Bahman Farmanara (Director)

Born: Tehran, 1942.

Raised and educated in Iran, Bahman Farmanara received his higher education at the London School of Music and Dramatic Arts and then at the University of Southern California. In 1966 he returned to Iran and began a career with the National Iranian Radio and Television. His first film was 'Nowruz and Caviar' (1971), a documentary about the famous Iranian delicacy and the poverty of its producers. His first feature film, 'Qamar Khanom's House' (1972), was a complete flop. Soon after that, Farmanara began working at a film production company financed by the royal family. But by 1974, he had quit that dubious distinction and directed Prince Ehtejab, based on the novel by Houshang Golshiri.

At the beginning of the revolution, Farmanara made another film based on Golshiri's story 'Tall Shadows of Wind' (1979). And after the revolution Farmanara moved to France and then to Canada, where he established a film distribution company. In the early 1990s, family matters brought him back to Iran, where he began teaching at the Tehran College of Cinema and Theater. By the end of the decade, Farmanara made a triumphant return to cinema with his wise, mature, confident, and caring Smell of Camphor, Fragrance of Jasmine (2000). Two years later, his House Built on Water created yet another storm of controversy with the censors.