Sohrab Shahid-Saless

Directing

Sohrab Shahid-Saless

Born 1944-06-28 · Qazvin, Iran

Sohrab Shahid-Saless was born in Tehran in 1944 to a middle-class family and lived in Tehran. Shahid-Saless was a storyteller as a child, with a passion for visualizing his narrations. In 1963, Shahid-Saless left Iran for Vienna, where he attended a film school and an acting school at the same time, but his studies were discontinued there in 1967 due to a sudden diagnosis of tuberculosis. In the midst of treatment, he left for Paris to continue his film studies at the prestigious Independent Conservatory of French Cinema, and shortly thereafter, in 1968, he returned to Iran. Upon his return to Tehran, Shahid-Saless began work with the Iranian Ministry of Culture as a documentary filmmaker, where he produced multiple short films and documentaries, partly on the topic of traditional dance amongst different Iranian ethnic groups. In the course of his stay in Iran (1968–74), he produced two major feature films, Yek ettefāq-e sāda (A Simple Event, 1973) and Ṭabiʿat-e bijān (Still Life, 1974), both of which won major international awards for their social realist depiction of life in Iran and for their innovative cinematographic and experimental style. Shahid-Saless also made several short films for the Ministry of Culture and Arts. He made many commissioned films on the local folkloric dances of various ethnic groups. He also started making short documentaries depicting the unnerving condition of life among the working class. Unsurprisingly, the political subversive message of these films was disliked by the government, and Shahid-Saless was forced to leave the country. Settled in Germany in 1974, Shahid-Saless started producing documentaries for the German media. The movies he made gained him further international recognition, and he continued making documentary and feature films for major German television programs. He made his last movie, Rosen für Afrika, in 1991 for German television. In 1992, he left Germany for the United States to join his family. He died from a chronic illness related to his liver from which he suffered throughout his life. Shahid-Saless is known to be a pioneer of the new wave of Iranian cinema. In his own words, his cinema intends to document the “antagonism between man and society”. In the course of his oeuvre, he viewed the role of cinema as “to make conscious of indignity and inhumanity of life".

Acting credits

Beyond the Barrier of Sound poster
NR

This movie takes a unique look at Baghtcheban School, the special school for deaf children, how it deal with teaching the kids and how they lives are effected by it.

Beyond the Barrier of Sound

1968

Sohrab, a Journey poster
NR

A portrait documentary about one of the most prominent pioneers of the Iranian modern cinema, Sohrab Shahid Saless. In 1969, a young man of 26 years of age returns to his country Iran after years of studying cinema and going through the hardship of living abroad as a university student. He does not want to become a filmmaker in the commercial and valueless cinema of that time, so he chooses a different and – of course – a very hard path for the making of his films. The result of the daring choice is the two features A Simple Event and Still Life, which are remembered today as the most important and most influential first examples of the formation of the Iranian modern cinema. The pioneer filmmaker is nobody but Sohrab Shahid Saless. But how he succeeded in the making of the unconventional films? And how are his films related to the vicissitude in his life?

Sohrab, a Journey

2016

Meteor: Sohrab Shahid Saless poster
NR

Meteor: Sohrab Shahid Saless by Mahmoud Behraznia is a documentary with a different perspective on Sohrab Shahid Saless, a leading Iranian filmmaker. Someone whose viewpoint at cinema and the special type of aesthetics he used in his films has been a path-breaker for many Iranian filmmakers. The film provides the viewer with new information about the life and work of Sohrab Shahid Saless in Germany.

Meteor: Sohrab Shahid Saless

2021

Sohrab Shahid Saless: Far from Home poster
NR

Filmmaker Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa interviews the veteran filmmaker three weeks before his death in an effort to introduce American cinephiles to his life and work. In addition, Saeed-Vafa skillfully uses film clips to illustrate the haunting quality of Saless' work and the impact it has had on generations of Iranian filmmakers.

Sohrab Shahid Saless: Far from Home

1998

Behind the camera

Black and White poster
7.0

Short film made with stop motion animation techniques.

Black and White

1972

Black and White poster
7.0

Short film made with stop motion animation techniques.

Black and White

1972

The Willow Tree poster
9.0

An elderly man lives a solitary and rhythmic life by a dilapidated mill near a river. His days are spent almost entirely in silence, fishing under the shade of a massive, ancient willow tree that seems as old and weathered as he is. One Sunday, while fishing, he witnesses a murder.

The Willow Tree

1984

The Willow Tree poster
9.0

An elderly man lives a solitary and rhythmic life by a dilapidated mill near a river. His days are spent almost entirely in silence, fishing under the shade of a massive, ancient willow tree that seems as old and weathered as he is. One Sunday, while fishing, he witnesses a murder.

The Willow Tree

1984

Time of Maturity poster
7.1

A young boy learns of his mother's occupation while trying to save money for a bicycle.

Time of Maturity

1976

Time of Maturity poster
7.1

A young boy learns of his mother's occupation while trying to save money for a bicycle.

Time of Maturity

1976

Addressee Unknown poster
10.0

A woman leaves her husband and starts living with a Turkish man.

Addressee Unknown

1983

Addressee Unknown poster
10.0

A woman leaves her husband and starts living with a Turkish man.

Addressee Unknown

1983

Changeling poster
7.5

A married couple adopts a child. The mother's relationship with the new family member quickly deteriorates.

Changeling

1987

Anton P. Chekhov: A Life poster
5.8

Documentary on the life of Cechov.

Anton P. Chekhov: A Life

1981

Anton P. Chekhov: A Life poster
5.8

Documentary on the life of Cechov.

Anton P. Chekhov: A Life

1981

Still Life poster
7.0

A railway crossing guard and his wife live in a routine of total isolation and uneventfulness.

Still Life

1974

Still Life poster
7.0

A railway crossing guard and his wife live in a routine of total isolation and uneventfulness.

Still Life

1974

Far from Home poster
7.0

Turkish migrant Husseyin spends his days in hypnotic routine as a “guest worker” in ‘70s West Berlin, living in a small, shared apartment and commuting daily to his job at a factory pressing machine parts. Diligently saving up his wages he hopes to one day marry and buy a house back home, but his immediate future in Berlin is clouded by indignities at the hands of racist coworkers and botched attempts at romantic intimacy.

Far from Home

1975

Far from Home poster
7.0

Turkish migrant Husseyin spends his days in hypnotic routine as a “guest worker” in ‘70s West Berlin, living in a small, shared apartment and commuting daily to his job at a factory pressing machine parts. Diligently saving up his wages he hopes to one day marry and buy a house back home, but his immediate future in Berlin is clouded by indignities at the hands of racist coworkers and botched attempts at romantic intimacy.

Far from Home

1975

If...? poster
NR

A short documentary about social issues which Iranian people are struggling with in 1971.

If...?

1971

A Simple Event poster
6.1

The story of a ten years old Iranian schoolboy living with his mother and his father in Northern coasts of Iran. The boy helps his father in selling the latter's illegal fishing and helps his mother in shopping for her and bringing home water from a well. The three characters live together in only one room. Their life is austere. The boy eats only bread and milk every day... One day the boy's mother dies.

A Simple Event

1973

A Simple Event poster
6.1

The story of a ten years old Iranian schoolboy living with his mother and his father in Northern coasts of Iran. The boy helps his father in selling the latter's illegal fishing and helps his mother in shopping for her and bringing home water from a well. The three characters live together in only one room. Their life is austere. The boy eats only bread and milk every day... One day the boy's mother dies.

A Simple Event

1973

A Letter from Kabul poster
NR

The nine-year-old Mahmud writes a letter to his 'friends in distant countries' and reports on life in Kabul during the years of the Afghan revolution and counter-revolution.

A Letter from Kabul

1987

A Letter from Kabul poster
NR

The nine-year-old Mahmud writes a letter to his 'friends in distant countries' and reports on life in Kabul during the years of the Afghan revolution and counter-revolution.

A Letter from Kabul

1987

Diary of a Lover poster
6.6

A diary of a lonely 30 year old man who works as a butcher in a supermarket. The movie shows his daily life between the supermarket and his flat. His ability to communicate is limited. From time to time his mother visits him. But his relationship to her is rather reserved. Constantly he's waiting for his girlfriend which is not visiting him anymore after they had a fight.

Diary of a Lover

1977

Diary of a Lover poster
6.6

A diary of a lonely 30 year old man who works as a butcher in a supermarket. The movie shows his daily life between the supermarket and his flat. His ability to communicate is limited. From time to time his mother visits him. But his relationship to her is rather reserved. Constantly he's waiting for his girlfriend which is not visiting him anymore after they had a fight.

Diary of a Lover

1977

2nd Asian Expo poster
NR

video report of the 2nd Asian international trade fair ran from 5 to 24 October 1969 in Tehran-Iran.

2nd Asian Expo

1969

Roses for Africa poster
4.8

A psychodrama about how injustice is turned into oblivion about an opportunity worker and a woman from the civil house of a marriage for 30 years . Soon the relationship fails due to the aggressive, also destructive tendencies of the man who enters a deep personal crisis. When the marriage coined/shaped of force and Psychoterror goes finally into the breaks, the man looks for comfort in the alcohol and becomes criminal.

Roses for Africa

1992