LONDON: Prominent Iranian filmmaker and author Ebrahim Golestan has died, aged 100.
In an Instagram post, his daughter Lili said her dad passed away on Tuesday at his home in the UK. “Father, you have left us. Farewell,” she added.
Golestan was known for his multifaceted roles and innovative contributions to Iranian cinema and literature.
Born in the south-central Iranian city of Shiraz in 1922, he left Iran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution after emerging as a pioneer of modern and progressive cinematic artistry within Iran and internationally.
His politically and culturally charged works, which examined themes such as loneliness, alienation, and social injustice, established him as an intellectual who helped shape 20th-century Iran.
After a short venture in journalism, he set up Iran’s first film studio in 1957 and started producing documentaries and feature films such as “Brick and Mirror,” an epic indictment of Iranian society.
Other notable movies included “The Hills of Marlik,” “Secrets of the Treasure of the Jinn Valley,” “Waves, Coral, and Rock,” “From a Drop to the Sea,” and “A Fire,” a highly visual treatment of a colossal oil-well fire in southwestern Iran, which earned him two awards at the Venice Film Festival.
Among his many achievements, he produced the documentary film “Black House,” directed by his partner and Persian literature great Forough Farrokhzad, who died in a car accident at the age of 32.
Golestan moved to the UK in 1979, and during his career published several novels and short stories often influenced by the works of Western authors including Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner.
In 2003, he experienced a personal tragedy when his BBC cameraman son Kaveh died in northern Iraq after stepping on a landmine.
