Maryam Shahriar

Shahriar was born in Tehran on Nov. 7, 1966.[1] Originally intending to study architecture in Italy, she instead travelled to the United States during the Iran–Iraq War. She studied cinema at California State University after seeing Fellini's 8½.[2] After California, she received a degree in fine arts form the American University in Rome. She worked in the Italian film as assistant director and editor.[1]

She returned to Iran when her mother became gravely ill. There she was encouraged by famed Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami to write a story for a film project and apply to become a member of the Directors Guild.[2] The first script could not be filmed in time so she came up with the concept for her first feature film Daughters of the Sun.[2]

Daughters of the Sun, filmed in 2000, about a rural girl whose father shaved her hair and dressed her as a boy to work at a rug-making factory, won several festival awards including Montreal Award for the Best first fiction film.[3] David Sterritt wrote that it is "[a]cted as a drama, paced like a ritual, filmed as a slice of rural Iranian life."[4] Sheri Whatley regarded the film as a courageous political act: "This portray of a woman with not only her head uncovered, but shaved is quite a brazen act for a director."[5]

• All My Dreams Come True (1986, short)
• In Search of a Lost Dream (1986, short)
• Mommy, Don't Cry (1987, short)
• Lost Love (1990, short)
• Angelica e una brava ragazza (1997, short)
• Dokhtaran Khorshid / Daughters of the Sun (2000)