Mini biography

Amir Naderi _{(August 15, 1946, Abadan, Iran)}

A key figure of the pre-1979 Iranian cinema, Amir Naderi helped focus international interest on new Iranian film with the release of The Runner and Water, Wind, Dust in the mid-1980s.

Now based in New York, Naderi has since made two films, Manhatan By Numbers and A,B,C.... Manhatan, which bring the same raw, visceral quality that distinguished his Iranian work to contemporary American urban life and landscapes.

This near-complete retrospective will include key works from all periods thus far of this remarkable filmmaker's career.

Born in the port city of Abadan in 1945, Naderi was orphaned at an early age and spent much of his childhood and teenage years on the streets, doing everything from shining shoes to selling ice - a part of his life frequently evoked in his later film work. Moving to Tehran, Naderi eventually got a job as a still photographer.

“When I’m filming, I’m just focused on what I want to do. I shut out everything else in the world and just focus on that. And I made the people working with me do that as well. No cell phones, no life, no nothing.”

It was a fertile moment for Iranian cinema; Mehrjui's The Cow had been internationally acclaimed, and a number of directors - Abbas Kiarostami, Sohrab Shahid Saless, Parviz Kimiavi - were about to embark on their first features.

Naderi made his own directorial debut at 25 with Goodbye, Friend in 1972, and quickly followed it with Deadlock; especially this second film, with its gritty, unsentimental look at city life, marked Naderi as one of the most important emerging talents.

As in all of Naderi's films, the physical elements become major themes in and of themselves - one can actually feel a Naderi film.

His protagonists, often very young men or even boys, find themselves cut adrift, forced to improvise action and determine new directions to take; many of his films seem virtually plotless, as they often simply introduce a state of affairs and then link together various incidents which emerge out of it.

As deeply personal as they are highly accomplished, the films of Amir Naderi also provide a fascinating bridge between pre- and post-Revolutionary Iranian cinema.

This series was organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center with the collaboration of the National Film Archive of Iran and the Farabi Cinema Foundation.

Very special thanks to Mohammad Khoshneviss and Fereydoun Khameneipour for making this series possible. Thanks also to Amir Esfandiari, Jamsheed Akrami, Bahman Maghsoudlou, Ali Mortazavi, Jason Kliot and especially Amir Naderi.

"Amir Naderi and I started our film careers on the same film in 1968; he was the still photographer, and I the title designer. Amir later played a key role in the emergence of a new Iranian cinema. We miss him in Iran. I hope our loss will be a gain for American cinema. " - Abbas Kiarostami

"My generation is indebted to a previous generation of Iranian filmmakers who brought new visions to Iranian cinema. Their films taught us how to see realities at a time when we were just learning to appreciate films. Amir Naderi had a big part in our education, especially since he also showed us how to stand on our feet and persevere." - Jafar Panahi

"Amir Naderi is one of the most instinctive, self-taught, poetic, and visually expressive Iranian filmmakers. He will always remain a true master and one of the founders of Iranian cinema for me. Although he has been living in self-exile for years, even the Iranian back-alleys are still haunted by the strong spirit of his cinema. He did not learn from us; he taught himself, and he taught us cinema with his cinema. Long live the majesty and poetry of his images." - Mohsen Makhmalbaf

Director - Selected filmography

1. Mountain | Monte (2016)
   
2. Water, Wind, Dust | Aab, baad, khaak (1989)
   
3. The Runner | Davandeh (1985)
   
4. Made in Iran - Sakhte Iran (1978)
   
5. Elegy | Requiem | Marsiyeh (1978)
   
6. Waiting | Entezar (1974)
   
7. Harmonica - Saz Dahani (1974)
   
8. Tight Spot | Tangsir (1974)
   
9. Deadlock | Tangna | Strait (1973)
   
10. Khodahafez rafigh | Goodbye Friend (1971)