did not go down well with the Iranian authorities. Synopsis By IMVBox.com In this film Kamran Shirdel collaborates with Mansur Yazdi.
Women's Quarter.
The Lead Era is about that Janbarar makes a living selling charcoals. When his wife spends her final months of pregnancy, Naneh Khatoun (the midwife of the village) suggests he should take her to the city. He borrows his uncle's, Babgholi, horse and takes her to the city. After they arrive in the city, an Indian doctor tells Janbarar that his wife should have a caesarean delivery as soon as possible. Janbarar tells the doctor that he can’t afford that so the doctor decides not to charge anything, but he still needs some money to pay the infirmary, so he sells the horse he had borrowed and figures he can give back his uncle his own cow instead, not knowing that the cow was eaten by a bear in the jungle that morning. His life gets turned upside down and after he refuses to be a wood smuggler, he leaves his homeland to become a road keeper. In this film Kamran Shirdel collaborates with Siamak Atlasi, Sirous Gorjestani, Parviz Shahinkhou, Shahrzad Pouya, Babak Bayat, Khosro Masoumi, Mahshid Afshar Zadeh, Hamid Najafirad, Hossein Mahjoob, Mehraneh Mahin-Torabi, Mohammad Reza Ghomi, Farhang Moayyeri, Abbas Nazeri Nik, Maliheh Nazari, Mehdi Shakiba, Ahmadreza Asadi, Ataollah Zahed, Nima Javan, Abbas Maroufi.
The Morning of the Fourth Day is about that Amir is a foul guy who has killed a man in Abadan, he returns to Tehran and continuing his misdeeds trying to convince his girlfriend Zarry to escape with him to the south of Iran. In this film Kamran Shirdel collaborates with Mir Mohammad Tajaddod, Mehri Vadadian, Hassan Rezaei, Parvin Soleymani, Mohammad Reza Aslani, Jamshid Alvandi, Reza Pakzad, Mehdi Rajaian, Hossein Shahab, Jalal Pishvaeeyan, Saeed Rad, Reza Safaei Pour, Mohammad Taghi Shokrayi, Mohsen Arasteh, Varuzhan, Kobra Saeedi, Vajesta -, Esmaeel Nooriala, Samad Shirazi, Jafar Akbari, Zaven Ohanian.
The Waiting is about that The story takes place in a coastal city in the south of Iran. The main character of the film is a teenage boy who has to take a bowl full of ice every day for an old man and woman. The boy gives the container of clear water and crystal color to the woman's hand from the door of the house where a young woman's hand comes out, and without seeing the woman's face or body, he delivers the ice container to the house of the elderly man and woman. The boy, who is impatient for the time to freeze, opens the door of a house from which a woman's hand comes out, and sees strange scenes of mourning women inside the house. In this film Kamran Shirdel collaborates with Amir Naderi, Firooz Malekzadeh, Reza Yaghuti, Hasan Heidari, Farzaneh Yousefi, Zohreh Gharemani.
The Night It Rained is about that A documentary which explores what did or did not happen on a rainy night a young boy allegedly saved a train from crashing. In this film Kamran Shirdel collaborates with Naghi Masoomi -, Esmaeel Nooriala.
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