Aalami, Mohammad Reza

Mohammad Reza Aalami was an Iranian film director born 1956 in Teheran. He is known for movies such as Weak Point (1983), Secrets (Razha, 2005), Saaghi (2002) and The Viper (Af'i, 1993).

After completing primary, middle and high school education, he started to study in the field of cinema and television at the Royal College of Arts in Britain, but left his education incomplete and returned to Iran.

Aalami entered the world of art in 1975 by making short films for children and writing and producing television programs for children.

His first professional and cinematic experience began as the assistant director of Red Line by Masoud Kimiai. Weak Point (1983) was his first film as director, and Razha (Secrets) the last film he made in 2005. He also directed the first 8 episodes of the TV series Rooz-e Raftan, which was first broadcast on TV in 2006.

In the book History of Iranian Cinema, Jamal Omid wrote about the "Weak Point":

Weak Point as the first feature film by Mohammad Reza Aalami (adapted from a novel of the same name by a Greek writer) should be considered one of the few films worthy of attention after the 1979 Revolution, and one of the most important reasons for this is the strong structure of the script and the novelty of its theme in recent years. And also for what we see in it's design and creation of the characters. Apart from these basic things, the visual features of the film can be mentioned both in terms of visual aesthetics and in terms of the ideas that are based on them.


Three years later, Aalami made Toranj, but it faced a not very interesting reaction from the critics. A year later, he tried to repeat the success of his first film with Shenasaie (Identification), which did not happened, but this film was qualified enough to get the favorable opinion of the film critiques.

In 1988, Mohammad Reza Aalami spends some time in prison due to the commercial failure of Shenasaie (Identification). Mohammad Reza Aalami, who personally undertook the production of the film, had problems in the production stage of Shenasaie due to the lack of sufficient capital and was forced to secure funds from various sources.

He writes in a note to the deputy director of cinema affairs and the CEO of the Cinema Foundation that his film had faced a severe commercial failure due to many reasons, including inappropriate quality rating, bad and untimely screening and in inappropriate cinemas. On Sunday 10/11/67 (February 1988) he had been arrested for non payment of one of his bounced checks and was asking for help. In the end, the CEO of the Farabi Cinema Foundation assumes all the obligations of the film with an arrangement, that the Farabi Cinema Foundation pre-purchases all the film's cinematic and cultural rights.

The Viper (Af'i) that was screened in 1993, broke all the records, it sold more than 100 million tomans, its profitability was excellent and it is interesting to know that some cinemas continued to screen it until several years later.

Aalami was planning to make Mashallah Khan in the court of Haroon Al-Rashid, based on a novel by Iraj Mishekzad, but death did not give him the opportunity to do it. He was hit by a stroke and died at age 54.

2000   Saaghi (2000)
1993   The Viper | Af'i (1993)
1983   Weak Point | Noghteh Zaf (1983)