Saman Moghadam

Saman Moghadam was born in Tehran, Iran on 6th of January, 1969. 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. Moghadam was trained by such veteran directors including Kimiayi, Taghvaee, Khosrow Dehghan and others. Upon graduating from school at the age of 20, Moghadam started working as assistant director to veteran director Massoud Kimiayi. After gaining enough experience, Moghadam set out on his own and finally in December of 1997 he wrote and directed Siavash, starring Hedye Tehrani and Ali Ghorbanzadeh. Siavash went on to receive much accolade from national and international festivals and awards, 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 neighbourhood 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).