Team

Shirin Barghnavard

Shirin Barghnavard

Shirin Barghnavard is an independent documentary filmmaker who focuses on social and women’s issues. Her film 21 Days and Me explores how she is affected by the importance that traditional society places on getting pregnant, even after she is diagnosed with a tumor and awaits an operation. The narration is done by herself, her husband and her family.

Barghnavard was born in Tehran in 1976 and is a member of the Iranian Documentary Film Association (IRDFA) and the Iranian Short Film Association (ISFA). She started her career 20 years ago with social and experimental films. After receiving a BA in cinema from Soureh University in Tehran in 1999, she attended the Central Institute for Technology in Australia, where she received an MA in film directing in 2007. She then returned to Iran.

Her short films include The Eclipse and Good Morning Mona Lisa. Her documentary films include Profession: Documentarist and Scenes from a Divorce. She has also edited several documentary films, including Hey, Humans! directed by Rakhshan Banietemad, Fest of Duty directed by Firouzeh Khosrovani.

Selected awards:

  • For Scenes from a Divorce, best documentary film from the 4th Women’s Film Festival in Herat, 2016.
  • For Profession: Documentarist, the Tim Hetherington Award from the Sheffield Film Festival, 2014; the Jury Award from the Asiatica Film Festival, 2014; the Jury Award from the Women’s Documentary Film Festival, Mumbai, 2014; the Audience Selected film Award from the Cairo Women’s Film Festival, 2014; Best Documentary Award from the 5th Festival of Iranian Films in London, 2014.
  • For 21 Days and Me, the 5th award for the top 10 documentary films of Iran, 2013.
  • For Conversation, the Young Jury Award from the 3rd Tehran Short Film Festival, 1999; the Jury Award from the 2nd University Students’ Film Festival of Tehran, 1999.