About IrFFNY
3rd IrFFNY presents a selection of acclaimed and award-winning films from one of the world’s most vital and distinguished national cinemas. The festival aims to unite two strands of Iranian moviemaking – the classic art-house Iranian cinema beloved by cinephiles around the world, and new cutting-edge works that showcase the adventurousness and daring nature of younger Iranian directors.
Iranian Film Festival New York is co-founded and co-programmed by the Festival Director, Armin Miladi, who distributes Iranian films internationally and runs the annual Iranian Film Festival of Australia, now in its eleventh year, and by film critic Godfrey Cheshire, who has written extensively about Iranian cinema. The festival is presented under the banner of Miladi’s company Daricheh Cinema.
Armin Miladi is an Award winning Iranian-Australian filmmaker. After graduating from Tehran University with a Bachelor of Science and Engineering, Armin developed a keen interest in cinema and started working as a film critic for a number of major publications in Iran. In 2008 he graduated from Australian Film and TV school in writing/directing. He has since made a number of short films and documentaries. In 2010 he co-founded Iranian Film Festival Australia, now in it’s 12th consecutive year. In 2015 he established Daricheh Cinema for the purpose of distributing Iranian Films in North America and Australia. His unique and new distribution model made Daricheh Cinema one of the leading companies worldwide, specialised in distribution and exhibition of both commercial and art-house Iranian films, targeting not only diaspora Iranians but also film lovers around the world, giving them an opportunity to see new Iranian films on the big screen all year round. In 2018 Armin collaborated with Australian Embassy in Tehran as the Artistic Director to present the 1st Australian Film Week Tehran. In 2018 he also founded the 1st Iranian Film Festival New York. Armin’s strong believe in tolerance through cultural understanding has been his driving force for establishing the Iranian Film Festivals in Australia and New York.
Godfrey Cheshire is an award-winning film critic, journalist and filmmaker based in New York City. His writings about cinema have appeared in the New York Times, Variety, Newsweek, the Village Voice, Film Comment, Sight & Sound, Cineaste, and other publications. He is recognized as an authority on Iranian film and has made several trips to Iran to study its cinema; he is currently finishing a book on the subject entitled “In the Time of Kiarostami.” In the area of filmmaking, his experience includes screenwriting, producing and directing, in both drama and documentary. In 2008, First Run Features released Cheshire’s documentary feature “Moving Midway,” about his family’s antebellum plantation and the Southern plantation’s place in the American imagination; it was named one of the year’s 10 best films in the L.A. Weekly and New York magazine. He has lectured widely about film and taught courses in cinema studies at several universities. He is a former chairman of the New York Film Critics Circle and a member of the National Society of Film Critics.
Programming Team
Born in Tehran in 1981, Gelareh Kiazand is a freelance Canadian-Iranian director of photography (DP), director and producer. She became Iran’s first female DP for a fiction feature film, following the 1979 Revolution.
She is currently based in NYC.
Her most prominent works include: a short documentary she directed and DP’d titled PRESERVING TASTE (Iran) that was nominated for a James Beard Award; two news feature reports produced and co-shot for VICE NEWS on the situation in Afghanistan post-Taliban that won three News & Doc Emmys as well as a Peabody Award.
She is currently based in NYC.
Her most prominent works include: a short documentary she directed and DP’d titled PRESERVING TASTE (Iran) that was nominated for a James Beard Award; two news feature reports produced and co-shot for VICE NEWS on the situation in Afghanistan post-Taliban that won three News & Doc Emmys as well as a Peabody Award.
An independent media scholar, filmmaker, and digital media artist, holds a PhD in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His dissertation, Iranian Cinema in the Digital Era, explores how digital technologies impact local and global power in film and media industries. He has taught Media Production and Studies at NYU, UW-Madison, and Fordham University. His publications on Iranian cinema, media pedagogy, and labor rights appear in the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Fine Arts: Performing Arts and Music. Hamidreza’s short films, including Daylight News(2013) and Immortal (2018), have screened at festivals and venues like the Millennium Film Workshop. Founder of the Wisconsin Iranian Film Festival, he currently serves as Exhibition Coordinator for the Radical Film Network.
Festival Co-ordinator:
Vida Tayebi