Maryam Shahriar


Maryam Shahriar is an Iranian film director and scriptwriter who achieved critical acclaim with her first feature film Daughters of the Sun.

Biography

Shariar was born in Tehran in 1966. Originally intending to study architecture in Italy, she instead travelled to the United States during the Iran–Iraq War. After two years at the University of California she decided on a career in film after seeing Fellini's 8½. After California, she received a degree in fine arts form the American University in Rome. She worked in the Italian film industry editing and acting as assistant director.
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. The first script could not be filmed in time so to preserve her Directors' Guild membership, she came up with the concept for her first feature film Daughters of the Sun.
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. David Sterritt wrote that it is "cted as a drama, paced like a ritual, filmed as a slice of rural Iranian life." 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."

Filmography