Nahid Persson

Nahid Persson (born 1960 in Shiraz, Iran) is an award-winning Iranian-Swedish filmmaker and director.

Her most famous documentary films are "Prostitution Behind the Veil", "My mother - A Persian Princess", "The End of Exile", and "The Last Days of Life". In 2007, after having been arrested and briefly imprisoned by the authorities in Iran for allegedly having shamed her native country with her accurate and in-depth portrayal of two prostitutes in Tehran (Prostitution behind the Veil, 2004,) she completed the documentary "Four Wives - One Man" under difficult and dangerous conditions. The film which portrays a polygamous family south of Shiraz, was smuggled out of Iran and finally edited in Sweden. Persson is currently in production of a 90-minute documentary in which the director's year-long, complex relationship with the Iranian former Empress Farah Pahlavi is examined. The film will be released worldwide in conjunction with the 30-year anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in 2009.

Nahid Persson has received several awards for her films. "The Last Days of Life" received the Swedish Cancer Foundation's (Cancerfondens) Journalist Prize in 2002. The film "Prostitution Behind The Veil", a controversial and painfully revealing account of the lives of two prostitutes in Tehran, received an International Emmy nomination, as well as the Golden Dragon at the Krakow Film Festival, Best International News Documentary at the TV-festival 2005 in Monte Carlo, as well as The Crystal Award (Kristallen) by SVT (Swedish State Television) and the Golden Scarab (Guldbaggen) by the Swedish Film Institute in 2005.

Persson also shares TCO's (Tjänstemännens Central Organisation) 2005 Cultural Prize with the author Marjaneh Bakhtiari.

External links

* [http://www.nahidpersson.com Official web site]
* [http://www.realreel.se Company web site]