Golshifteh Farahani facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Golshifteh Farahani
گلشیفته فراهانی
Farahani in 2023
Born	Rahavard Farahani (1983-07-10) 10 July 1983 (age 40) Tehran, Iran
Citizenship	Iran France
Alma mater	University of Applied Science and Technology
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1996–present
Parent(s)	Behzad Farahani (father)
Relatives	Shaghayegh Farahani (sister)

Rahavard Farahani (Persian: رهاورد فراهانی; born 10 July 1983), known professionally as Golshifteh Farahani (گلشیفته فراهانی), is an Iranian and French actress. She is known for her performances in M for Mother (2006), Body of Lies (2008), About Elly (2009), The Patience Stone (2012), Paterson (2016), Girls of the Sun (2018), Extraction (2020) and its sequel Extraction 2 (2023), and Invasion (2021–present). She was nominated for the Most Promising Actress Award for The Patience Stone at the 2014 César Awards.

Early life

Farahani in 2006

Farahani was born in Tehran, Iran. She is the daughter of Behzad Farahani, a theatre director and actor, and Fahimeh Rahim Nia. Her sister is actress Shaghayegh Farahani. Golshifteh began studying music and piano at the age of five, and later entered a music school in Tehran. At 14, she was cast as the lead in Dariush Mehrjui's The Pear Tree, a role for which she won the Crystal Roc for Best Actress from the International Section of the 16th Fajr International Film Festival in Tehran.

Career

Farahani starred in the drama About Elly, which won Best Picture at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival and a Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. Due to her appearance in the Hollywood movie Body of Lies, seen by Iranian authorities as a collaboration with American propaganda and a violation of Islamic law due to Farahani's appearance without hijab, she has not been allowed to return and work in Iran since 2009, and has since resided in France. Farahani starred in The Patience Stone (2012), directed by Atiq Rahimi from his novel; it was favorably received by most reviewers. She also starred in a 2012 César Award video in the Most Promising Actors category.

In 2016, Farahani played Anna Karenina on stage in Paris and received laudatory reviews. She also played the lead role of Laura in director Jim Jarmusch's American feature film Paterson, opposite actor Adam Driver. The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews, scoring 96% approval on the movie site Rotten Tomatoes.

In 2017, she appeared in the fantasy film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales as the sea witch Shansa.

In 2020, she was in the action film Extraction as Nik Khan.

She was slated to appear in director Dariush Mehrjui's film Rumi's Kimia, which will be based on Saideh Ghods's novel Kimia Khatoon.

Non-film work

Farahani is involved in environmental causes, and is an advocate for the eradication of tuberculosis in Iran.

In Iran, she was a member of Kooch Neshin (Nomads), a band that won the 2nd Tehran Avenue underground rock competition. Since leaving Iran, she has teamed up with another exiled Iranian musician, Mohsen Namjoo; their album Oy was released in October 2009.

In December 2014, she took 6th place in the annual Independent Critics Beauty List of 2014.

Since moving to Paris, she has worked with directors Roland Joffé, Huner Saleem and Marjane Satrapi, among others, and was a member of the international jury at the 63rd Locarno Film Festival.

Farahani, who has been exiled from Iran since 2008 for refusing to wear a hijab while acting in international films, has publicly supported the Mahsa Amini protests. On 28 October 2022, British rock band Coldplay invited Farahani to perform with them a cover of Shervin Hajipour's Baraye, which has been described as "the anthem" of the protests, at the band's concert at the River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires. The concert was broadcast live to over 3,500 theatres worldwide in more than 70 countries as part of a two-night-only live-event cinema special during the Latin America leg of the band's Music of the Spheres World Tour.

Filmography

Film

Key

Denotes films that have not yet been released

Year	Title	Role	Director	Notes
1998	The Pear Tree	Mitra	Dariush Mehrjui
2001	Seven Acts	Fereshteh	Farzad Motamen
2002	Zamaneh	Zamaneh	Hamid Reza Salahmand
2003	Two Angels	Azar	Mohammad Haghighat
2004	Somewhere Else	Raha	Mehdi Karampour
	Boutique	Eti	Hamid Nematollah
	The Tear of the Cold	Ronak	Azizollah Hamidnejad
2005	The Fish Fall in Love	Touka	Ali Rafie
	Bab'Aziz	Noor	Nacer Khemir
2006	Gis Borideh	Maryam	Jamshid Heidari
	In the Name of the Father	Habibeh	Ebrahim Hatamikia
	Half Moon	Niwemang	Bahman Ghobadi
	M for Mother	Sepideh	Rasoul Mollagholipour
2007	The Music Man	Hanieh	Dariush Mehrjui
	To Each His Own Cinema	Herself	Abbas Kiarostami
2008	The Wall	Setareh	Mohammad Ali Talebi
	There's Always a Woman in Between	Maryam	Kamal Tabrizi
	Shirin	Woman in audience	Abbas Kiarostami
	Body of Lies	Aisha	Ridley Scott
2009	About Elly	Sepideh	Asghar Farhadi
2011	If You Die, I'll Kill You	Siba	Huner Saleem
	There Be Dragons	Leila	Roland Joffé
	Chicken With Plums	Iran	Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud
2012	The Patience Stone	The Woman	Atiq Rahimi
	Just Like a Woman	Mona	Rachid Bouchareb
2013	My Sweet Pepper Land	Govend	Huner Saleem
2014	Rosewater	Maryam Bahari	Jon Stewart
	Eden	Yasmin	Mia Hansen-Løve
	Exodus: Gods and Kings	Nefertari	Ridley Scott
2015	Two Friends	Mona	Louis Garrel
	Go Home	Nada	Jihane Chouaib
2016	Sophie's Misfortunes	Madame de Réan	Christophe Honoré
	Finding Altamira	Conchita	Hugh Hudson
	Paterson	Laura	Jim Jarmusch
2017	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales	Shansa	Joachim Running, Espen Sandberg
	The Song of Scorpions	Nooran	Anup Singh
	Shelter	Mona	Eran Riklis
	The Upside	Maggie	Neil Burger
	Santa & Cie	Amélie	Alain Chabat
2018	The Night Eats the World	Sarah	Dominique Rocher
	Girls of the Sun	Bahar	Eva Husson
2019	Blind Spot	Elham	Patrick-Mario Bernard, Pierre Trividic
	Arab Blues	Selma Derwich	Manele Labidi
2020	Extraction	Nik Khan	Sam Hargrave
2022	Brother and Sister	Faunia Vuillard	Arnaud Desplechin
	My Father's Dragon	Dela Elevator	Nora Twomey	Voice only
	A Romantic Comedy	Salomé	Thibault Segouin
2023	Extraction 2	Nik Khan	Sam Hargrave
0TBA	Reading Lolita in Tehran		Eran Riklis	Post-production
0TBA	William Tell		Filming

Television

Music video

Theatre

Concerts

Awards and nominations

See also

In Spanish: Golshifteh Farahani para niños