Bahman Ghobadi
Bahman Ghobadi (born 1969) is a Kurdish-Iranian filmmaker who has done more than anyone else to bring Kurdish life and language to international cinema. Born in Baneh in Iranian Kurdistan and raised in Sanandaj during the Iran–Iraq War, he moved to Tehran in 1992 and worked in industrial photography before turning to film. He served as second-unit director (and appeared on-screen) for Abbas Kiarostami's The Wind Will Carry Us before making his own debut, A Time for Drunken Horses (2000) — the first Kurdish-language feature in Iran's history — which won the Caméra d'Or at Cannes. His subsequent features include Marooned in Iraq, Turtles Can Fly (2004), the Tehran underground-music portrait No One Knows About Persian Cats (2009), and Rhino Season. He is the defining figure in Kurdish cinema and a key voice within the Iranian New Wave.