Sam Kalantari

Sam Kalantari was born in 1976 in Tehran, he is considered to be the fourth generation of Iranian documentary filmmakers. At the same time as he entered university he began professional photography as well. While studying civil engineering he also attended freelance classes for filmmaking. In 2000, while graduating from the university and making his first short film “The Unknown Desire” (Tamanaye Mjhoul), he entered the realm of Iran’s professional filmmaking scene. “The unknown desire” with its first international presence in in 2001, received honorary diploma for the best short movie from the Uruguay's 10th International Children’s Film Festival (Montevideo).
After this movie and while establishing the Institute for development of Notion Cinema , Sam has focused more on making documentaries, the important achievements of this institute can be pointed out as the movies under the names of “ Friday was a bad day” ( joint production with France) and “ From No. 37”.
In 2009, the same time as the end of the shooting of movie “My Heart Is Full of Puppets”, he left to Dublin for continuing his studying in filmmaking field. From his activities during this period, we can point to his Stage Lighting in the play “I Kiss You and Tear”. This play is a narration from the episode of the life of the first president of the Czech Republic (Vaclav Havel), which has been played at the same time as his birthday in Berlin at Czech House of Culture.
After finishing his studies and returning to Iran and while becoming member of two associations of Iranian documentary filmmakers and producers of Iranian documentary, he finished the “From No.37” film, the research, writing and production of which has continued for many years. This is to be mentioned that this film is the first long documentary on Sadegh Hedayat, famous Iranian writer, according to many experts of the field until today this film is the most complete work from the life of this great worldwide writer.
From 2010, besides filmmaking activities, Kalantari has paid more attention to his activities in The Iranian Alliance for motion pictures as well. In the beginning he worked as the Inspector of the "Association of Producers of Iranian documentary" and then became one of the members of the board of the directorate of this association.
During recent years in addition to his activities in the associations, he worked further on the research of documentaries and received the nomination of Crystal Simorgh for the best “Research” for the film “Memories for all Seasons” from Tehran 32nd Fajr Film Festival.
Since 2013, and besides all his activities in cinema he held several photo and video art exhibitions in Iran and UAE. “TANHA”, “Catalepsy” and “The beaming Soil” are among those exhibitions which were held in Jorjani Gallery (Tehran) and Impress Gallery in Dubai.

Saman Moghadam

Saman Moghadam was born in Tehran, Iran. He became interested in filmmaking and storytelling in his teens, and continued to follow up on his dream of becoming a filmmaker after graduating high school. He studied filmmaking at the Cinematic Educational Complex in Tehran. He wrote and directed Siavash “1997", starring Hedye Tehrani and Ali Ghorbanzadeh. Siavash went on to receive much accolade from national and international festivals, making Moghadam a household name. From there, Moghadam directed his next film, again written by him entitled Party. Yet again, Party received much attention, gaining Hedye Tehrani a best supporting actress award at Korea's prestigious Pyongyang International Film Festival. Saman Moghadam then made Maxx, a comedy about mistaken identity starring veteran cinema and theatre actor Farhad Ayeesh. Maxx went on to become the only Iranian film to sell over US$1 million dollars in sales in North American market alone without a distributing company behind it. Moghadam's first foray into series was Hamraz, a 30 episode television series made in 2002 for IRIB. This was followed by Cafe Setareh, a movie about the daily going-ons of a neighborhood in Tehran. Yet again, Moghadam's touch proved golden in that Cafe Setareh was nominated for numerous awards in various national and international festivals. Moghadam's second series for IRIB was Paridokht, made and broadcasted in 2004. Moghadam's next project Sad Sal beh in Sal-ha (2006) was and still is forbidden for showing in Iran. His third IRIB series was called Shams Ol'Emareh, a 50 episode series about the life of a young woman. Ye Asheghaneye Sadeh was Moghadam's next film which is awaiting theatrical release date was made in 2010. Moghadam has been working on the third season of the acclaimed series, Ghalbe Yakhi (Frozen Heart).

Sperm Whale – Director, Producer 2015
Ye Asheghane-ye Sadeh – Director, Producer 2012

Saad Saal Be In Salha (Miss Iran) – Director, Writer 2012
Cafe Setareh – Director 2006
Max Director, Writer (First Story) 2005
The Party – Director, Writer 2000
Siavash – Director, Writer 1998