Mini biography

Director | Writer | Editor

Sohrab Shahid Saless (June 28th, 1944 - July 2nd, 1998)

Born in 1944 in Iran, Sohrab Shahid Saless began his training as a filmmaker at the School of Film and Television in Vienna; he finished his film studies at IDHEC in Paris.

He made more than 20 shorts and documentaries in Iran before making his first feature, A Simple Event, in 1973.

Shot in ten days on a budget of approximately $40,000, A Simple Event won the Grand Prize at the Second Teheran Film Festival, and confirmed Saless as one of the leading talents in the New Iranian Cinema of the early seventies.

“A Simple Event has no plot. It is only a report on the daily life of a boy.”



His second Iranian feature, Still Life, is considered a classic, and has been shown several times at PFA.

After a third film in Iran, Quarantine, Saless moved his filmmaking base to Berlin, where he made Far From Home (In Der Fremde, 1975), Time Of Maturing (Reifezeit, 1976), and Diary Of A Lover (Tagebuch Eines Liebenden, 1977) - all critical successes featured at many international festivals.

Of his first feature, A Simple Event, Donald Ranvaud has written in the British journal Framework:

"This remarkable first work portrayed the life of a twelve-year-old boy, the son of a fisherman without a license and a rich mother, at the mercy of extreme poverty and despair.

The boy's days are all the same: he goes to school and returns home running to collect the father's catch, sell it at the market, and bring the money to the bar, enshrined in soft focus, where the parent is drinking his thoughts away quietly.

Day in, day out, the boy runs through existence with the smile of tranquil resignation on his face, until the 'simple event' - the mother's death - begins to take shape."

Filmography (as Director)

1973 Yek etefagh-e sadeh (A Simple Event)
1974 Tabiat-e bijan (Still Life)
1975 Dar Ghorbat (Far from Home)
1976 Tagebuch eines Liebenden (Diary of a lover)
1976 Reifezeit
1979 Die Langen Ferien der Lotte H. Eisner
1980 Ordnung
1981 Anton P. Cechov - Ein Leben (TV)
1983 Empfänger unbekannt
1983 Utopia
1984 Der Weidenbaum
1985 Hans - Ein Junge in Deutschland (TV)
1987 Wechselbalg (TV)
1991 Rosen für Afrika (TV)

Director - Selected filmography

1. The Willow Tree - Der Weidenbaum (1984)
   
2. Addressee Unknown - EMPFÄNGER UNBEKANNT (1983)
   
3. Utopia (1983)
   
4. Order - Ordnung (1980)
   
5. Far from Home | Dar Ghorbat | In der Fremde (1975)
   
6. Still Life - Tabiate bijan (1974)
   
7. A Simple Event | Yek Etefagh-e Saade (1973)