Bahman Ghobadi

Bahman Ghobadi (born 1969), Iranian Kurdish director, second only to Yılmaz Güney as a Kurdish filmmaker. Born in Baneh in Iranian Kurdistan, he studied cinema in Tehran and began with short films that won prizes at Iranian festivals. His first feature, A Time for Drunken Horses (2000), won the Caméra d'Or at Cannes. It was followed by masterpieces such as Turtles Can Fly (2004) and Half Moon (2006). He has been a platform for bringing Kurdish cinema to the world. He has filmed the suffering of Kurds on the Iran-Turkey-Iraq borders with a rare realism, using amateur actors from Kurdish villages. He lives today between Kurdistan and Europe.