Mahmoud Ghaffari

Mahmud Ghaffari is an Iranian writer, director, documentary filmmaker and editor.

In 2007, he won the Best Film and Best Editor awards at the Tehran Short Film and Film Festival. ‘Before We Say Goodbye’, one of his most important short films, won the Best Film award at the Iran Police Festival. His first feature film ‘It is a dream’ which premiered in 2012 in Nantes, France brought him worldwide success, European screenings, as well as the Talent Award at the Freiburg Film Festival in Switzerland. His second film ‘Hair’ saw similar success. It was released in French cinemas in 2016 and won Fribourg’s International Film Festival Youth Jury Award.  

Ghaffari’s films were further screened in cinemas, at universities and film festivals in Iran, France, Switzerland, Canada, Germany and in other countries. In 2022, as an editor and producer of the short film ‘Deer’, he won the Best Short film Award at Berlinale 72.

His other film ‘Apple Day’ was selected at Berlinale 72 in the future film category and won at international film festivals such as the Golden Apricot Film Festival (Armenia) and Job Film Festival (Italy). ‘The Apple Day’ was also nominated for the Generation Kplus section of the Berlinale in 2022 and portrays the everyday life of a family in a suburb of Tehran, offering a sensitive yet critical look at the social and political reality in Iran. Finished shortly after the start of the Women, Life, Freedom movement, the presentation of the film at the Berlinale meant the exile of its director and screenwriter. 

He is currently an AR-ENSH Resident at CCCB, Barcelona.