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Born in Tehran, Firouzeh Khosrovani settled in Italy to pursue her artistic studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera. After graduating in 2002 she returned to Iran and acquired her Master’s degree in Journalism.
Since then, she has contributed to, and collaborated with numerous Italian newspapers and magazines.
She made her debut as a filmmaker in 2004 with Life Train, a documentary on the ‘play’ therapy provided for the traumatized children of Bam in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake.
In 2007, she directed Rough Cut, a film about mutilated plastic mannequins in the shop windows of Tehran, which won thirteen international documentary film festival awards, followed in 2008 by Cutting Off, an installation and video art piece for the Triennale di Milano.
Her 1001 Irans (2010), was a documentary about the image of Iran, outside of Iran.
In 2011, she collaborated with three directors from three different continents on a Spanish production about the concept of beauty and women’s physical appearance, called Espelho Meu, which won the Best National Documentary award in Documenta Madrid.
The next year, she directed Iran, Unveiled and Veiled Again, produced by Istituto Luce, Cinecittà, in Rome.
In 2014, she participated in a collective project, Profession: Documentarist, a film in seven episodes, made by seven Iranian women directors.
Her work, Fest of Duty, is about a religious ceremony in Iran designed to instil Islamic beliefs and values into girls, when they reach the age of nine. The documentary follows two adolescent girls as they transition into adulthood, eight years after their official Fest of Duty.
She is at the final stage of editing of her new project Radiograph of a Family that took part in the Greenhouse workshops last year.
Filmography
2014
Fest of Duty
It’s 2005 and we are in a hall packed with chattering Iranian schoolgirls wearing lilac robes and white chadors. A clergyman is explaining the virtues of the Fest of Duty, a religious ceremony designed to instil Islamic values into girls when they reach the age of nine. We focus on two of the girls who are cousins, and we follow up with them eight years later as they transition into adulthood, and see the differing impact of religious teachings on the public and private lives of two teenagers growing up with conflicting cultural values in Iran today.
Awards:
- Oxfam Justice Award, idfa, Amsterdam- 2014
- Audience Award FICFUSA, Colombia- 2015
- Special Mention, Sguardi Altrove, Milano-2016
- IDA- Best International Documentary Award, Vienna-2016
Festivals:
- International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA)- 2014.
- ZagrebDox international documentary film festival, Croatia- 2015.
- Vera Film Festival Vera, Aland, Finland- 2015.
- Middle East Now! Film Festival, Florence, Italy- 2015.
- Encuentros del Otro Cine EDOC, Quito, Ecuador- 2015.
- Addis Ababa Film Festival, Ethiopia- 2015.
- Kerala Documentary Film Festival, India- 2015.
- Festival Internacional de Cine de Fusagasugá, FICFUSA, Colombia- 2015
- CNEX Documentary Film Festival, Taipei, Taiwan- 2015
- Sole Luna Doc Film Festival, Treviso- Italy-2015
- SRIFF(Silk Road International Film Festival), Fuzhou- Cina- 2015.
- Terra di Tutti Film Festival, Bologna- Italy- 2015
- Ayvalik International Film Festival, Turkey- 2015
- Middle East: What Cinema Can Do, Paris- France – 2015
- Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival, China- 2015
- Prague Iranian Film Festival- Czech Republic, 2016
- Focus Art Cantara Brussels- Belgium, 2016
- Sguardi Altrove Film Festival, Milan- Italy, 2016
- Malmo Women Film Festival, Sweden 2016
- Ethnocineca Documentary Film Festival- Vienna, 2016
- Document International Human Rights Film Festival-Glasgow, 2016
TV screenings:
ORF – Austrian Broadcasting Corporation
RELIGION
2014
Profession: Documentarist
A collective doc. Made by seven Iranian women filmmakers in 7 episodes.
- Tim Hetherington Award – Sheffield Doc/Fest – 2014
- Special mention-Asiatica Film Festival, Rome – 2014
- Valladolid Film Festival, Spain – 2014
- Jihlava Film Festival, Czech Republic – 2014
- London Iranian Film Festival – 2014
- International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (idfa) – 2014
- Cairo International Women’s Film Festival – 2014
- Festival ADANA the Golden Boll International Film – 2014
- The Eighth Annual 2014 Asia Pacific Screen Awards – selected
2012
Iran, Unveiled and veiled Again
Making use of archival material from Cinecittà Luce(Italy) and my family albums, Iran, Unveiled and veild Again, puts on display the story of Iranian women being covered in veil and uncovered, before and after the abolition of the veil in 1936 as well as before and after the mandatory reinstitution of the veil in 1979 by revolutionary constitution. This is representative a part of the double identity we have to assume as women in Iran today.
- VISIONS DU REEL – Festival international de cinema-2012
- 5th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala- India-2012
- London Iranian Film Festival-2012
- Without Borders Film Festival-Spoleto-Italy-2013
2011
Espelho meu– 55 min. a documentary directed by Vivian Altman(Brazil), Irene Cardona(Spain), Firouzeh Khosrovani(Iran), Isabel Noronha(Mozambique), produced in Spain. A series of audiovisual pieces in dialogue with each other, aware of how each cultural context constructs identities, shapes the meaning of the body for women, the personal relationship with their own image, beyond the stereotypes of Iranian, Spanish, African and Brazilian women, which identity is not just based on a certain social, religious or cultural context, they share the same canons of beauty and the same concept of attractiveness.
- The best documentary award, national competition, “Documenta Madrid” May 2011
- Festival de Cinema Afrikamera- 2011
- Elle Tournent women film festival-Bruxelles-2012
2010
A thousand and one Irans– 29 min. – is about the 1001 images that the West has of Iran is the result of the news spread by the international mass media, or of the Iranian cinema: all these have contributed to the commonest clichés. If millenary Persia was the setting of the Thousand and One Nights with flying carpets and imperial splendour, the word Iran is now associated with the black of chadors, political Islam, the ayatollahs, a theocratic government, Koranic schools and the atomic bomb.
These stereotypes and the confused things Europeans say about my country made me realize the need to make a film on the picturesque or grotesque images that Iran today evokes in the West; on some occasions they are close to reality, other times they reflect fragments of the truth or they can even be very far removed to become absurd fantasies.
Festivals:
- Festival Internacional de Cine Documental de Guía de Isora-Tenerife, MiradasDoc- Nov. 2010
- Asiatica Film Mediale- Roma, 12-20 November 2010
- 40th International Film Festival Rotterdam: 26 January – 6 February 2011
- 9th Women’s Film Festival at Palace Cinema-Uppsala – Sweden 12-13 March 2011
- Sguardi Altrove Film Festival- Milano 7-13 March 2011
- Middle east now Firenze 16-20 March
- Transylvania International Film Festival- Cluj-Napoca 3-12 June 2011
Awards:
- Best Documentary award and The Audience Award – Asiatica Film Mediale, Roma 2010
2007
Rough Cut, 22 min. is a poignant yet haunting look at mannequins in Tehran’s shop windows, which have inadvertently become a metaphor for the veiled bodies of Iranian women.
The grotesque story of mutilated female mannequins, redefined according to the regime’s law. Modified by the manufacturers in order to minimize the feminine characteristics, like a warning call sent to Iranian women and society, an absurd totem intended to perpetuate the established order.
- Special Mention (Asiatica Film Mediale, Italy,2007)
- Best Documentary Award (MIRADASDOC, Spain, 2008)
- Best Documentary Award (Almaty film festival, Kazakhstan, 2008)
- Best Documentary Award (Fike, Portugal, 2008)
- Special Mention (Cineposible, Spain, 2008)
- Best Documentary Award (Femina Film Festival, Brazil, 2009)
- Best Documentary Award (SIFF Film Festival, Bulgaria, 2009)
- Best Documentary Award (XI International «EAST-WEST» Film Festival, 18-23 of September 2009, Baku)
- Best Documentary Award (San Diego Asian Film Festival, USA, 2009)
- Best Documentary Award (Mujeres del Mundo, Spain, 2009)
- Best Documentary Award( Festival de Cine Social de Toledo, Spain, 2009)
- Prix Cinécourts (Festival Tous Courts, Aix-en-Provence, France, 2009)
- Special Mention (Festival Iberoamericano de Cine Ambiental y Derechos Humanos, 2010)
Broadcasted from numerous TV channels in Europe.
2004
Life Train, 30 min. working with the Italian Red Cross in Bam, devastated town by an earthquake (2003), I’ve realized a documentary about the Psychosocial Support Center and play therapy with traumatized children. Screened by the Italian and Iranian TV.