Amir Reza Koohestani

Born 1978 in Shiraz/Iran.

At the age of 16, Amir Reza Koohestani began to publish short stories in local newspapers. Attracted to cinema, he took courses in directing and cinematography in 1995 and created two unfinished films.
After a brief experience as a performer, Amir Reza Koohestani has devoted his time to write his first plays. With Dance on Glasses (2001) he gained international acclaim and recieved the support of several European theatrical directors and festivals. This was followed by various plays successfully recieved in Iran and Europe, among others Amid the Clouds (first European co-production with Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels/Belgium and Wiener Festwochen in Vienna/Austria, 2005) and Quartet: A Journey North (European co-production, 2008). He was also commissioned by the Schauspiel Köln/Germany, where he wrote and staged Einzelzimmer (2006), and by the Nouveau Théâtre de Besançon/France, with Japanese director Oriza Hirata and French director Sylvain Maurice, to create the play Des Utopies ? (2009).

After some years of study in Manchester/United Kingdom, Amir Reza Koohestani returned to Tehran and wrote the play Where Were You on January 8th?, which was inspired by the citizen protest movement against the alleged corruptions in the Iranian presidential election of June 2009. The play was critically acclaimed in Tehran and performed at Théâtre national de la Colline in Paris/France. In 2011, despite finishing his military service, Amir Reza Koohestani created the adaptation of Ivanov by Anton Chekhov, succesfully staged in Tehran for more than one month. His most recent theatre production The 4th Wall, an adaptation of Tim Crouch’s England, was performed in Tehran for up to 100 sold-out shows.

In 2012, he wrote his first movie script with Mani Haghighi, Paziraie sadeh (Modest Reception, 2012), which was awarded the NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) Award for Best Asian Film at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale).