Born in 1960, Iran. 
After several short films and documentaries, he directed his first feature The White Balloon (1995), which premiered in 1995 at the Cannes’ Directors Fortnight and won the Camera d’Or. His representative works include The Circle (2000), which won the Golden Lion at the Venice IFF, and Taxi (2015), which won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlinale. His works are known for portraying realistic images of Iranian society, causing them to be banned from the screen in Iran. He has won the Sakharov Prize given to those people who contributed greatly to human rights issues.