Majid Majidi

Majid Majidi is an Iranian filmmaker and producer whose films often feature child or adolescent protagonists and explore childhood innocence, family bonds, poverty, social issues and solidarity, with a humanistic sensibility. ¹ His Children of Heaven (1997) was the first Iranian film nominated for an Academy Award. ¹ No source used for this record attests a specific personal religion or school for him, so his data record leaves his faith as unknown. ^{1 2}

Majidi was born on 17 April 1959; his birthplace is reported differently by the sources — the current English article's infobox gives Talesh, while Wikidata, iFilm and many older biographies give Tehran — and all sources agree that he grew up in Tehran in a Persian middle-class family. ^{1 2 3} At 14 he started acting in amateur theatre groups, then studied at the Institute of Dramatic Arts in Tehran. ¹ After the Iranian Revolution of 1979 he acted in various films, most notably Mohsen Makhmalbaf's Boycott (1985), before turning to writing and directing short films; his feature debut was Baduk (1992), followed by The Father (1996). ^{1 3}

In 1997 Majidi directed Children of Heaven, the story of a brother and sister sharing a pair of shoes, which won the Grand Prix des Amériques at Montreal and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film — the first Iranian film nominated by the Academy, losing to Life Is Beautiful. ¹ He followed it with The Color of Paradise (1999), about a blind boy, and Baran (2001), about a young Iranian worker and an Afghan refugee girl, both of which also won the Grand Prix des Amériques at Montreal. ¹ He directed the documentary Barefoot to Herat (2002), chronicling life in Afghan refugee camps during and after the anti-Taliban offensive of 2001, and The Willow Tree (2005), about a blind man who regains his sight. ¹

The Song of Sparrows (2008), about an ostrich farmer who loses his job and moves to Tehran, was the opening film of the Visakhapatnam International Film Festival. ¹ In 2008 Majidi was one of five international directors invited by the Beijing government to make a documentary short introducing Beijing for the Summer Olympics, in the project Vision Beijing. ¹ His largest production, Muhammad: The Messenger of God (2015), is an epic about the childhood of Muhammad, whose face is obscured and never shown on screen. ¹ He then made his Hindi-language debut with Beyond the Clouds (2017) and returned to the theme of working children with Sun Children (2020). ¹

In 2006 Majidi pulled out of a Danish film festival in protest against the publication in Denmark of cartoons satirising Muhammad; he stated that he was withdrawing "to protest against insulting any religious belief or icon". ¹ The statement is his stated position as the article reports it; the museum records it as his position and draws no conclusion from it about his personal affiliation, which no source used here specifies. ^{1 2}

His listed awards include the Grand Prix des Amériques at the Montreal World Film Festival in 1997, 1999 and 2001, the Ecumenical Jury award at Montreal in 1997, and the Academy Award nomination for Children of Heaven. ¹

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