Turtles Can Fly

Bahman Ghobadi (Kurdish: به‌همه‌ن قوبادی) is an Iranian film director of Kurdish ethnicity. He was born on February 1, 1969 in Baneh, Iranian Kurdistan. Ghobadi belongs to the so called “new wave” of Iranian cinema.

He was born in Baneh, in northwestern Kurdistan Province of Iran. His family moved to Sanandaj in 1981. Ghobadi received a Bachelor of Arts in film directing from the Iranian Broadcasting College. After a brief career in industrial photography, Ghobadi began making short 8 mm films. His documentary Life In Fog won numerous awards. Bahman Ghobadi was assistant director on Abbas Kiarostami’s The Wind Will Carry Us.

Bahman Ghobadi founded Mij Film in 2000, a company with the aim of production of films in Iran about its different ethnic groups. His first feature film was A Time for Drunken Horses (2000), the first Kurdish film produced in Iran. The film won Caméra d’Or at Cannes Film Festival. His second feature was Marooned in Iraq (2002), which brought him the Gold Plaque from Chicago International Film Festival. His third feature, Turtles Can Fly, followed in 2004, winning the Glass Bear and Peace Film Award at Berlin International Film Festival and Golden Shell at San Sebastian International Film Festival.

In 2006, Ghobadi’s Half Moon won Golden Shell at San Sebastian International Film Festival. Iran’s renowned actors Golshifteh Farahani, Hassan Poorshirazi and Hedyeh Tehrani acted in this movie. The music of the movie was made by Iran’s world-class musician Hossein Alizadeh. The film, which is a collaborative project by Iran, France, Austria and Iraq, was shot fully in Iranian Kurdistan. However, it narrates the story of a group of Iranian Kurdish musicians who would like to travel to Iraqi Kurdistan and organize a concert there.

In 2006, Index on Censorship gave Ghobadi an Index Film Award for making a significant contribution to freedom of expression through his film “Turtles Can Fly.”

In May 2009, his film No One Knows About Persian Cats won the Un Certain Regard award and the Special Jury Prize when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. This film chronicles the hardships facing young Iranian musicians seeking to evade censorship. This struggle was familiar to Ghobadi, who said, “Since I was 18 years old, I’ve been making films. I was nervous 90% of the time about censorship. When I was writing a script, my mind was not free. Every day I had to go to the Ministry of Culture. For 10 hours, I was waiting at the Ministry of Culture. I was not thinking about the storyboard of the film. All of my time, I was like a soldier in the Ministry of Culture. I’m sick, I’m angry about that.”

Young composer and producer, Mahdyar Aghajani, captivates Bahman Ghobadi with his unique approach to music: “Mahdyar breaks everything and puts it back together in an experimental way. I tried to make music with the ‘best composer’ in Iran… But Mahdyar is so tajrobi.” Music video sequences of No One Knows About Persian Cats were edited by Fred Khoshtinat, who directed and edited Hichkas’ renowned “Ye Mosht Sarbaz” (Bunch of Soldiers) video. Ghobadi said, “Fred helped me a lot with his good ideas and with his editing. He’s so fresh.” —Wikipedia