Tell us a bit about yourself — all the basics! Where you’re from, where you grew up, interests, hobbies, siblings, causes you’re passionate about, anything else that comes to mind…

I was born into a Bahá’í family in Isfahan, Iran. I fled my home country, Iran, at the age of 19 because of the increasing threats from the Islamic Republic government. From a young age, I was fascinated with stories and poems. My wish as a kid was to be a writer and tell stories. It didn’t turn out exactly as I wished, but I am grateful that I can tell stories in film format.

How did you become interested in film?

I fell in love with the feeling I had after watching an inspiring movie. I remember leaving the cinema and thinking about the people, the story, and what I had seen, for hours and days. In my teenage years, I had a couple of cinephile friends who helped me form my interest in cinema.

How did you arrive at the subject of your Close Up project?

My friend and co-director, Kaveh, called me one day and asked for my advice on a project that he had wanted to produce as a podcast. From his first words about the topic (which was the first-ever Persian radio station in Berlin, a Nazi propaganda one), I was fascinated and suggested we make a movie instead of a podcast series. Since then, we have put much effort into researching and developing a story around it.

If you weren’t a filmmaker, what might you be? What did you want to do or be growing up?

Right now, I am also a journalist at an online magazine called Aasoo, and I love my job, but as I said before, my childhood dream was to be a novelist.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

I really miss my grandparents and think I should have interviewed them and asked them about their life stories before they were gone. They witnessed a really important part of history for me. I will someday tell their story. So I would tell my younger self to record their stories before it’s too late.

Other than documentaries of course, what’s your favorite film genre and why?

I love all kinds of movies, really — from The Exterminating Angel by Luis Buñuel to Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders. Of course, not all movies are equal. Sometimes you watch a movie just to have fun or enjoy an afternoon. Other times, you watch something and realize the truth about yourself or your culture. Regardless, we need all of it.

What has influenced your work as a filmmaker the most? A person, an educator, another filmmaker, a film itself, an experience, etc.?

It’s always hard to measure the influence of things in your life because a huge part of it is probably unconscious. But I remember thinking a lot about the last scene of the movie Two Days, One Night by the Dardenne brothers. I don’t want to spoil anything, so go watch it if you haven’t already.

If you could have coffee with any filmmaker, living or dead, who would it be and why?

I enjoyed Luis Buñuel’s autobiography, My Last Sigh. I think he would have been a really enjoyable person to chat and have coffee with, but I would love to have coffee with Abbas Kiarostami. I think we may have more to talk about because of our shared culture.

Is there an anecdote about your project you’d like to share?

The Radio Berlin is still an ongoing project, so I will leave the stories for when it’s done.