
Babak Jalali
Directing
Biography
Babak Jalali (Persian: بابک جلالی; 1 September, 1978; Gorgan) is an Iranian–British-American film director and producer, notably directing Radio Dreams, for which he won the Hivos Tiger Award at the 45th International Film Festival Rotterdam. Jalali was born in Gorgan, Iran, and grew up in London, where he attended the London Film School. In 2006, Jalali was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Short Film for his short "Heydar, an Afghan in Tehran." Jalali's first feature film, the 2010 Frontier Blues, was developed with support from the Cannes Cinéfondation. Frontier Blues premiered in Locarno Festival Competition and also screened in the 2010 "New Directors" series at the Museum of Modern Art and Lincoln Center. In 2016, Jalali's film Radio Dreams premiered at the 45th International Film Festival Rotterdam, winning for the Hivos Tiger Award, the festival's top honor. Jalali's third feature Land is an Italian-French-Dutch co-production, supported by CNC, TorinoFilmLab, Eurimages, Mibac and Doha Film Institute among others. It premiered in Berlin International Film Festival. Jalali co-wrote, edited, and directed his fourth feature Fremont, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023.
Known For

Precocious seven-year-old Arabella convinces troubled young woman named Holly to take her on a road trip, accidentally faking her own kidnapping—and leaving her father in a panic.
The Kidnapping of Arabella

A recent college graduate flees to Paris after a break-up, where his involvement with a prostitute begins to reveal a potentially dark recent past.
Simon Killer

Ever since he was a child, the seventeen-years-old Edoardo has suffered from a malformation of the foreskin that stops him from masturbating and makes him insecure and ill at ease with girls. Shut up in his sexless microcosm, Edoardo reacts with irritation to the pressures of the outside world, which do nothing but exacerbate his insecurity. Forced against his will to emerge from the shadows in which he has hidden for years, Edoardo will initially try to solve his problem by clumsy stratagems before finding, at last, the courage to face his own fears.
Short Skin

Donya, a lonely Afghan refugee and former translator, spends her twenties drifting through a meager existence in Fremont, California. Shuttling between her job writing fortunes for a fortune cookie factory and sessions with her eccentric therapist, Donya suffers from insomnia and survivor's guilt over those still left behind in Kabul as she desperately searches for love.
Fremont

Amanda, 24, lives mostly isolated and has never had any friends, even if it's the thing she wants the most. Amanda chooses her new mission as to convince her childhood friend to believe that they are still best friends.
Amanda

Since 2008, albinos in Tanzania have become human targets. Witch doctors offer huge sums of cash for their body parts to be used in magic potions. From 2008 to 2010, more than 200 witch-doctor inspired murders occurred. As a local saying goes: “Albinos do not die, they just disappear.” This is the story of Alias, an albino boy on the run. After his father’s murder, his mother sends him to the city. His uncle Kosmos, a truck driver, takes care of him. Alias learns fast in the city, selling sunglasses, DVDs and cellphones, it will not take long before the boy experiences at first hand the difficulties of life and of being different.
White Shadow

On Iran's northern frontier with Turkmenistan, the land of "heartbreak and tractors", director Babak Jalali mines absurdist humour and quiet pathos from the immutable routines of a stranded group of men.
Frontier Blues
Heydar is working in Tehran but is learning English so that he can return to his home country, Afghanistan, as a translator.
Heydar, an Afghan in Tehran

Three lonely people, each looking for love in their own ways. This is hard enough in any big city – never mind in Tehran, where individual freedoms can’t be taken for granted. In a sexy voice on the telephone, an overweight receptionist seduces men who wouldn’t look twice at her real ‘me’. A former bodybuilding champion now earns a living as a personal trainer. When he develops feelings for a promising young sportsman as a client; he drops everything else; even a very promising acting job for a well-known French director. A singer at religious funerals is dumped by his fiancée. He tries to find new purpose in life by retraining as a singer at weddings and parties. That’s a lot more attractive to women, his friend assures him.
Tehran: City of Love

Palestinian-Syrian teenager Nasser and his older brother Yassin have been living in a Greek refugee camp, awaiting a decision on their asylum application. They pass the time recording comedy sketches, fantasizing of making zombie films and moving to Sweden. Nasser, however, feels increasingly trapped in this no-man’s-land. With nowhere to escape, Boiling tensions in the camp push Nasser to another world.
Xoftex

A brilliant and misunderstood Iranian writer struggles to pursue his ambitious goal of bringing together Metallica and Kabul Dreams, Afghanistan's first rock band.
Radio Dreams
Leon, an Irishman in his 70s, lives in a council block flat in the metropolitan area of Merseyside - his wife died recently, and his daughter Anna moved to Canada. His closest companion is his old colleague and best friend Saleh, of similar age who also lives alone on the same floor of the building. Leon and Saleh have been thick as thieves for years; still Leon finds it hard to talk to him about the recent plea his daughter Anna has made for him to join her and her family across the pond and start a new life in Nova Scotia.
A Town in Nova Scotia

The Yellow Eagle family are Native American and live on the Prairie Wolf Indian Reservation. News reaches them that Floyd, the youngest son of the family, has died during military service in Afghanistan. The waiting begins to get his body back to the Reservation to be buried.
Land
No description available.
A Town in Patagonia

The unexpected arrival of Uncle Baccio in the country house where his son Corso is spending his holidays with some friends has uncontrollable consequences.