30 Years of Solitude

Mohsen Abdolvahab
Mohsen Abdolvahab has been a collaborator of Rakhshan Bani-Etemad since Nargess, 1992. He has edited more than 30 documentaries and features, and directed many documentaries including Lokh Mazar, 2000, The Wives of Haj Abbas, 2001 and The Heritage of the Sun, 2002. Gilaneh is his first feature film as co-director.

Ali M Ansari
Ali M Ansari (BA (Lon), PhD (Lon)) is Professor of Iranian History at the University of St Andrews and Associate Fellow of the Middle East Programme, Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House). Currently his research focuses on the politics of nationalism in modern Iran. Professor Ansari is the author of: Iran under Ahmadinejad: populism and its malcontents, in International Affairs, July 2008; Iran under Ahmadinejad, Adelphi Paper, IISS, London 2007; Confronting Iran: The Failure of US Policy and the Roots of Mistrust, 2006; Modern Iran since 1921: The Pahlavis and After, 2003; Iran, Islam & Democracy: The Politics of Managing Change, 2000; 'Persia in the Western Imagination' in V. Martin ed. Anglo-Iranian Relations Since 1800, 2000; 'Iran and the US in the Shadow of 9/11: Persia and the Persian Question revisited' in Homa Katouzian ed. Iran Faces the 21st Century, 2006; 'Cultural Transmutations: The Dialectics of Globalisation in Contemporary Iran' in T. Dodge and R. Higgot eds Globalisation and the Middle East: Economy, Society & Politics, 2000; 'The Myth of the White Revolution: Mohammad Reza Shah, Modernisation' and the Consolidation of Power' in Middle Eastern Studies, 2001; 'Iranian Foreign Policy under Khatami: Reform and Reintegration' in A. Ehteshami and A. Mohammadi eds. Iran and Eurasia, 2000; 'Continuous Regime Change from Within' in The Washington Quarterly, 2003.

Haleh Anvari
Born in Tehran, writer/photographer Haleh Anvari received a joint BA in Politics and Philosophy with honors from the University of Keele, Stratfordshire, UK in 1985. Her recent solo exhibitions include Al Riwaq Gallery in Bahrain and Etemad Gallery in Tehran. Group exhibitions include, Thirty years of Solitude at Cambridge University and Duomo Assicurazioni in Caserta, Italy.

Shiva Balaghi
Shiva Balaghi is Associate Director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at NYU, where she teaches courses on cultural history and Women's Studies in the Middle East. She is currently completing a book on nationalism in Qajar Iran. She has co-edited the books Picturing Iran: Art, Society and Revolution, 2002 and Reconstructing Gender in the Middle East, 1994. She has written extensively on Iranian culture, including articles on Abbas Attar and Abbas Kiarostami. She holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan.

Rakhshan Bani E'temad
Rakhshan Bani E'temad is an internationally and critically acclaimed film director and screenwriter. Widely considered as Iran's premier female director, her films have been praised at international festivals as well as being remarkably popular with Iranian critics and audiences. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in film directing from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Tehran University and began her career as a documentary filmmaker for IRIB, (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting). She worked as an assistant director before directing her first feature film Off Limits, 1987. Social theme is dominant in her works and women play the leading role in most of her films. She made an international breakthrough with The Blue-Veiled which, including others was awarded the Bronze Leopard in the 48th Locarno Film Festival, 1995. She has been the member of jury in several local and international festivals.

Mitra Farahani
Born in Tehran, 1975, she studied Graphic Arts at the Azad University in Tehran. Her work as an artist won her scholarship to Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratif in Paris, where she studied Video. Her first documentary 'Just a woman', story of a transsexuals living in modern-day Tehran, became the recipient of the Teddy Award at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival. Her other works include the acclaimed 'Zohreh & Manouchehr (Tabous)' 2004 and 'Behjat Sadr (Time Suspended)' 2006.

Faryar Javaherian
Faryar Javaherian is a Harvard-educated architect whose works and articles are widely published in Iran. She co-curated the Early Industrial Architecture of Iran for the opening of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, 1977 and was the curator of Gardens of Iran: Ancient Wisdom, New Visions 2004.

She co-founded the Architectural firm Gamma Consultants in 2003 and works in Tehran.

Marzieh Meshkini
Born in 1969 in Tehran, Marzieh Meshkini studied film at the Makhmalbaf Film School from 1996 to 2001. She is married to Mohsen Makhmalbaf and worked with him as assistant director on several of his films. The day I became a woman, 2000 is her first film. The film recounts the story of a young girl who is officially declared a woman on her 9th birthday and afterwards has to wear a veil and is no longer allowed to speak to boys. The film has won numerous awards at film festivals.

Venetia Porter
Venetia is a curator responsible for the collection of Islamic art, in particular of the Arab World and Turkey as well as the collection of the modern and contemporary art of the Middle East. She has lived in the Yemen and is a scholar of medieval Yemeni history and architecture. Her work has spanned medieval ceramics and tiles, aspects of Islamic coins and the history and architecture of medieval Yemen. She has organised the exhibition 'Mightier than the Sword' about Arabic writing and calligraphy in Melbourne and Kula Lumpur, as well as the exhibition 'Word into Art', focusing on the way writing has been used in modern art, at the British Museum and Dubai International Financial centre.

Mahvash Sheikholeslami
Born in Iran Mahvash Sheikholeslami studied cinema at the London Film School. She has directed four documentaries and has been active with production since 1975. She taught cinema at Television university in Tehran and produced movies and TV serials together with many renowned Iranian filmmakers. Since 1996 she has been making her own films.

Goli Taraghi
Goli Taraghi was born in Tehran in 1939. She began her writing career with a collection of short stories entitled I Am Che Guevara Too in 1969. Her first novel, Winter Sleep, was published in 1973 and has been translated into English and French. Her other books are Scattered Memories, In Another Place, and Two Worlds, and the collections of stories, The House of Shemiran, and The Three Maids. Goli lives in Tehran and Paris.

Mona Zandi Haghighi
Mona was born in Tehran in 1972. She studied Interior Design at Tehran University. She has edited many films, including Bull's Horn (Kianoosh Ayari, 1995, Rahban (Reza Sobhani, 1999) and The Eight Thirty Train (Behzad Khodaveisi, 2000, and has directed many short films. Her first feature film is "On a Friday Afternoon", about a lower-class unwed mother who must reconcile with her rebellious teenage son.

In 2003, she compiled the book "You Who Were So Kind"; the letters and drawing of Bam's children to God, after the terrible earthquake at Bam.

Sami Zubaida
Sami Zubaida is Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck College, London and Research Associate of the London Middle East Institute, SOAS. He has held visiting positions at Cairo, Istanbul, Berkeley CA, Paris and New York University. Publications include: A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East (co-edited with Richard Tapper), London 2000, Law and Power in the Islamic World, London 2003, and Islam, the People and the State, London 1993, to be re-issued with new Introduction in 2008. Many articles and research papers on Food and Culture.